Wouldn't 1 to 10 Have Sufficed?

I lifted this image of the "Vrschikasana" pose from yoga.about.com

Yesterday I ventured gingerly back into yoga after laying out all day Tuesday with the sciatica. I waited all day until around 3 p.m. before the restlessness finally overtook me. In my defense, the day was not a total loss, as I did spend nearly three hours washing windows and blinds. So I decided to pick up Iyengar's "Light on Yoga" and see what he recommended for this ailment. There is very detailed appendix of injuries and ailments in the back of the book, where he recommends asanas that should ease the situation.

Well, standing asanas of course. I did all of them except any the involved twists. Even the balancing ones went well. But all that took about 40 minutes and I was sweating by the time I was done. I decided to skip the rest of his suggestions and just do pigeon, which is also called Eka Pada Rajakapotasana. Eka means "one," pada the leg or foot, and kapota means dove or pigeon. Rajakapota means the king of pigeons. It's a fun pose, but I only did the prep for it, which is one leg folded in front by the stomach, the other leg straight back. You then can lean over the front leg and rest your head on the floor.

Anyway, I know pretty much none of you do yoga, unless I have lurkers out there. The point of this post really is about Iyengar's book. I picked it up at the beach for $4 and this was the first time I've actually used it. And there is a certain amount of reading you have to do to figure out how to use the pose section. Here are the instructions for the asana section of the book:

"After the name of each asana, there is a number with an asterisk. These number before an asterisk indicate the intensity of the asana; the lower the number, the easier the asana, the higher the number, the more difficult the asana. The easiest number is 'one,' the most difficult 'sixty.'"

SIXTY?I mean, c'mon! So 'one' is just standing in Tadasana, which is mountain pose. Utkatasana is only a two, which is basically a pose where you pretend you are sitting in an imaginary chair. I mean, that's a really hard pose. Try it. I'll wait.

See? Hard. Yet only a two. And he's got these twisted up poses that are only a fourteen. I found one that is fifty-eight, but it's basically standing on one foot, holding the other up behind your head with your hand, and then stretching the other hand out front. Yeah, hard. But I think the twisty ones are harder.

I don't get it.

Anyway, today I'll go back to my yoga class and just not do any twists. I'll take it easy on the other stuff. The hip is a little sore, but not bad. And I really should do more windows.

Oh. The pose above? Is scorpion. Iyengar rates it "Thirty-two."

Ok. Tired of Doing Nothing Now

Only because I'm sidelined for the sciatica. Hopefully I can get back to some yoga and jazz by Friday. In the meantime, I think it's time for some window cleaning. I've got windows and blinds that seriously need some attention. I still have "Cause of Death," by Patricia Cornwell, checked out from the library. So I'll strap that on and start up here in a bit. I could also monitor Le Tour, but I think I'm going to do that this afternoon. I love my DVR!

Fireworks Song

Not really any rednecks in my 'hood, but we still managed to have quite show last night. We didn't go out and see anything...we had been outside for hours already that afternoon. But I think we had fireworks for about 4 hours last night.

Fabian Cancellara

Videos of the day

Fabian Cancellara ran away with the stage win, yellow and green jerseys today at the opening of the Tour de France in Monaco. It was like the great baseball games... the winning happened at the end of the day.

Lance Armstrong's team, Team Astana, had 4 riders in the top 10, Armstrong bringing up the rear at spot #10.

Vive le Tour!

Get a Second Opinion?

A man fell off a cliff and was hanging precariously from a tree branch. He cried out "God, please help me!" God answered, "Have faith and I will protect you. Let go of the branch." The man, stunned, cried out, "Is there anyone else up there?"

"'Que Sera, Sera' a song that begins with Q"

JulieBeachJune09
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

That was the text message I received from my dear friend Julie this afternoon. And I laughed and laughed!

The first day we were at the beach, we were walking back to the beach house, talking about what games she wanted to play that evening. I am not a big gamer, board or otherwise, and I admit I was making fun just a LITTLE bit. As we walked along I suggested a game we could play without any hard rules, cards, boards or whatever. And moreover, the game could get more interesting as we got further down our bottle of wine.

"Let's come up with a song for every letter of the alphabet," I said. Julie loves to sing, is a fantastic singer, and had said she wanted to sing together during the week she was here. Well, I can't hold a candle to her vocalizations, so I was hoping this kind of thing would satisfy that urge of hers and also be a game I could deal with.

On we went, coming up with some pretty fantastical songs, although I did make fun of her for her inordinate number of hymns and spiritual songs (she is a preacher's wife, after all). And we got a little mired down at at times. But when we got to 'Q' we were totally stuck. And had no internet access either.

This bugged her. Julie does not give up. In fact, this is a photo I took of her on another quest she had while we were at the beach...her desperate need to find a shark's tooth.

We never did come up with a song for the letter 'X.' I have internet access now, but haven't availed myself of the opportunity to google it.

Que Sera Sera. Maybe we'll never come up with one for 'X.'

Away We Go: A GREAT Movie!

Cassie and I went to see this movie this afternoon. I absolutely loved it. Yes, I did get restless near the end, but I get restless near the end of most movies.

So this couple is expecting a baby and they realize they really have not grown up. They lived near his parents (hers are dead), only to have the parents announce they are moving to Belgium for two years. They live in a crappy, run-down shack, and so they decide maybe they should move somewhere too.

So they start off on a round-the-country trip to visit friends and family to see if there is a good placed for them to settle down with the baby. And along they way they learn some valuable lessons in how to, and how not to, be parents.

It can be a little crude at times. I would not take my 14-year-old son to see it, but it's a great flick for adults.

Today

I'm up early this morning on a summer day. Got up at 6:30. I'm stressing myself about summer ending too quickly. I have to report back on July 27, so it seems like I'm not getting much of a summer break at all. I don't think I've fully recovered from the last round of 10-hour days, and now I'm dreading the next round already. So I'm doing a lot of self-talk, trying to remind myself to enjoy each day as it comes. Otherwise I think I'll lose the enjoyment of the current time off because I'll be brooding too much about going back to work.

"I live a day at a time. Each day I look for a kernel of excitement. In the morning I say: 'What is my exciting thing for today?' Then, I do the day. Don't ask me about tomorrow."--Barbara Jordan

I Didn't Embarrass My Teacher

So we went to The Yoga Center in the Elizabeth neighborhood in uptown Charlotte last night. Phyllis Rollin teaches Iyengar style yoga, which is very precise and detailed. There's not really any room for making the poses your own in terms of style. But I think that's a good thing sometimes. You really learn about your own anatomy as she leads you through what you think is going to be simple forward bend. She starts pointing out parts of your body that haven't thought of before, and telling you to adjust each of them. I mean, when I bend forward over one leg, I usually don't think of the opposite side of my ribs collapsing.

Anyway, we did not do much sweating, which Liz had told me we would do, but she also said the class seemed easier last night than usual. We attributed that to the fact that Phyllis was a little under the weather.

There were two men in the class, which was kind of cool, and I ended up next to the wall by one of them, Tom. He had a lot of back issues going on and so was doing most of his poses rather gingerly and receiving some assistance from Phyllis. As we were working on a prep for handstands, I muttered to him, "So when do we get to the napping part?" And he really enjoyed that one. The woman on the other side of him said, "That's just a rumor we spread to get people to come to yoga." And then pretty much our entire wall of people started cracking up. Phyllis hadn't heard the conversation, so she walked along the line of us asking us what was so funny, which made us laugh even more. All in all, it was a challenging yet fun class. I think I'll go back whenever I can, although that will mean sacrificing my Monday night Jazz class. We'll see.

This morning it's Jazz and then yoga at The Gym in Fort Mill and then afternoon is free. I have some tidying up, bathrooms to clean, and laundry to do. And I imagine I should cook supper too.

Is that Utthita Hasta Padangustasana or Utthita Parsvakonasana?

My yoga teacher told me in an email last night that the class we are going to is fun. It will make you sweat and work hard. The teacher is funny. Then she said:

"I realized - she also says all poses in sanskrit! so we will just do as the other students do..."

Church: The Whole Family

I couldn't be happier. Well, I imagine there are things that might make me happier, for right now? I'm delighted that Nate, Erin and Ryan are all coming to church with us. We'll be filling that second pew!

"I am familiar with Potato Gun safety," he said.

That was the end of the last conversation Mensa Boy had with the kids last night. All four of them (Nate, Taylor, Ryan and Erin) had disappeared around 8 o'clock. After asking me if they could "shoot my onions."

"No," I said. "I need my onions." I didn't even bother asking them to clarify.

We went to bed around 9:15 (yes, on a Saturday night) and shortly after that we started to hear sounds from the garage. Bear was also barking from his perch in Taylor's room.

Mensa Boy went down to investigate. He came back and said "At least there are no flames involved." Apparently they were building a potato gun with PVC pipe and cement. They had a can of hairspray and planned to use that as a propellant for potatoes.

"Three of them are adults now," MB said. "I hope they don't get in trouble with the police."

He said they were going to take it down to one of the stalled developments where there are no houses being built right now and shoot it off. He was tense. I reminded him that he and his friends had done a lot worse than that. "Yeah," he said. "We tended to use fire."

There are several videos of people making and using spud guns, or spudzookas on YouTube.

The Game of Set

Bob&JulieSetsJune09
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Julie likes to play games. Not in the negative sense of the word. She likes to play board games and card games. We played Sequence a couple of times while she was here.

And she played Set quite a bit. I get the hang of it, sort of. But don't have the patience to find the more complicated sets. Here she is showing Mensa Boy how it works.

This has always been one of his expressions that I find most endearing.

Mensa Boy's Dog Training School

Latest tip for housetraining:

Brainwashing. "It's FUN to not poop in the house."

He and Taylor talked about posting signs around the house to this effect. In bark language, of course.

Kingklip

Last night we tried Kingklip. I'm glad it didn't look like this when I bought it. Kind of eel-y lookin', eh?

I was looking for salmon to make our favorite salads with and saw this. The meat was gorgeous-looking and the price was $8.99/lb. I asked the fishmonger about it. He told me it's a lot like grouper.

And it is, but it has a very firm, almost crabmeat quality to it too. It kind of strings like crabmeat, if you get what I'm saying. We grilled it. I put Jerk seasoning on it after brushing it with olive oil. I started with it on foil on top of the grill and then moved it to the grates to finish. We also had roasted corn on the cob and salad. Excellent meal! We had a little piece left over so today I've shredded it and added to pasta, fresh tomato and pesto for my lunch.

Last night we watched an episode of "Expedition Africa." I think it's on the History channel. Too lazy to stop and look it up. Anyway, these people are reinacting Stanley's journey when he ended up finding Livingston. Kind of cool.

Did Jazz and then yoga this morning. I have one month to do as much yoga as I can before school starts. I intend to do that. I also talked to the teacher about doing a couple of private sessions. I've told her what my goals are and she'll craft a home practice for me. Woot!

Mensa Boy is out fixing the sprinkler system. It got stuck on the last station the other day and sprayed for something like 90 before I noticed it. He says it was a bad solenoid...is that how you spell it? He's so cute when he fixes something he's never fixed before. Proud of himself. And he should be! His next couple of projects are the ice dispenser in the refrigerator and the carpet cleaner.

Beach Trip

Us at Blues
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

BFF Julie and I, as you know, spent a few days in Cherry Grove last week. After we nearly wore ourselves out painting the first part of the week.

We did a lot of heavy duty relaxing while there, but did spend part of one day wandering through local bookshops, antique stores and thrift shops. Julie is into the latter two. For lack of any other ideas, we stopped at the House of Blues for lunch.

I tell you, traveling here in the south with a vegetarian can be a bit of a trick. It's easy for me to feed her, but it can be hard to find places that have anything worth eating for a vegephile. I thought for sure the House would have a few items.

Salad.

And a stupid one at that. The lettuce was poor quality and there not really any "bits" in it to jazz it up. I felt badly for her, but she took it in stride. I, on the other hand, had an excellent gumbo. We shared a plate of sweet potato fries as well.

This is a meat-and-three state and now that I think of it, we probably should have just looked for places like that. She would have enjoyed the "three" part. Although she wasn't impressed with the roasted okra I made her Saturday night.

Maybe if we'd made dined out in Charlotte a couple times we would have a had a little better luck. But even the Billy Graham Library didn't have a decent veggie sandwich. Just a cold American Cheese sandwich on the kids' menu.

But we had a great time and I'm looking forward to doing this again.

Words about Birds

Well, I have this birdfeeder, you see, that no one...and I mean no one...has visited for a year. I don't know why. At least, I didn't know why until yesterday.

It's one of those feeders that's supposed to be squirrel-proof. If anything heavier than a bird sits one one of the perches, this sort of exterior cage slides down and closes all the feeder holes.

Yesterday I noticed that, despite brand-new food...and good quality stuff, I might add...STILL no one had visited. So I went over there to shake things up and see what the scoop was. Apparently the springs on the feeder have given out and the exterior cage has been leaving the little holes shut permanently. DUH. So I've rigged it to stay open and hopefully we'll get some visitors soon. There's a fresh bath for them too.

On the other side of the patio is the hummingbird feeder. The glass on the last year's feeder had cracked so I bought this adorable new one at Lowe's last week that looks like a hot air balloon. The hummers found it within 48 and have been draining it regularly since then. I usually don't fill with more than about 4 oz. of liquid at a time because when it's hot like this you have to change it every couple of days. But they are actually draining it dry now, so I just loaded it to 14 oz. now.

Things are supposed to cool off here a bit a few days...a "cold front" should be coming in that pushes temps down below 90. If that happens, I think I'm going to try to rig up my cameras on tripods and get some bird shots using my remote.

There's No Coffee in My House!

And I'm definitely feeling it this morning.

Last night I left Lancaster around 9 and got a text inviting me to a friend's house for wine. She knew she wouldn't be able to sleep and really just wanted to hang out.

By 11:30 we'd had 2 or 3 small glasses (I don't know we didn't just fill up on big one) of a pinot grigio, a bowl of potato chips and then decided we needed ice cream!

Needless to say I'm a little tired this morning and suffering from swollen fingers from the chips. But we had a great time.

Woke up around 6. Hung out in bed for a while, did a nice 30 minutes of yin and then took a deep, warm bath. So now I'm sitting in my robe on the back patio with TEA because there is NO COFFEE!

But all is quite good. Happy Friday!

Could He?

So. Sanford drops completely out of the spotlight the very moment Michael Jackson bites the dust.

I'm thinking he's a happy man.

Sanford, that is.

A friend mused "Maybe Sanford killed MJ."

Tour de France - 2009

Tour de France - 2009

Starts on July 4! WOOT!