And I Saw a Golden Crowned Sparrow... in Everyday Ramblings

I took this on the morning of the 4th of July thinking, picnic table, holiday here in the United States, will post later but it didn’t happen. Still I love walking by this little pocket park and trail head above my place especially on a non business day when it is truly serene up there.

We had a heavy muggy gloom almost all day (there was a break in the cloud cover for maybe a half hour) and then it actually rained just enough to be mildly annoying as I was walking home from teaching.

I asked my students in advance if they wanted to have class on the holiday and I had three of them that said yes and one of those actually showed up. But not to worry because 8 other people did too! It was so cool. Both literally, because the studio is air-conditioned and figuratively because it was a lovely group of smart older women.

I don’t think any of us are under 60.

This last week I had a new challenge for core strength that when I first saw and tried it a few weeks ago I am like, umm, how the heck is he doing that??? The first time I taught it I couldn’t do it but I had two students who could. It involves sitting on the floor with your legs in front of you (knees bent) with your hands behind your head and rocking to the side and coming up to standing on your knees and then coming down and doing it on the other side.

I am certain Most Honorable is one of the few people I know that can do this because he can easily get up from the floor without using his hands.

The second class I taught it in, I actually figured out how to do it! And I had two of the nine students who were able to do it. When I taught it to the four younger more fit students on Friday they all could do it.

This is my idea of fun. It is great for core strength and who of us couldn’t use a little more of that? Plus because it is unusual it is really good for the brain. Anyway I was totally pumped that I figured out how to finesse the move.

My challenge this week was a migraine. I get them fairly often and I have medicine I take and things I do and usually it is only a couple of hours with the pain and other bleh stuff but this week, I am not sure, stress at work, mass quantities of pollen, the weather, some combination of factors that meant I had the stupid headache all week. Sometimes it was worse than others and when I went for my meds on Friday I realized I only had the one treatment left.

The news this week did not help (although Mr. Pruitt’s resignation cheered me up a bit).

I often think of the people that live in refugee camps, or detention centers or jails, or homeless encampments with migraines. And how lucky I am that I have something available that helps.

Grateful is not strong enough a word for how I feel about the drugs I am able to take. Anyway, by yesterday afternoon I was pretty miserable and so in the end I took a stronger pain killer and checked out for the evening.

This morning I was all discombobulated! I didn’t meditate, I forgot to throw a dog biscuit in my bag, I walked out of the house without recharging my Fitbit and had to turn around half way to the gym and come back to get my other one because we were mapping out a hike for Mrs. Sherlock and we use the GPS to finalize her route for the group.

On top of that I was grumpy because I didn’t have the time or the energy to lift weights or row and Mrs. Sherlock wanted to hike on trails that are usually really crowded and full of distracting dogs for Frida.

When we finally did get to the parking area (she picks me up at the gym in her car) we were lucky as someone pulled out to give us the last spot. The route she wanted to explore was not exactly clear in the guidebook and she was frazzled and distracted and Frida was a bundle of freshly shorn poodle energy. She is such a great dog; I just adore her.

So we confidently headed off in the wrong direction and while on this narrow wooded trail we kept getting passed by a long string of extremely healthy runners that were agitating the heck out of my inner pony. We eventually ran into the whole group chatting and having a water break before they all came back. We couldn’t walk side by side and Frida kept wrapping her long leash around the back of my legs…

You get the picture.

Eventually Mrs. Sherlock stopped a friendly couple hiking the other way and asked them about where we wanted to go and the fellow looked at his phone and told us we were heading in the right direction (after having back tracked a half mile) and I asked him what app he was looking at and he said Google Maps.

So when we ended up a while later in the bottom of a ravine next to a residential street, (I proceeded to download Google Maps to my phone and) we were finally able to locate ourselves in relation to the car. We ran Frida in a conveniently placed meadow and then hiked back. It was only 78 floors up. It was a sweaty slog. Sigh.

By the time we were heading back to my place all of our moods were better. We stopped at a drive by coffee place that has dog biscuits as treats. It is a beautiful mild summer day and both cats are sprawled out as long as they can be at my tired feet…

The migraine is gone. The work week is over.

Things are looking up.