Senior citizen menu, exercise, and Hal Holbrook

I took my good friend Charles to supper tonight. At 91, he's still running and plans to run the 5K in the Cowtown Marathon Saturday. I'm convinced his good health, mental and physical, is due to genetic makeup but also in part due to his diet. He's pretty careful, a light eater, says he goes and gets a salad most nights. Tonight we went to the Black-Eyed Pea for the veggie plate, and he ate a "heavy" dinner--black eyed peas, carrots, squash casserole, and corn. But when we walked in the hostess asked, "Two?" and I said "Yes, please," and she said--drum roll, please--"Would you like the senior menu?" Charles was laughing out loud, and I turned on him and said, "That's the first time I've ever been asked that!" Anyway, it was a good deal. On the senior menu you can order four veggies; on the regular it's five, and I can barely eat my way through four.
I'm back to my own exercise program--stretches (the ones I learned when I belonged to Curves, with weights added) and riding the stationary bike. I got my pulse up to 130 the other day--mine never goes very high because of hypertension medication, so I was surprised and didn't know whether to boast or be concerned. Then I discovered I'd forgotten to take my medication that morning. The next day, when I took the medication, my pulse hovered at 100 and wouldn't go any higher though I was working just as hard.
I heard tonight that Hal Holbrook died, and it saddened me. I once sat almost in the front row when he did his Mark Twain act at the university I was attending--I can see him yet sitting on the edge of the stage and dangling his feet. In a radio interview re-played tonight he said he always wanted to be an actor and was proud of new roles, but Mark Twain was always with him. He couldn't have picked a better companion. Holbrook's career, to me, illustrates someone who found--or developed--a good thing and stayed with it.
People are really reading my blog, and I'm delighted. I had two comments this morning on my trip to Meridian yesterday--one from a rancher in that area (how did he find me?) and one from a friend who said now she wants to go to Meridian. I told her I was ready to go back. Nice to think people read what I say--but kind of scary, since I have nothing more to add tonight and what I've already said isn't very significant. Either it was a not-much day or my brain has already gone to sleep. Going to take a shower and settle down with the manuscript I brought home from the office. 'Night.