The apartment is now clean and I have decided to give Boo a break between the vacuum and the cello. Poor girl. She tolerates so much from me. I never get up when she wants me to and I am gone too long during the day. I know she isn’t pining away because when I do come home early I find her sleeping on my bed. She will look up at me with bleary eyes that seem to say “WTF are you doing home? You are interrupting my six hour nap in the sunspot!” Some people say they want to be a cat in their next life. I don’t think I would like to have to depend on someone else to feed me. I would probably claw my person to pieces if she chose to sleep late on a Sunday morning while I sat by an empty food bowl with my stomach grumbling. Maybe I would be better as a barn cat. Food is readily available and I could roam all I want.
We moved quickly from snow just two weeks ago to black fly season. I was out in the woods at a yoga center yesterday listening to Bhagavan Das give a wonderful workshop and I found myself being a buffet for a swarm of the little nasty critters. I am still itching in spots today. I would love to go to the driving range today and hit some golf balls but the idea of providing another meal for the little #$%#ers makes me want to just go for a good bike ride. At least while I am on my bicycle I can out run them.
The bike riding is going very well. I was having trouble with my hands falling asleep so I bought a pair of biking gloves. I never realized they were functional. I just thought that they were a piece of gear that bicyclists wore to say “hey, look how cool I am! I am different from you guys just pedaling for fun. I am serious.” Well, now I realize how important they are. They make a big difference. The next big purchase is a pair of bike shorts. Believe it or not, I need the extra padding and the compression on my legs. Rather than exposing the world to my ass in latex I will slip a pair of cotton shorts over them. There is only so much I am willing to do for the sport and I am afraid that all the citizens of Penacook, NH would be putting a petition together to stop me from pedaling my ass on the streets if they saw what must only resemble a Mac Truck tire on the seat of my bike. Seriously. I hope there is less of it by the end of the summer, but right now I need to protect myself and the public.
I am determined to be able to do the MS Bike Ride in August on the NH Seacoast as part of Team Jenny D. http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?px=9281745&pg=personal&fr_id=16865 Check it out and make a donation if you can. I am riding to support the MS Foundation and to be in solidarity with Jenny D, a coworker who was diagnosed with MS last fall. She is a real hard worker and does a lot for victims of domestic and sexual violence through her work as a public policy specialist at the coalition. She also is a pretty mean hip hop dancer ala the Fly Girls.
I also like to ride. Sometimes I worry about those guys who are pedaling along with their beer bellies hanging over their pants, their bike helmets unhooked, and a cigarette dangling from their lips. If they had been biking more and drinking less, they wouldn't HAVE to use a bike now and could enjoy it. It is so obvious that their bike riding has nothing to do with exercise or the environment. For a substance abuse counselor, I am being a little judgmental. I just wish they would lose the cigarette at least for the time they are on the bike. Those guys are a heart attack waiting to happen on wheels and maybe even in front of my car!
I am really enjoying yoga teacher training. That last weekend I went I was sick most of the time but I think all the yoga helped move the stomach virus on its less than merry way. The executive director of the coalition asked me to lead a yoga session after work with my co-workers on Thursdays and I have done that for two weeks. It is going well and I had a great time putting together my playlist. I have piano music by Dana Cunningham, cello music, and chants by Satnam Kaur mixed in with some Sting, John Lennon, and Janis Joplin. I think the playlist is almost as important as the yoga poses. And we also know that I will use any excuse to include Sting.
I was planning on taking it slow today. Slow for me means not rushing to go anywhere. That does not mean I didn’t do anything. I straightened out the clutter and gave the apartment a good once over. I don’t mind. I like cleaning the apartment. I don’t know if I like the process or the results, or both. I just know that I feel better for having moved around and getting everything back in some sort of order. Boo doesn’t care. She is in her litter box scattering litter all over the bathroom floor as I write this. I don’t think she really cares that I vacuumed her nap blankets or swept up the litter around her box. She is happy, though, that the windows are all open and a nice breeze is coming in. She can hear the birds and smell all the critters in the neighborhood. The apartment windows look out on a lot of trees so she spends hours staring at all the activity in the trees. She sees things I don’t.
It’s Mother’s Day. I used to chat with my mother on Sunday evenings. I still have Sunday evenings when I think about calling her and then I remember. I think she would be pleased with my life. She didn’t get to see me this settled and happy when she was alive. For all you Moms out there who are wondering if your kids will ever get it right – well, some of us take a little longer than others. Bless you!
