Carlo and the Mat Class Setup in Everyday Ramblings

The leaf blower, weed whacker guys usually come on Thursday mornings sometime between 9 and 10 AM. They come right under my windows and if I am recording a class Zoom will block out my voice to muffle the sound. I know this from experience.

So yesterday I started recording the weekly mat class at 5:30 AM. It is the most energetic class of the week. About halfway through I get this warning message saying that I was running out of space on my iPhone. It records at super high resolution which allows me to record in low light, like just before sunrise.

I decided to keep going thinking it was a warning so I was getting close and maybe I could sneak through. When I finished, I couldn’t find the recording so I thought it hadn’t saved and so I started to free up space. Just after I hit delete, I realized it had recorded but saved it in a different place. Poof! Gone.

Then it was time to teach my 8 AM class so that went fine. The weed whacker showed up early, but I was only teaching live and could work around it. It is way hot here. It is like high noon out there at 8 AM as everybody gets their outside stuff done early.

After that I have a lovely talk with Mrs. Sherlock whose mood improves each day, she sees healing progress with her broken arm.

I set everything back up and teach the mat class again. This time I get the warning at minute 46. I keep going. I end up with a recording of 46 minutes of an hour practice.

By this time, 3 classes in I am tired and hot, and I have a 3 PM dental appointment and it is close to 100 degrees, and the humidity is much higher than normal.

I stopped at the garden on the way down to the dental school to drop off my watering can and water the blueberry. By the time I get to the offices I am dripping with sweat.

It turns out the mesh packing had already come out on its own. That was easy. My Periodontist is a tenured professor, and he has been working on me for a number of years and sometimes he treats me more like a student than a patient. I kind of felt like I was being quizzed about the prior procedures and the next steps. It was all good natured and we got the date set for what I truly hope is the last of these surgeries. He is more concerned about my smile than I am at this point, but we are doing this work for health reasons not cosmetic. He took more pictures to show in class and I trekked back to the garden.

At least I was able to take off my mask.

When I got home it was a power company flex time and I unplugged everything and listened to podcasts and read the current mystery. More Maisie Dobbs.

I usually post the mat class midday of Friday. It continues to be incredibly hot. I went down to the garden again and got all sweaty once more after class this morning.

My new plot neighbor was there. She has a baby boy and a little girl who is maybe 4. Adorable. She was taking out snapdragons that were done and putting in herbs. She said hi and I introduced myself. She and her husband bought and fixed up a lovely Victorian built in 1890 a block away from me.

She is obsessed with the history of her house, (it is incredible and involves stolen jewels) and the history of the neighborhood. She knows a lot. But I was able to share some tidbits she didn’t know. If it wasn’t for the kids getting restless, there was pouting, we would have gossiped for at least another hour about people long gone.

We exchanged numbers and will schedule a time to dig in more. It was a fun connection, and she had a volunteer zucchini in her plot, her first, that she took home. She loves figs and I have a student that always has too many.

By the time I got home and did all the things there was no way I was teaching that mat class again.

Tomorrow I will go down to the garden just after sunrise and then come home and record it. If, on the outside chance, someone wants to practice with the missing recording between now and then I hope they email me so I can explain.

Otherwise I am putting a frozen washcloth on my head and going back to my book.

Last updated July 30, 2022