2Kitty - Not to throw another wrinkle in your back surgery decisions, but a couple of people I know had good results at the Spine Institute in AZ . . . not exactly local, but may be worth investigating.

Once we had 4 of our 5 cats on the bed all night.  Goofy was the hold out since Mr. Mr. was on the bed.   Maybe they'll get along when they're too old to care.  Usually, though, it's one or two with Wilson doing his best to get under the covers and snuggle with me.  I'm a sucker for my pets . . . 

No time to really comment other than to say twocat, listen to Henrun's advice. Back surgery is rarely successful. Most people do better with PT over time. Just gotta stick with it.

Ran 6.1 in Central Park today, and another .5 mile to and from the Planet Fitness we were using as "home base," so 7.2 for the day. Then we went to see a taping of Samantha Bee. Love her show! Tomorrow we're going to try to get into a Broadway show, with Hamilton top of the list, then Wicked, then Come From Away. We'll see what we get. Chilly today, but it was a good test run for the marathon.

Tammy- I can still accrue my own social security and not start drawing from it as I continue working.  I can draw on the spousal benefits from my husband’s SS account and get that money every month and my account still grows until age 70.  You have to go in in person to set that up.  Our financial advisor recommended it and said a lot of people don’t know about it.

Yes, for some reason they don't tell you that a spouse can elect to (1) receive their own accrued SS benefits or (2) receive 1/2 of their spouse's benefits, whichever is higher.  In addition, up to certain additional income while retired and receiving your SS benefits, if you keep working, it seems that the additional SS contributions will increase the benefits being received (by both).  Further, in cases of divorces after minimum quarters of marriage, it seems that more than one divorced spouse can benefit from one-half of a former spouse's higher benefits too.

ps avenger doggie - please tell me  you do NOT let Steve sleep with you.

Hello Runners,

I executed last night's planned 2.5 mile swim and even got in an extra 50 yards (lost count on one of the 500 yard repeats and the truth came out in the end,  Had hoped to swim 4400 yards in 91:00, got 4450 in 91:45.  I was prepared to sleep a little extra and skip the gym this morning but I woke up right at 5:00 so getting ready to go. I am cutting back on the volume of lifting these days, for sure.  I'll eliminate rows, for example, but still do pulldowns because they hit basically the same body parts but I get that nice stretch from the pulldowns that is missing from rows; I'll also include the rear deltoid row, not because of any particular stretching, but because it's a neglected muscle otherwise.  Probably a good morning to do hip adduction and hip abduction since I won't be doing any breast stroke until Saturday morning.  Come to think of it, though, the last time I did adduction (inner thigh movement) and breast stroke on the same day, I wasn't as sore while kicking, so maybe that is no longer so much of a concern.  

Last night while preparing for the 2.5 miler, having never swum more than 2 miles (and that only once, a week earlier), I was thinking that I just need to do this and I'll never have to swim that distance again.  But of course I was still drying off on the bench by the pool when I was thinking the next stop before 3.0 is 2.75.  And there are just about two weeks left in this session. each including a Wednesday Open Swim evening where I can swim for more than 1:00:00.  5,280 yards should take 1:45 if I can maintain last night's pace of just about 2:00 per 100 yards.

Have greta runs, runers.

so this SS thing has me curious - My husband has been drawing SS for a couple yrs now. He'll be 65 this year. I just turned 52. I'm not eligible for anything right? I have to also be of SS age to start drawing anything off his SS, correct?