Be the change you want to see.

My Seester has a new person in her life. Said person took an 8+ hour road trip to come down and visit during a pandemic, and they needed a safe space to talk and visit while socially distanced.

Enter my Spouse, who adores both entertaining, AND my Seester (who introduced me to Spouse many years ago!)

We made a cozy space by separating part of the lounge to the other side of the porch, adding pillows for comfort. We joined them for a short while to chat. They ordered a sushi dinner delivered, and spousebeast and I ate roast beef and roast veggies and salad.

Spouse is a really good cook.

Seester's new person feels like a good sort, and hopefully I (or we'll) get acquainted better later.

More happinesses, more cozinesses.

This has some of the flavor of compersion and some of the "I'm just happy for you" of other friends.

Had just over half a workout yesterday. Traffic conditions conspired against me getting to the gym on time.

Tal still hella kicked my ass though, ow, my quads... Ow the tails of my pectorals.

Lots of assisted squats and rowing using the straps and handles that hang down from the frame.
One exercise she had me do after some inverted rowing was where you hang in the full arm extension position, body is straight, heels on the ground. Body's hanging at about 45° to the floor. Normally from here you row up. This time she had me walk one foot about 8" back so my knee was bent, engage that leg for support, and the "row" was to open your arms like wings. Like doing flies with weights, but the effort to raise your body is in the pulling your arms straight back at shoulders height. Wow that was interesting!

Squats included squat coming up to toes, and squat coming up to hop up, land smoothly and into another squat. That was interesting too! Rough to do the first few times til Tal pointed out where I was having difficulty. I think I can do those again, without a problem.

And then yesterday I spent time with Nicole talking costumes for Burning Man, and mid afternoon I pinged M and N to see if they'd like company for dinner. It worked out well for me. I got fun friendly company for dinner, and got to leave the house free for Jeff to have some quality time. :)

One neat thing I noticed during the dinner engagement, was after this frustrating parking lot thing (had to go back and forth to my car multiple times when the pay station turned its nose up to my credit card)... The neat thing was casually jogging back to my car. Because I could. And didn't care who was watching. Probably helps that I was still wearing my gym shoes and shorts and (ahem) an appropriately supportive undergarment... But I did it. Just for fun, and maybe to show off a little. :)
*boggle*

I was thinking on the way home that it'd be interesting to challenge myself on the treadmill at the gym... See if I could run, say, for three minutes straight. And how many intervals like that could I do? Three running, one walking. Could I do that? Seems fun to try!

So there WAS one not-cool thing about dinner last night but that has to do only with the food.
The food was delicious, don't get me wrong. However I failed in my choices as a newly minted diabetic. One rainbow roll, one deep fried oyster (thanks for sharing, N!), one spicy hamachi hand roll, two unagi nigiri, a bit of iceberg lettuce in that slightly sweet peanut sauce salad dressing, and green tea.
So the massive amounts of sushi rice included in that tally sent my blood sugar levels thru the roof, sort of. Two hours after eating my score was 241. That's TWICE my post-meal average.

Dammit. I do love sushi rice but it certainly doesn't love me. Pfui.
Time for New Choice when I go for sushi.

Last thing, to end on a high note: the final cool thing about my day was getting trapped, or rather "trapped" in the parking lot, because I found the situation delightful!

A batería, a Brazilian drum corps, was playing at the far end of the lot, past my car. And then M, N, and I notice there's samba dancers, dressed in feathers and fringe and heels, starting to get organized behind the batería. They wind up playing and marching slowly/dancing, circling the lot, for like fifteen minutes. I loved it.

I posted a couple of crappy photos on FB, and one old friend says, "you didn't join them? Why not?" Argh stupid Engraved Invitation Syndrome. Eh. But it looked like enough fun that I'm going to look up the dance group (Samba Conmigo) and see if they do lessons.

So yesterday was A Good Day.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

back to yoga class for the first time in many weeks.

 

I can do a few things now (what with working out with Tal) that I didn't use to be able for, and a few things I used to be able to do, I can't anymore. Not really surprised.

 

I do need Capri length yoga pants so I can see my feet and ankles, and these yoga pants go up my butt (grrr) so I think that I will retire them ASAP and pick up something different.

 

Stretching every morning: added to goals list.

Yesterday I went to fyrekaaat's 21st birthday party, and bailed on my usual Monday dance class at 5rhythms. (For the record, I really miss the dancing, but I don't get invited to such a special birthday party very often, so I made a tough choice.

I'm really proud of myself for hauling my butt to the gym in the late afternoon to make up for missing the dance class. And incidentally, because my joints have been HURTING. and I know that if I move intentionally, my muscles limber and stretch, stop hurting so bloody much, and my joints get relief also.
I'm lucky that way, as I have friends for whom this isn't true.

But I just wanted to brag a little about what I accomplished.
1) I spent a full 30 minutes on the machine-that-is-the-bastard-child-of-elliptical-and-exercisebike (I gotta find out what the hell to call that thing, because it is FUN). This is almost ten more minutes of cardio than I usually do. Had it set on level 1; I must admit that it wasn't uber challenging. I think that's okay, because my shoulders and neck and back have been so twingy that I wanted to be gentle and prolonged with the warm up.

2) I did a little bit of work on the weights, added some weight on a couple of machines (d'oh! just realized I completely skipped the adductors and abductors machines!) and helped some of the tight sore muscles to relax. Generally quite gentle with myself after almost 3 weeks away.

3) Found an open space off in a secluded corner with nobody in it, and yoga mats hanging. I love this spot. I did a variety of my yoga warmups until the remaining stiff muscles felt better, then did some of the wonderful stretches. My core muscles must be reasonably strong, because I can hold my legs up in the air firmly without any wobbles and without *thinking* about it. This is so much yay.

4) Finished off with rocking up into a shoulder stand again, and made the effort to try and straighten my legs and torso up more vertically... can't get there yet, but nothing hurt and I wasn't very wobbly, and this was A New Thing that made me chuckle with pleasure at my own body.

(and then Jeff and I went to the pub in Oakland with ag_unicorn and zpdiduda and fyrekaaat and her friends and tried some new kinds of beer. Nom nom nom Blood Orange Cider and Purple Haze, which is a raspberry-wheat-beer.)

A very good evening, well spent in good company.

Made it to the gym kind of late for me tonight... lots of, I guess you'd call it social interaction and/or networking and/or problemsolving happening around the late afternoon when I originally intended to go. Very quiet space in the evening after 7 pm.

only there for a brief visit, about 10 minutes on the ellipticals again, damn! that makes me pant like a dog who's been running on the beach. got my pulse up past 150, that's pretty rare, especially for only 10 minutes.

Light work on upper body on the nautilus-style weight machines, and light yoga work out in the foyer, still I was there almost an hour, and left the place in a much mellower and more centered frame of mind than when I went in. Working out is a good way of helping me manage my stress and mood, I'm glad I have the chance to get myself to such an attractive space. Since it's a beautiful place, it makes it more restful and appealing to actually go and move (and sweat).

Time to wash the workout clothes, methinks, and (le sad) the pretty new bright blue brushed cotton trousers I got on the recent shopping trip with runeshower. First time wearing them, and I think I got peanut butter all down the leg. Argh.

I'm also dead pleased to be 1/4 of the way through my 100 things posts. I was hoping that engaging in this posting endeavor would be of help in actually building a regular habit of exercise, and it seems to be doing so.

If you always do what you always did,
then you'll always get what you always got.

Yeah, today it's hard to get out of the house, but I've promised myself that I will go seek exercise pants and then spend at least 45 minutes at the gym, even if I am embarrassed about how long it's been since I went.

I'm no longer needing to have a Kleenex box next to me 24/7 (for which much YAY) and my joints are feeling creaky. Must move. Must needs schedule some gym time so I can start checking out the available classes at the gym: they have Zumba and Nia and Pilates and Yoga, and that is also full of Yay.

My friend Kim just posted a video to FB about a guy in NYC doing a "Dance-Walk" thing with his iPod. Such dorky fun... but shameless though I am I do not have *quite* that much shamelessness.

Okay, here I go.

[Poll #1774109]

TEN things of joy... Feeling ambitious.

1) Waving g'bye to GW. *waves*

2) Breaking spurious_logic's brain last night when I told him that on Sunday we replaced the last things that were stolen from us in the burglary... ( wait for it... )

3) Test driving one of the items from number two, just a little earlier today. Thinking about writing a review. Should I?

4) Warm kitty-lap. Also, kitties curled up on me as I'm falling asleep.

5) Realizing that I probably won't get a hard-copy newspaper for today but also realizing that I won't mind THAT terribly much; more paper in a pile is a Do Not Want, even if it has very cool pictures and articles, I can prolly find over 70% published online. (CC times and SF Chron.)

6) a date to go have someone poke holes in me and my "niece", accompanied by dinner. (yes, odd that I am, I'm looking forward to that.)

7) light weight-lifting alleviates a muscle cramp. I will most likely do more of that tonight.

8) long and intense conversations with a friend who is very perceptive and trying to figure out some of HER stuff too. Perspective on situations in MY life that are helpful.

9) Chocolate in the mail.

10) Saying "no thank you" to even very nice champagne (I wasn't sure if I'd been handed a glass of non-alcoholic so I didn't drink it) with only the slightest twinge. It may be a very long time till my next drink. At least there is much joy in the rest of my life, enough so it's hard for me to say that I miss the (often dubious) pleasures inherent in alcohol.

From my lecture notes, Nov. 14 "The Teacher as Artist"

"The goal of Waldorf Education is not primarily to teach a child how to make a living.

The child should be empowered to develop their whole BEING: to develop their capacities so they can go forward in their life to meet their future and succeed with creativity, courage, warm-hearted clear thinking, healthy forward-thinking, focused strong wills."

and

"Waldorf teachers have a simultaneous challenge to develop heart and spirit as well as mind at a comparable pace as conventional education techniques."