After we did that post about his mom the other day, Richard and I got to talking. I was saying how much I admire Mrs. Ha’s commitment to stay fit vs. letting herself get creaky and “old.”

And then Richard told me a great story. He said he picked his mother up one morning a few years ago, when she was in her late 70s, and she told him she’d locked herself out of the house the night before.

He asked her how she got in. It turns out she rolled over an empty 55-gallon drum and climbed up on it so she could climb in the house through the window.

I have a similar story about my grandmother. She, too, was in her late 70s when, one day, there was a big earthquake here in Hilo. I was living in California then, but I heard about it on the news the next day and I called to ask her about it.

“Where were you when it happened?” I asked.

She and her sister had found themselves locked out of her sister’s house, she told me, and she was climbing in through a window. She was halfway through the window when the earthquake hit.

I love two things about that story. One, that she was still climbing through windows in her late 70s. And two, that it was no big deal to her and I wouldn’t even have known about it except for that earthquake.

Richard’s mom Florence just ordered a lawn mower, the old-fashioned push kind. She purposely got that kind because she wants to get some exercise when she mows the lawn. Pretty impressive for someone who’s about to turn 83. May we all take such good care of ourselves in our later years (or now!), and do as well.

P.S. Check out our friend Sonia Martinez’s new food blog, especially her post about Richard’s tomatoes and her recipe for roasted tomato sauce.