And Here I Was Trying to Think of Something to Blog About

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Upside Down & Inside Out

I'm getting better and better at the headstands (Salamba Sirsasana). I'll ask Mensa Boy to take a photo this afternoon. I can get right up there and stay for quite a bit. I should probably time it, but I'm basically staying there until I find myself thinking: "I should come down now."
After that I do a shoulder stand (Salamba Sarvangasana), a plow(Halasana), and then finally corpse (savasana). It's a nice little mini practice I can do several times a day if I want. What I'm doing with the headstands now is trying to balance away from the wall. I'm doing it a few inches away so I can always recover if I go backwards, but after I get balanced it hasn't been a problem.

That's the upside down.

Tomorrow my schedule turns inside out. Back to work. As I walked Bear around the block this morning, I found myself thinking "Tomorrow I'll be a at work for 2 hours already. Ugh." But really the first two weeks won't be so bad. I'm not looking forward to the 10-hour days, but at least I get 2 more Fridays off. I'll be dressing 'way down for the first few anyway as I'll be in the file vault most of the time. It's a mess in there right now with the rising 9th grade files in boxes on the floor. And I'll have to shift pretty much all the classes a little now because the incoming classes are getting too large for only 2 drawers each. I need to look around for an audiobook today for my mp3 player.

Yoga and Crisp

We had a pretty violent-sounding thunderstorm last night. I got home around 10:30 and the heavens burst forth with a torrential downpour shortly after that. I got into bed around 11:30 and a short time later the fun started. The lightning sounded like it was striking right behind my neighbor Mary Jean's house. She's across the street and has a small wooded area behind her house. I had visions of her house being hit. But it looks like nothing really has happened much. Not many downed branches. Everything is just very soggy.

Last night in yoga we did headstands. It was not hard. There were others in the class that had done them before. For those of us who hadn't, we lined up together on the other side of the room and received comprehensive, one-on-one instruction on proper positioning of hands, wrists and elbows. Then we basically just walked our toes up to our heads and flipped up. It's exhilarating to be upside-down like that. And if you are careful not to sink into your shoulders and put pressure on your head, you can stay up there for quite a bit. But the sweat really rolls off you!

After class the two teachers worked with me a bit on my downward dog. My left shoulder is not happy in that pose. As I extend my arms further out in front, I'm angling them down too much and then I get intense pressure and fatigue in that shoulder. First they had to diagnose the problem, then they said a whole bunch of stuff that basically just entered my brain and sat there incomprehensibly. I'm really counting on my teacher Liz remembering all that was said and then walking me through it more slowly in the coming weeks. And when I'm not so fatigued. That whole process was another sweat-fest as well. It's amazing how much your body works in something that looks so simple. I know many people think yoga is just a lot of stretching. But there is a lot of hard effort that goes into even the simplest poses. But you have to be inside the skin to really grasp it. It looks effortless on the outside most of the time.

After that the three of us (the two teachers and I) went out for a late supper to salad/soup/sandwich place called Crisp. Here is a write-up about it from Creative Loafing. Now I'm telling you, if I lived in the Elizabeth neighborhood I'd have a tough time staying away from there! I had the F.C.N. salad, which is Fruit, Cheese, Nuts. Walnuts, craisins, pears, bleu cheese and apple in some wonderful greens and then tossed in a roasted lemon vinaigrette. The server asked if I wanted the dressing tossed in or on the side. "Tossed in, but just a little bit," I told him. And he essentially squirted about 1 1/2 Tablespoons on this giant salad. That was a salad that I hated to see end!

Self-Conscious

I am generally the host of a few bruises. Pretty much all on my legs. But this one is really out of this world for me. And of course its' sheer size and obvious location (when it's summer and you are wearing tank tops in yoga class or short sleeves in jazz), cause many questions.

And there is no one-sentence explanation I can offer for it. Here's the shortest version I have:

I was hanging off a wooden footbridge on the way into the lake to retrieve my car key.

HEY WAIT! THAT IS ONE SENTENCE! cool.

"Defiance"

Mensa Boy and I watched this movie last night. It's the true story of the Bielski brothers and their efforts to stay alive during WWII. Farmers, they fled to the forest after finding their parents murdered on their farm.

When in the forest, they found other displaced Jews hiding out there and they all banded together to form a community. Eventually their numbers swelled into the hundreds and the Bielskis took care of them and also transformed them into a group of freedom fighters.

It's a good movie. It started out slow. I almost lost interest but I'm glad I hung in there.

It's been incredibly mild here the past few days. We were able to turn off the A/C and open our windows yesterday. Mensa Boy and I went to Landsford Canal and had a lunch and did a brief hike. It was a good day to be out.

Like a Big Grown-Up Play Date

Last night I went to Charlotte with my friend Liz to the yoga class at The Yoga Center. This was my third visit and by far that most fun. The teacher, Phyllis, was back on her game after being down with a virus for a couple of weeks. And so she worked us hard.

We did a lot of prep work on the ground and at a rope wall. (You can see a photo of that on the website) This was all leading up to doing backbends and handstands. I was very pleased to be able to get up into a handstand unassisted at the first try. My backbends were pretty good, too. But we did those with chairs underneath them. So I think my next step will be to do backbends starting on the floor.

We came out of there not tired but really energized and feeling like we had worked hard. To start the day in Jazzercise and then end it in yoga is a GOOD THING!

In between? Not much. I finished the first season of "The Wire" and then read my book. I can tell I'll probably finish it today. It's good to have a book that you can dive into and are reluctant to put down. But I do need to do some house stuff today.

Bob talks about Salkehatchie Summer Service

You need to turn the volume up on your computer very high. This was recorded on my Nikon D90 DSLR camera. I'll post Taylor's video in a while. (They take a long time to load!)

Pervert or Vitamin Deficiency!

Well, I started this book a few minutes ago and have already fallen in love with it. "Don Basilio was a forbidding-looking man with a bushy mustache who did not suffer fools and who subscribed to the theory that the liberal use of adverbs and adjectives was the mark of a pervert or someone with a vitamin deficiency."

This could end up being a lost day!

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.