Floating to 2011

One of my Hanukkah presents was a 3 hour spa gift certificate. I scheduled this for Dec. 30th thinking it would be a lovely way to wrap up the year. The certificate was for a session in a salt water flotation tank and a hot stone massage. Ha cha cha, I was excited.

I had heard of flotation tanks and had always been intrigued, but never had the opportunity to try it out. What is it you ask? A chance to float in complete darkness. Best savasana ever.

Think of a space pod about 8 feet long, 3 or 4 feet wide and about 4 feet high. The bottom is filled with 10 inches of salt water heated to skin temperature (93.5 degrees if you must know). This water has 800 lbs. of epsom salt dissolved in it, so you float buoyantly. You step into the tank, sit down in the water and then close the door behind you. You stretch out like laying down in a bed and the salt water pushes you right to the surface, like a cork.

My tank was set up with under water speakers, so I had music for the first 10 minutes and then 50 minutes of silence with music returning to let me know when my hour was up. When I first stretched out, I was a little kid. I tried lifting my arms out of the water like a synchronized swimmer to see if the water would still support me... yup. I swished about the tank like a very happy fish and finally chose to have my hands behind my head as I tried to fully relax. At one point I sneezed and having forgotten I was in water, was a bit of a surprise as it lapped and swashed about. When the music came back on, all I could think was "too soon." I started to move very slowly, rotating my fingers and feeling the ripple move across the tank. It was glorious to feel weightless. To be completely stretched out, but have zero pressure on my body anywhere. I wonder what I would be like if I could float for an hour every day. It seems that the world at large would be happier if we all had the ability to withdraw, re-charge and totally relax on a regular basis.

I emerged, showered off the salt (which quickly dried into a dusty white film) and headed for my hot stone massage. Did I mention that life is good and all is well with the world? I had never had this type of massage before. It combines traditional massage with stones heated in water that is 120 degrees. The stones are used as part of the massage and then left at certain points like natural heating pads. A-ma-zing.

Having relaxed to the point of puddling, I got up and got dressed and Kristi, the woman who owns Zen Blend, offered me tea. I went and sat (i.e. zoned) while she prepared the water and then suddenly she presented me with a bowl of individually wrapped dark chocolates and my choice of either herbal tea or yerba mate.

I have no idea what could have made this experience any better. I hope your new year has some wonderful firsts and some amazing moments of joy and relaxation.

Curious about floating? Here are some FAQs.
In the Austin area and want more info about Zen Blend?

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...