Yummy Yoga Week, part 1

Sunday, August 16 10:40pm

Whew! I am exhausted. Here’s a quick rundown of the last week:

Tuesday, August 11: Class at the Auburn studio and then an hour drive into West Roxbury to do advanced with Diane. Great group lunch and then return to Spencer with Sunny to get the B.E.S.T. body work I’ve ever had. Jim straightened out my neck. For years my head did not sit on my body right and he was able to get it straight. I seem to have better balance now and maybe some clearer thoughts….but time will tell. He also did some reiki on me and that was even better. His hands were at least six inches away from me but I could feel the heat coming off of them and I saw colors – LOTS of colors – peacock greens and blues mostly, but also warm summer yellow and robin’s egg blues. Wonder-full. He said all my charkas are wide open and I have lots of happy energy. That made me feel happy – big surprise there!

Wednesday, I taught a class for Sunny, but I had to pick up the popup from the RV repair shop first – got the tires replaced and the tail light repaired. Got lost on the way to the Auburn studio from the shop and was late – I HATE being late – so I taught a fairly good class, but it could have been better, if I wasn’t so rattled. Then I took Sam’s class and he was funny and energetic. Nice.

Thursday, had a meeting with my finance guys in Boston. I am with a fund that has an office in SF (in my dad’s old building) but is located here (in my mom’s city) and I wanted to meet with them to learn more and see what was going on with everything. Turns out American Idol was doing try outs in the building, so there were guys in black suits and ear pieces and freaked out kids all over the place. It was fairly surreal. Didn’t see Simon or any other judges, but they were there. It was a good meeting, once I got through all the melodramatic singers, but I was pissed when I had to pay $40 for parking. But on the other hand, my fund doesn’t pay any other visitors’ parking, so I guess that’s a good thing. Then I went to the airport and picked up Jodi Chmelwowski. That’s not how you spell her last name, but it’s close enough.  Jodi was one of the first people I met at training. She was with me in the youth hostel and she knew about as much of the dialogue as I did when we started. She is a rock star now though, and I was so happy to see her! We drove through Boston and got a really great tour of the city, but not on purpose. Despite the GPS function on the iPhone, we got completely lost and took about 3 hours to get to Diane’s place in West Roxbury. The iPhone said it would take 17 minutes. When we finally found our way, we got to stay in the “yoga house” that Diane has by her studio. It’s really cool. While Jodi took a class at the studio, Diane and I talked about everything – how training could be one day, the magical healing powers of the yoga, the evolution of the business (it’s all good), and life in general. Then Jodi returned and we had dinner and talked more about…..you guessed it….yoga.

Friday, got up early and went to the studio. Jodi taught the 7:30, which Diane and I took (along with a bunch of other “mature” folks), and then Diane taught the 9:30 and I took that one too. I’ve done plenty of doubles since training, but this was the first back-to-back double I’ve done since the infamous triple day with the afternoon double that landed me in the clinic at training. I gave that a few thoughts, but quickly brushed it out of my head and just did the class. Was pretty good I must say – didn’t sit out any poses except for one set of locust (I am no Melissa Sebastianelli). Then we got to sit in on a private that Diane taught and THEN I got to sit in on the feedback that Diane had for Jodi. It was so comprehensive, compassionately delivered, and is going to make a strong teacher a total rock star. I asked Jodi to send me her notes on what Diane said because I need to get all of those corrections. Diane has somewhere a list of common errors fairly new teachers make and she should publish them. Or at least share them with me. I’m fairly confident I make most of those mistakes.

THEN….we got cleaned up and left Diane to do her own thing. Jodi and I had lunch in an Italian restaurant around the corner from the studio and enjoyed a Mess of a meal. “The Mess” is a combination of lasagna, penne pasta and eggplant along with an added ingredient of your choice – Jodi had sausage, I had shrimp. DE-LICIOUS (but not as good as the lobster). Then after a tiramisu desert, we went in search of my mother’s childhood home in West Roxbury. Wasn’t too hard to find, considering how often we got lost. We went to the door and knocked and rang the bell, but even though the main door was open (and just the screen was closed) no one answered. So we took photos and looked at the back yard. It was a pretty house and I’m glad I got to see it. It is on a hill and the back yard slopes down quite a bit – which explains why we almost always lived in a house with a friggin hill.

Long drive home to Auburn with lots of Friday afternoon traffic. Then began the awesome yoga weekend. More on that later.

Sending love to all.