Sunday, March 16, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Yoga in park, across firehouse ... hello, fireman ;)
Today's TodayInSeven blog comment from me, going to start making tags for it from now on.
So yes, yoga at the park after work, as the sun slowly set, beautiful. Firemen cleaning fire engines in the caged yard behind the fire station across the street. Fireman looking, smiling, waving, me smiling back, waving. Cat asana hard to keep when eyes go against flow of movement and breath, need to focus more. But I felt that effervescence during and after the asanas again. Never got that from pilates, that feeling that even my mind has been re-aligned. And my body "remembers" them like old friends.
But seriously, I need to focus more, and be more consistent with yoga. Fell in an on-and-off pilates rut that left me stiff and unmotivated most of last year because my sister Angela wanted me to join her at her gym doing pilates to keep her motivated.
So I learned the hard way that yoga is the complete package compared to pilates, at least for me.
But in news from more happening blogs, SixtyMinuteArtist (Jerry Lebo, a.k.a. Painter Dad) had a case of Dengue (!!!) fever so that's why he wasn't blogging for a while. Read that and thought "wow," as I read that maybe 200 or so cases have been reported in the U.S. last year, if I recall correctly. So I'm not quite so jealous right now of frequent-fliers as I usually am. Matt Boyle still appears to be on tour, and Hobo Teacher soldiers on in Robber Baron High :)
Sweats to launder, shower, dinner can't wait, adios!
Today's TodayInSeven blog comment from me, going to start making tags for it from now on.
So yes, yoga at the park after work, as the sun slowly set, beautiful. Firemen cleaning fire engines in the caged yard behind the fire station across the street. Fireman looking, smiling, waving, me smiling back, waving. Cat asana hard to keep when eyes go against flow of movement and breath, need to focus more. But I felt that effervescence during and after the asanas again. Never got that from pilates, that feeling that even my mind has been re-aligned. And my body "remembers" them like old friends.
But seriously, I need to focus more, and be more consistent with yoga. Fell in an on-and-off pilates rut that left me stiff and unmotivated most of last year because my sister Angela wanted me to join her at her gym doing pilates to keep her motivated.
So I learned the hard way that yoga is the complete package compared to pilates, at least for me.
But in news from more happening blogs, SixtyMinuteArtist (Jerry Lebo, a.k.a. Painter Dad) had a case of Dengue (!!!) fever so that's why he wasn't blogging for a while. Read that and thought "wow," as I read that maybe 200 or so cases have been reported in the U.S. last year, if I recall correctly. So I'm not quite so jealous right now of frequent-fliers as I usually am. Matt Boyle still appears to be on tour, and Hobo Teacher soldiers on in Robber Baron High :)
Sweats to launder, shower, dinner can't wait, adios!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Blog Roll Quote of the Week
Dear Dude in the beaten up Chevy Malibu from Saturday:
When I am out for a walk, standing at an intersection while waiting for the light to change, please refrain from lowering your window, slowing down and making kissing noises at me as you turn the corner. As aroused as I get when a unwashed, possibly buzzed stranger kisses at me from his shitmobile as if he's summoning a dog, I am not going to jump into your sticky-looking passenger seat.
No, it would not have helped if you'd been driving a nicer car.
This Big Fat Blog Addictions link-adding has me truly laughing out loud every other click now. The excerpt above is from one of my favorites from way back, by one fabulous freakmagnet redhead. I myself am a habitual flirt, it seems to run in my family, but I want to stab the eyeballs out of freaks like this great blogger describes so perfectly. She also has great insights into flirting-do's, as well as insightful general social commentary.
... HOWEVER, in all fairness to the GUY-humor side of these issues, I humbly direct you to The Best Page in the Universe, by a guy named Maddox, blessed with harsh but razor-sharp and on-the-money wit. Enjoy!
When I am out for a walk, standing at an intersection while waiting for the light to change, please refrain from lowering your window, slowing down and making kissing noises at me as you turn the corner. As aroused as I get when a unwashed, possibly buzzed stranger kisses at me from his shitmobile as if he's summoning a dog, I am not going to jump into your sticky-looking passenger seat.
No, it would not have helped if you'd been driving a nicer car.
This Big Fat Blog Addictions link-adding has me truly laughing out loud every other click now. The excerpt above is from one of my favorites from way back, by one fabulous freakmagnet redhead. I myself am a habitual flirt, it seems to run in my family, but I want to stab the eyeballs out of freaks like this great blogger describes so perfectly. She also has great insights into flirting-do's, as well as insightful general social commentary.
... HOWEVER, in all fairness to the GUY-humor side of these issues, I humbly direct you to The Best Page in the Universe, by a guy named Maddox, blessed with harsh but razor-sharp and on-the-money wit. Enjoy!
YAY me :D
I finally got around to creating a Blog Roll linking to my major blog addictions, from the poetic to the profane. I still have quite a few on my blog feed, but am trying to limit it here to a well-rounded sampling of that huge mess I call my private "blogfaves" collection. My blog-reading habit inspired me to create my first Blogger blog when my last computer was on its last CPU-leg and I stashed all my favorite sites on that blog for safekeeping in case of a 'puter crash.
... Oh, and what about the parrot, you ask? Just a gratuitous pic of my mom's parrot, Oggy -- that's short for "Augustino." Dropped by mom's house in Desert Hot Springs last Saturday, petted him, and as usual he gave me a love-bite on my right hand with his can-opener beak. I broke out in hives up my forearm an hour later. So, I'm either allergic to Oggy now, or to Desert Hot Springs. I say Desert Hot Springs all the way -- if you've ever visited or lived in DHS, you'll understand why.
P.S.: Just came from Today: In Seven Words Or Less, and posted my day in seven words again; it's addictive! So from now on, whenever I post there, I'll post my "seven-word-day" entry here, too. This is what I shared over there tonight:
Time flies when babysitting lawyers: typical Tuesday.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Another fountain post ...
Besides my less-than-stellar photography skills, the "Rainbow Fountain" (it's official name is the Rainmaker, but locally known as the rainbow fountain or rainbow waterfall) above doesn't look as spectacular as it can because it is bone-dry, drained of water. I took this photo this afternoon, an 82-degree Fahrenheit, glorious, tourist-studded afternoon in downtown Palm Springs.The Rainmaker fountain is on the corner of Alejo Road and North Palm Canyon Drive. The concrete stairs lend a waterfall effect when water is running through the channel and from the pipes in the main well over them. And the pipes above are designed to be moved by the weight/water pressure like a fulcrum, or fulcrums. These pipes are the "rainbow," each of them painted in primary colors. It's a graceful swinging effect with water splashed just barely over the fountain's furthest concrete border.
Why would the city fathers and mothers see it fit to turn off the water on a glorious tourist-magnet day like this and deprive them of this site of a fountain the Chamber of Commerce touted repeatedly as a major artistic acquisition for the city? Well, there was this teeeeensy little issue about homeless men and women bathing in it and seeking relief from the often-scorching desert sun. The homeless which the city boosters try really, really hard to pretend don't exist.
Here's a couple of close-up shots:
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Dream Dog
I had the strangest vivid dream at the tail end of sleep Monday morning:
The first images I remember are of me standing outside a club or bar that was bursting its timbers with twenty-something prospective yuppies, and a heinous generic live rock band vibrating the glass windows that made up most of the building. I think I may have been talking to someone outside the club but don't remember what I was saying, and I seemed to be trying to get away from there because the whole scene irritated me. It was also broad daylight, and crisp-blue breezy outside. Oh, and the club-bar had a blue sign outside that said "Blau," apparently its name.
The next scene I recall is me walking along a playing field (soccer or track field, I think) and realizing that my mom was out in it kicking a ball and trying to get it across the goal-net as a couple of fellow senior citizens struggled to kick it away from her -- one gaunt, monk-looking guy to her left and a chunky Andy Rooney-looking character huffing and puffing to her right rear. I could see more oldsters running toward her. I waved my mom down, and she kicked the ball over the net like nothing, and came up to me looking annoyed and somehow signalled to me that she had to get back to the field so I better make it quick. I said something and she answered back (again, I don't recall the words we exchanged).
I felt kind of disappointed that my mom couldn't take a longer break to talk to me, but quickly walked on, toward an apartment building that matched the architecture of the club Blau. The architecture reminded me of some along Coronado/San Diego: White-washed wood and lots of huge glass panes. The day was also very breezy and almost crackling with energy as I breathed, kind of like the wind has been in reality around the desert the last couple of days. Anyway, the dream place had a near-beach feel to it, but not sure what town it was.
As I walked up the apartment building's worn landing steps, I was greeted by a cheerful, manic labrador-mix kind of medium-sized dog, its whip-like tail a wagging blur, and it leaped the few steps from where it stood at the landing to lick my hands a couple of steps down. I patted its head and rubbed its neck, as I marvelled at the strange velcro texture of its short-hair coat and deep, rust-red color.
My alarm clock woke me up right then, I scribbled in the journal I keep next to me in bed, and later at work googled "blau" and first thing that popped up was a chain of resorts in Majorca. Also that "blau" means not just "blue" in German but also in Catalan. Don't know if that symbolizes anything in my dream, but thought it was curious.
Anyway, hope to be back with a picture resembling the dog in my dream, because my MS Paint rendition of it did him no justice. And I think I could perhaps sketch him the good old-fashioned paper-and-pencil way, but I still haven't figured how to take a good pic of it to upload correctly to get in the right size up in here...yes, I'm technically impaired in so many ways :(
The first images I remember are of me standing outside a club or bar that was bursting its timbers with twenty-something prospective yuppies, and a heinous generic live rock band vibrating the glass windows that made up most of the building. I think I may have been talking to someone outside the club but don't remember what I was saying, and I seemed to be trying to get away from there because the whole scene irritated me. It was also broad daylight, and crisp-blue breezy outside. Oh, and the club-bar had a blue sign outside that said "Blau," apparently its name.
The next scene I recall is me walking along a playing field (soccer or track field, I think) and realizing that my mom was out in it kicking a ball and trying to get it across the goal-net as a couple of fellow senior citizens struggled to kick it away from her -- one gaunt, monk-looking guy to her left and a chunky Andy Rooney-looking character huffing and puffing to her right rear. I could see more oldsters running toward her. I waved my mom down, and she kicked the ball over the net like nothing, and came up to me looking annoyed and somehow signalled to me that she had to get back to the field so I better make it quick. I said something and she answered back (again, I don't recall the words we exchanged).
I felt kind of disappointed that my mom couldn't take a longer break to talk to me, but quickly walked on, toward an apartment building that matched the architecture of the club Blau. The architecture reminded me of some along Coronado/San Diego: White-washed wood and lots of huge glass panes. The day was also very breezy and almost crackling with energy as I breathed, kind of like the wind has been in reality around the desert the last couple of days. Anyway, the dream place had a near-beach feel to it, but not sure what town it was.
As I walked up the apartment building's worn landing steps, I was greeted by a cheerful, manic labrador-mix kind of medium-sized dog, its whip-like tail a wagging blur, and it leaped the few steps from where it stood at the landing to lick my hands a couple of steps down. I patted its head and rubbed its neck, as I marvelled at the strange velcro texture of its short-hair coat and deep, rust-red color.
My alarm clock woke me up right then, I scribbled in the journal I keep next to me in bed, and later at work googled "blau" and first thing that popped up was a chain of resorts in Majorca. Also that "blau" means not just "blue" in German but also in Catalan. Don't know if that symbolizes anything in my dream, but thought it was curious.
Anyway, hope to be back with a picture resembling the dog in my dream, because my MS Paint rendition of it did him no justice. And I think I could perhaps sketch him the good old-fashioned paper-and-pencil way, but I still haven't figured how to take a good pic of it to upload correctly to get in the right size up in here...yes, I'm technically impaired in so many ways :(
Update: The random Google images photo above is the closest to the dream dog I've found so far. The dream dog didn't look like pure Labrador as the one above appears to be. Dream Dog's tail was about the same length, but it was sleek and pointed. The big, floppy, happy tongue is exactly like Dream Dog's. And the coat is shaggy, not short like Dream Dog's, but it is almost as deep-red as Dream Dog's. And I guess I'm focusing on Dream Dog because he (seemed like a male dog) was so full of energy he radiated it into my hands, and that's why it was so hard to wake up and "lose" touch with him. Weird.
Update II: Just dusted off the dream dictionary I bought from Barnes & Noble clearance last year and looked up "dog" and these two interpretations/definitions strike a chord with me about this dream: "... if unknown [the dog] may signify the qualities of loyalty and unconditional love associated with dogs," and "A dog symbolizes the guardian of the underworld. In Egyptian mythology this is depicted by Anubis, the dog-headed god."
... But, I haven't found a reference to moms playing soccer or football yet.
Update II: Just dusted off the dream dictionary I bought from Barnes & Noble clearance last year and looked up "dog" and these two interpretations/definitions strike a chord with me about this dream: "... if unknown [the dog] may signify the qualities of loyalty and unconditional love associated with dogs," and "A dog symbolizes the guardian of the underworld. In Egyptian mythology this is depicted by Anubis, the dog-headed god."
... But, I haven't found a reference to moms playing soccer or football yet.
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