Good to Know in Everyday Ramblings

Mrs. Sherlock is off today on what they call a “Hike and Dine”. This is where the Trails Club folks carpool up to Mt. Hood, park at the lodge or somewhere in a ski lot and hike together for about 6 miles and then all meet up where a volunteer group of cooks from the ranks are making a scrumptious dinner to serve to all the participants on these long beautiful handmade tables and benches.

These events are cheerful and fun and I did get invited.

They needed a headcount for the food by Wednesday and I hadn’t received my test results by then so I declined this particular weekend outing. I did get my final results yesterday. The cardiologist said carry on with what you are doing; we are managing this.

Clearly I made the right decision not to have the invasive procedure first.

I went ahead and made an appointment for 2 ½ weeks out with my Family Medicine doctor to talk about the drugs I am taking which make me groggy in the mornings (just ask the cats) and affect my digestion.

Basically I am on my own dealing with this and the work stress until then.

Sad as I am not to participate in the mountain hike I needed some down time and therefore I am not too disappointed it didn’t work out. And this next week has a holiday in it and I am taking my current electronic devices down to visit Kes and Most Honorable and hang out for the better part of the day.

It is fiscal year end tomorrow but in practice it was yesterday. Monday will be busy but in terms of volume yesterday was the most intense work day of the year.

I know this probably isn’t true but I feel like my teaching has become a little stale because of all the distractions and I want to ground into my practice and find some joy in it that I can then radiate back out to my students.

The meditation training is going well but I find I can’t just put all the stuff I choose to do to “juice” up the physical practices and keep them engaging aside while I am doing it and I thought I could. Good to know.

There is this whole deep “sea change” happening in English speaking countries about how yoga is being taught. So many of the older revered teachers, mostly female, are needing hip replacements and are suffering from major debilitating physical conditions from years and years of what we consider without really thinking about it as “traditional yoga”.

And then there is the political side of things all about diversity and inclusiveness and able-body-ness and the organization we all mostly belong to changed its standards of practice this last week.

There is a lot to consider here.

At least this is keeping my mind active and focused as I experience this creeping sense of dread about the current political situation both here and in many other places in the world.

Plus, you know, I need to clean out my closet.

At least I am not gaining weight but the majority of my clothes are just a bit too tight. I keep trying to make reasonable and well thought out food choices but the stress makes it challenging. I guess a prudent plan would be to try to hold the line on gaining any more weight for the next 52 weeks and believe that I will want to and will be able to make better choices when I am out of this toxic workplace environment.

I don’t really care other than in an imaginary thought experiment way but I do wonder how the four men at work that are in charge of my job and workflow will experience their middle 60’s.

Even if things do change and we finally get a female president, (we have a female governor now), my guess is that none of them will experience anything like what I am going through now.

One of my students told me after class yesterday that one of the older women that works in our department, who I knew was having the same issues about feeling valued and that her experience after many many years working had a heart attack. I don’t know when but I know she moved to a small town on the coast and is working remotely full time.

This is all grist and I hope I can turn this all into both a kind of activism and some sort of art project, poems or writing or watercolors or something.

In the meantime I’ll leave you with the beautiful white hydrangea blooming this week into our summer as we move towards Independence Day on many levels.

Last updated June 29, 2019