explaining this to my mother

[coffeetime]

Note: I'm 46 and my mother is 69 years old. She used to be unbelievably cool, but since retirement a few years ago she's settled into the retirement mode of doing everything slowly and infrequently, and she never really loved exercise--she did it to avoid getting fat. Now she does it, as minimal as she can get away with, to avoid being chairbound from minor arthritis and lethargy.

I call my mom on the phone Friday evening after a trip to the gym.

Me: Mom. I still didn't make it to 10 pull-ups, but now I can do FOUR, and after I got done with my four I went back a few minutes later and did two more. Then another single one, then another...so I did all 10, just not consecutively.

Mom: Well, that's really great, honey. Although I just don't understand why you'd want to do that.

Me: Because I can.

Mom: Okay...

Me: You know how some people like to run marathons? And they run like 20 marathons in their life, even though at the end they're puking and they have diarrhea and whatever? Well, I don't like to run; I think it's boring, and it hurts my knees. But this is something that's also really hard to do, that I CAN do if I work at it, and it's over in like 30 seconds! BAM, 10 pull-ups! Totally bad-ass!

Mom: Okay. Well, whatever you say, honey.

Anyone else's mother just not get it?

have you read this book?

[coffeetime]

Venus with Biceps - has anyone here read this? I rarely buy books, but my public library doesn't have this one, so I'll have to fork out cash if I want it. I stopped by my local B&N today, but they don't have it in stock, so I couldn't really assess whether it's worth the $.