Morning Math

So far, the massive studio cleaning effort reported yesterday has paid off. Both yesterday morning and today, I tied on my gym shoes and did stints on the treadmill, the trampoline, the yoga mat and the weight bench. And lived to tell you about it.

There’s not much to think about as I plod along on the treadmill and since nature abhors a vacuum, errant thoughts get more play than usual. It began with me noticing that the studio windows and doors need cleaning. From the treadmill there is a lovely view out the French doors into the courtyard garden--if you can see it.

This observation led on to the determination to wash one window or door a day, after exercising. Which in turn led to counting: 7 French doors and 8 windows, each with between 8 and 12 panes of glass. About 10 minutes into my treadmill stroll, going about 3 and a half miles per hour, I began counting panes and found that it was devilishly difficult to do so while striding. If you don’t believe me, just go out for an fast walk around the block and add up a column of numbers, while you’re at it. Anyway, the final tally is 188 panes of glass. Which if you multiply it by 2, for the inside and the outside surfaces, becomes 376 panes of glass. Some of which are lurking behind large trees and bushes, or are barricaded by large objects.

Lying on my yoga mat, (from whence I evicted a large and shiny Black Widow spider, this morning), doing leg lifts, I was admiring the skillful manufacture of the underside of a Louis Quinze chair, depending from the truss above me. Then it occurred to me that, if I knew its weight and how high it was hanging above my vulnerable self, I might be able to calculate the impact it would have on me, if it were suddenly--say in an earthquake or big sonic boom or in the event of another meteor exploding in our neck of the woods, like one did a couple of months ago--to leap off David’s nicely inserted dowels and plummet downward, powered by weight and gravity. Could one of those beautifully turned French legs actually work up enough steam to pierce my straining abs? There must be a formula for such calculations.

It’s come to me that cleaning the studio is a better workout than working out in the studio. I get tired just thinking about all that window washing. Meanwhile, however, I’ve broken a sweat before 7 in the morning from something other than ambient heat and my math skills are improving. Now, if there are 7 doors and 8 windows, that’s 15 times 2, for inside and outside, and at one washed per day, with Sundays off for good behavior, that’s X number of days before all are clean . . .