Canadian Yoga

Hooray for my Canadian boss who whisked me away at the end of a day full of lecture to attend an advanced Iyengar class with her. The class was mostly standing poses, which we knew in advance. The focus of the class, which we did not know ahead, was on broadening the sit bones and rotating the groin. Keep in mind I've only met my boss face-to-face in the last 48 hours. I'm sure groin comes up in most people's professional relationships...Luckily, she is an extraordinarily cool woman, so there was no weirdness. We did have a good laugh though.

At the begining of the class we were focusing on standing forward bends. The teacher kept telling us to pull the hip bones in. I had no idea where or how to pull my hips closer together, but I knew I wasn't succeeding because the teacher kept repeating the instruction (slightly louder each time). She was clearly exasperated with many of the students, and I know I was very frustrated because no matter how loud or how often she asked me to do this one action...no matter how simple the words were...I had no idea how to do it. My muscles gave me the equivalent of a blank stare...you want us to do what? There was a part of me that wanted to throw up my arms and say, "That's it. I'm leaving. I have no idea what you want and I don't want to deal with one more thing in my life that I don't understand..." But when I heard the pettulance of my own inner tyrant I thought in a new direction.

What if my life is presenting me with problems that appear unsolvable in the short term so that I can accept and find ease in each moment. I realized I didn't have to "succeed" at this class by getting every pose "Perfectly Right." In fact, I could give myself permission to "suck" in the eyes of the Persnickety Perfectionist within (and maybe even the eyes of this teacher) and just see where the class took me. My breathing evened out and I felt 100x calmer.

Evidently, permission to suck is a powerful tool.

PS-There were snow flurries today!

The Great Canadian....

Herein lies a few tales from Toronto:

My flight from Houston to Toronto was on a puddle jumper of a plane, with a 2.5 hour puddle to navigate. It was one of the bumpiest rides I've been on, but I managed to not spill my gingerale...Points to Mindy.

Upon arriving we got to take stairs down from the plane to the tarmac. I consider this the height of fun since I associate it with Cary Grant movies. I needed big sunglasses and a gossamer scarf for the occassion. On the long walk to customs I passed one restaurant. Only one. And no stores... What the what?! Have I left consumerism central? However, the one eatery I did see made up for the otherwise lacking culinary landscape.

The

Great

Canadian

Bagel

?!

Nothing against Canada and definitely nothing against bagels...but together? I never would have seen them paired off? Did eHarmony come up with this?

In case you were wondering, rush hour traffic on the night of a hockey game is indeed quite impressive. Regardless, I made it and had some wondering time last night.

My hotel is located in the Fashion District and my co-workers had raved about a couple of shoe stores, so I was a woman on a mission. I found a pair of shoes by a company called Groundhog which I heart very much. I have been looking for this pair of shoes (i.e. flats that can dress up or down) for over a year, so thank you Canada!! I was a bit too late for most of the boutiques to still be open, but there were lots of fabric stores, button stores, hat stores, ribbon stores... I have a picture to share, but that will have to wait.

This morning I went for a city walk in the chilly rain. Toronto reminds me of Chicago...maybe it is just the cold, downtown with lots of smokers...

I'm off to work, but hopefully there will be more episodes coming soon!

Town Called Panic and/or Toronto

Hello, hello...

I just had to give an e-shout out to the Belgian movie A Town Called Panic. One of my new favorites. A bunch of plastic toys hopping about a claymation world figuring out how to best deal with the conundrum of having over-ordered bricks online. 74 minutes of bliss if you ask me.

Headed to Toronto this week and I'm hoping to be a bit better about blogging. I've never been and I'm looking forward to what I've heard described as a cleaner more polite NYC. What's not to love, eh?

Any suggestions for my northern travels?

Mantras

Today's mantra started off as:


It turned into:

Stay classy, San Diego.

Confessions of a Complete Texter

I have never fully embraced the texter's dictionary of abbreviations. I believe texting is best suited to short, simple queries.
Text 1: "Are you here?"
Response: "Yes, in the back."
Simple and helpful. If you find yourself texting "AISB" (As I Said Before)...consider that a phone call might be a better way to communicate.

In my stone-agedness I also have never been big on IM. Generally if I'm on the computer, then I want to complete something and if I want to *talk* to someone I prefer not to have a conversational lag of each person answering several lines back.

However, the times they are a-changin'. Now that I work remotely IM is one of the best ways to get questions answered and check in with friends (and bosses) no matter what time zone and country. This means I have a world of acronyms to catch up on. Usually I can figure them out, but one day, when I was a little brain fried, I got a "BRB" from my boss. My first thought was, "Really? Burpicons?"

Oh...Be Right Back. Super useful compared to the e-burping option that sprang to my oddly wired brain... However, if you google "burpicons" there are a wide variety of burp icons available...Maybe I'm not so odd afterall.

My Life in Celsius

y oh my. Time flies. Since you last heard from me, I have successfully moved to Austin, started my new job, and set up my very own snazzy home office.


A few highlights:

• Marc taught me an easy way to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit so I don't embarrass myself with, "Oh my, 25 degrees, that is chilly!" So my new skill...drum roll please... (25 x 2) + 30 = 80 degrees Fahrenheit... not exactly sweater worthy.
• I'm also learning to convert workload from Celsius...Canada says 5 pages...they really mean 40 pages [(5x2) + 30]. As long as I know the conversion table, I'm all good.
• My desk now faces a floor to ceiling window overlooking green space. Lovely if I may say so myself. The only problem is around noon when the sun is in my eyes, but luckily the whole orbit thing works in my favor.
• My first week in Austin happened to coincide with Restaurant Week. Ate very well and tried out some locales that were new to me --Botticelli's and The Belmont to name two.
• Occassionally when I am driving around town, I have to look down at my stereo to see if I'm listening to the radio or my iPod. A radio station that plays music that I gusta?! What is that all about?!
  

So, I haven't deserted you and I am wishing you, dear readers, a lovely weekend...I know it isn't quite here yet, but maybe in Celsius...

Moving

oving is such a joy. My sincerity level waivers on that statement at times, but overall moving is a great chance to clean and clear out. In the interest of efficiency, I have been doing my best to not get sucked down memory lane by going through photo albums or old letters.

However, yesterday I came across a sheet of stickers with a bunch of writing on the back and I flashed back to my time teaching in Mississippi and couldn't help but laugh and marvel at how much my life has transformed since then.

Let me give you the back drop. As a teacher, I always wore an old waitressing apron so that I could have extra pockets at all times...I know super sexy, right? Anyway, I would carry stickers, pens and hand sanitizer for good measure. When I was with my class out of the classroom and needed to remember who was actin' a fool, I would jot names on the back of a sticker sheet. The sticker sheet I came across while packing had lots of names haphazardly scrawled in all directions. But here is the part that really had me laughing. The Delta had a wonderful vernacular and I loved some of the local phrases, which I would jot down to remember. This Delta flavor was particularly strong when it came to the insults the kids would throw at each other. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't encouraging insults, but I had to write this one down. I remember on this hallway adventure there was an escalation...it all started with a "Shut your face," which quickly was topped with "No, you shut your mama's face."

Just as a point of reference, the only insult worse is to say "your grandma" or "your grandpa," depending on which is deceased. Family pride is not something to mess with in the Delta. I have never seen little people as mad as when their families were brought into the mix.

I just had a moment when I thought, "I wonder what would happen if I used 'shut your mama's face' in the corporate world...Hmm..." Don't worry, today may be my last day on the job, but I'm not going there!