Jan 8

108 Sun Salutations

That's what one yoga teacher was leading on the morning of New Year's Day. It seemed like a good idea. After just 5 sun salutations the sweat poured off my forehead, burning my eyes like sun gazing might do, if I'd ever done that.

One week into the new year and there are 28 sun salutations completed so far. Eighty more to go. Could be February by the time it's finished. But the results so far include an increase in minutes of daylight, strengthening of the shoulder girdle, an effort to keep the carpet vacuumed at the site of the asana, and an appreciation for someone even thinking they could do 108 repetitions at one time.

The Sun God chants, "Rah, Rah, Rah!"

Jan 7

The Day After Epiphany
Two Days After Twelfth Night
What if things were easier than you thought?
Pay attention!
I resolve to ______________________.

Twelfth Night marks the end of Christmas or winter carnival beginning on Halloween. It was considered in poor taste or unlucky to leave the Christmas wreaths hanging on display after Epiphany.

When living in Vermont and driving somewhere, I would use a pointer finger combined with a verbal gun noise, and shoot wreaths still hanging on houses or barns. It wasn't a drive just to shoot wreaths, but a drive to work or to the grocery store. It rose to the level of compulsion, like washing hands obsessively or avoiding stepping on sidewalk cracks.

All that has (mostly) passed, and you can be sure that there are no Christmas wreaths remaining on the doors or walls of this place.

This is a Valentine's Wreath.

Jan 6

The ice machine in the refrigerator's freezer groans when making ice cubes like it's being asked to do something beyond its capacity. Unlike the refrigerator's ice machine, the lake's ice maker dons its perfect gym suit in winter. Not a problem to boom, creak, shake the house at night, as it pushes against itself to make more room for its frozen bulging muscles.

The measurements of the ice runway average 9 inches with a range of 7.5 to 10 inches. Plenty, I'm told, to hold an airplane weighing almost a ton. But I am frozen to the sofa reading a book and drinking a cuppa, with a sense of ease here that is not felt in the airplane on skis on ice that's 9 inches thick. Maybe another day.

Jan 5

One of the characters, Bharavi, is a Fire Goddess in the Hindu realm. She really would like to go for an airplane ride, but smoke curls off her shoulders when she's stressed. And what if the flight attendants thought there was a fire on the aircraft? What then?

For Christmas, the novelist received this card holder that looks more like a cigarette holder. Maybe this was for Bharavi.

Jan 4

Last night was the first time at the gym for 2011. I stumbled upon pizza night, and the place was mobbed with ravenous, slavering people costumed in gym clothes. The tootsie rolls on the counter by the registers are bad enough. But pizza!
I resolve to think about eating pizza every week after playing piano. (See Jan 3)

Jan 3

I resolve to play piano once a week.

This includes the Hungarian Rhapsody, the Skaters Waltz, and Alley Cat.

Lessons Repeat Themselves

Lesson One:
Loosen your grip.

This applies to Golf, Suturing, Aviation, Expectations, Business, Crossstitching, Friendship, Shoveling Snow, Driving, Family, Friendship Bracelets, Weight Loss, Writing In Cursive, Skiing...

The dew point has a tight grip on the temperature today. (And) Hence, dense fog.

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve

Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Dec 30

This morning one of the characters cleaned the ashes out of three woodstoves; the cafe's, her boss' house, and her new ranch house. She retrieved a wheelbarrow at each place to haul the ashes deep into the woods.

She waded through snow higher than her calves and dumped the ashes on a huge rhododendron in the woods.

And when she was done, there was wood in the wood ring and the promise of a beautifully warm day. Times three.

Dec 29

This is the same parking lot where the flying rats were perched the day before, waiting for the storm. Jim informs me that flying rats are pigeons, not seagulls.

The word for yesterday was caterwauling, the noise that Jim raised when I informed him that he would have to tack up the tarp after it had partially blown off in the blizzard, shortly after he informed me that flying rats were pigeons.

We received 6-60 inches of snow depending on how the wind blew. At dawn the wind continued to blow, making the woodstove the place to be in front of.

A vodka martini costs 8-9 points depending on the number of olives. That and a fire in the woodstove will soothe any caterwauling blizzard or whining human.

Dec 28

I wonder where these flying rats will go when we receive our 12-16 inches of snow.

Dec 27

After a week of naughtiness, cookies, banana cream pies and potato chips, the monastery called. And the prodigal returned.

As Jim says, "Only 363 shopping days left 'til Christmas".

Dec 26

It was the neighbor's table decorated so beautifully on Christmas for ham, turkey, and pot roast. Our ham was hot dogs, our turkey was gobbling, our pot roast was lasagne.

Our neighbor had 13 for dinner plus those who came for dessert later. She raided her husband's sock drawer to protect the floor from all the heaviness pushing away from the table. She needn't have worried. Nobody pushed away. We all fell asleep at the table after dinner and dessert, overcome by tryptophan and whipped cream on tiramasu.

And hence I'm late this morning for blogging and weight watchers and after-Christmas sales.

Merry Christmas!