Adventures in Bikram Yoga

After a year of doing vinyasa (or "regular" yoga, as I call it), I decided to explore the mysterious, uncharted waters of bikram yoga. This style of yoga is named for this guy Bikram Choudhury, who is considered by some to be a rebel or "bad boy" of yoga because his style departs (to some extent) from traditional yoga practices. He developed it using poses from hatha yoga (you all can Google these yoga terms) specifically to rehabilitate his own knee injury, but it supposedly works every muscle and organ in the body. Bikram yoga's claim to fame is that all sessions are conducted in a room where the temperature is set at 105 degrees (like a Tucson summer) with 60% humidity (like a Memphis summer). The session consists of the same sequence of the same 26 poses, with the instructor barking out orders in one breath and telling you that it's ok to come out of a pose if you need to in the next breath. Water breaks are only allowed at certain times. Wild stuff. I think anyone going into it without any yoga experience would be blown away by it all.

Why would anyone do this to themselves? Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but after a month, I am still going a couple of times a week--even at 7:00 a.m. on Tuesdays (Perhaps the heat affects the rational judgment part of the brain). I decided to try it in the first place because I am a "heat" person. I don't mind hot temperatures and I've survived many a 5k run or tennis match under similar conditions. (I am still waiting for Mark and Katrina to move to Florida or Hawaii). Believe it or not, after a while, you don't notice the heat per se. Sure, you and everyone else in the room has sweat pouring off them, but you don't think-- "hey, it's 105 degrees in here!" What I do think is "wow! my skin looks good" and "Wow! My knees don't hurt after doing this" and "I really can touch my head to my knee!" However, it does make for a less than pleasant laundry basket. Speaking of which . . .

Namaste, everyone.

Give Joann Branch your support!

Last week, we found out that Eddie's mom, Joann, was diagnosed with breast cancer. It runs in her family, so it was not a total surprise. (Not that it made the news any easier to digest). On Wednesday, March 26, she goes in for surgery that hopefully will take care of it once and for all. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. She is a wonderful wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, quilter, gardener, dog sitter, and the list goes on and on. We want to add "breast cancer survivor" to that list. We know she will make it through all this, but any extra prayers and good vibes sent her way will make a difference.

Poof! There goes the tax refund

Thursday morning, 8:30 a.m. Eddie and I were sitting in our accountant's office smiling because we found out that we would get a $1,200 tax refund. Just a few short hours later, the mechanic called about the GTI repairs (hood & windshield-- see previous post). He said that we could get the half-a*%ed job for about $700 or the full repair (best quality) job for about-- you guessed it-- $1,200. We thought about it for a while and decided to go ahead and get it done right. Ah, well. We enjoyed the refund while it lasted.

The moments that make you think

On Tuesday, I was headed down the Interstate on the way to work when WHAM-- the hood of the car flew up and broke the windshield. The noise was so loud-- like a gunshot or something. I actually kept driving for a second before it sank in. I had to slow down and pull over. Fortunately, there was a big shoulder on the side. I was able to make it over and safely stop the car. Even though I was away from the traffic lanes, the car shook with the wind coming across the overpass and all the trucks going by. I called Eddie, and he had a co-worker give him a ride to where I was. We managed to secure the hood and take it to the mechanic that was not too far away.

I had a feeling that something like this could happen, though it was a surprise when it actually did. We had been having trouble with the hood for several weeks. Two different mechanics would "fix" it, only to have it come up again. I guess it was only fixed if you never opened the hood again. The problem was, we had to open the hood that morning to jump start Eddie's car. I didn't think the hood closed properly afterward, but it seemed secure enough. We both had driven the car with the hood like that without incident. It seemed that our luck had finally run out. Or had it?

The first response of most people we told about the accident was wide-eyed disbelief and horror. Yes, it was an awful and scary thing to happen, but on the other hand, by some stroke of luck (or divine intervention??) there were no cars ahead, behind or to the side of me on the Interstate, so I was able to pull over without hitting anyone else. What are the chances of that? Plus, the windshield cracked but it did not break. It could have shattered and thrown pieces of glass into my face. The hood could have flown off and caused a problem in the roadway. As it turned out, I was unharmed, and we did not even have to spend money on a tow truck. (The repairs to the car are another story). When I left the house, I was frustrated because I was running late and really needed to get to the office. How my priorities shifted in an instant. Things seem random sometimes, but maybe they are not. It made me stop and think about how fortunate I was in that moment and really most of the time. I can't really complain. Someone is watching over me.