My friend, food stylist and photographer Linda Long (Great Chefs Cook Vegan) took this at a train station after a conference last month. Today’s travels were by bus, a little kitsch for the mix.

Anyway, at the spa I met Zelda, my new 88-year-old friend who was there with her daughter. Zelda always showed up for yoga, aqua-aerobics, and three earthbound fitness classes, some of which were killers. (Sports Interval Training, for instance, made me understand why they pay so much in the NBA and the NFL.) Here are Zelda’s Rules for Life as I came to understand them:

• Work out every day. Zelda spends an hour and a half at the gym every morning.
• Eat out; then you don’t have to think about food.
• Only eat what’s really good; if you don’t like it, don’t finish it.
• Enjoy every day of your life. When someone asks how you are, tell them, “Fabulous!”
• Appreciate the gifts of others. After one of my lectures, Zelda said, “That was wonderful: it was so generous.” And the next morning at yoga she had another expression of appreciation for that teacher. 
• Family is the most important thing.
• Don’t waste your time loving anybody who doesn’t love you. (This is personal relationships we’re talking about: loving your enemies and all people is one thing; spending affection that isn’t returning it is something else.)
• Be friendly and have a sense of humor.
• Take care of yourself. If you can afford it, going to a spa or hiring a trainer isn’t an indulgence, it’s an investment.
• Live fully for your whole life. It’s not over at 50 or 65 or 80. It’s not over till it’s over, and even then, it’s not over.