Indoors the whole day... almost

It is amazing, today was a bright and sunny day and I did nothing but stay at home all day and stir out in the late evening when temperatures dropped necessitating use of heavy jackets and winter clothes. I am amazed at myself.... all the more surprising is the fact that I didn't do much the whole day. I spent the entire day lounging around on the sofa reading substantial parts of the book Planet India by Mira Kamdar, a person of Indian origin who was born and brought up and lives in US.
Feeling claustrophobic, we finally decided to head out and hit the gym so that our sedentary bodies would get some sort of exercise. Our apartment complex has a small gym with some decent treadmills, steppers, cycles and loads of free weights. It was tough to work out after a long gap of time or is it that I am getting old?
I hit the exercise bicycle and couldn't achieve any speed higher than 19 miles per hour.... indeed that is abysmally low considering my own past track record... Telling myself to buck up and not to get bogged down by age and weight I pushed the pedals harder till streams of sweat tailed down my brow.. and my calf and thigh muscles ached out of the sudden stress and protested as they were being woken up after a long and comfortable life of no stress. After cycling for around 15 minutes, I decided to hit the mill and setting a high slope and reasonable speed I started a brisk walk on the rolling rubber mat, 10 minutes my calf legs were refusing walk and telling me to take break and stop this madness. I just willed my body to listen to me and plodded on for another 10 minutes before getting off the treadmill and wiping the buckets of sweat off my face and neck.
Now I am back at the cybercafe doing what I have been doing during the past few months in the US, browsing the internet, blogging, checking mail and noting that there are none from my friends from India. I wonder whether they have all forgotten me or are they thinking "good riddance to bad rubbish"... whatever the case maybe..... I definitely miss India for more than a few reasons... the first and foremost being the nice bright and sunny weather... it is another matter that it gets unbearably hot sometimes... next is my bike and the freedom of being able to ride whenever, wherever I please. Here I still don't have a motorcycle to ride and haven't been able to make too many biker friends in the area I live so I am stuck without independent transport... there are lot more reasons but for now this is enough.
But the good thing about being here is our creek side home. The last in the apartment block and we have the beautiful open view out of our window and when it rains the birds come in flocks and throng the creek looking for insects and scraps of food. The fantastic roads and orderly traffic (sometimes gets to my nerves) are the bonuses of being in America.