I was sick last weekend, and I’ve been recovering steadily. It wasn’t a virus, and that’s all I have to say about that. Anyway, I got a call from my personal trainer, who suggested I take hot baths with Epsom salt for my ailment. (I’m not throwing the trainer thing out there to stroke my ego; I need a professional to help me exercise, and I haven’t traded the Toyota pickup for a Hummer, thank you very much.)

The hot & salty bath was such a success with the aforementioned mysterious ailment, and so relaxing, that I’ve continued the constitutional each evening this week.

As I was stepping out of the tub this evening I was thinking that it’s time to stop, because I don’t need to do it anymore, and it costs dough to heat the water. So tonight may have been the last for a while. But I wondered why I’ve been doing it. Prior to last week, after all, I hadn’t taken a bath in a tub in many years; I think there was one, when my shower head was broken about 10 years ago, and before that not since childhood.

Is it because I like getting wet? No, not really. Relaxation? Partly, but I have a big comfy chair for that. Is it the increased quality time with my rubber duckie, Duckie? No, he’s more loquacious than Rumsfeld doing self-psychoanalysis. Cant shut the little ducker up.

Here’s why I like to take baths; also one of the reasons I like going for a swim:

It makes everything stop. It makes you just sit.

When you’re in the bathtub, or the pool, that’s all you’re doing. Can’t multitask in the drink, folks. No laptop, no TV (the only room in my place without some screen coverage) and no phone. OK, You can read a magazine. Pick one that’s not brand new, just in case.