Stuff #1

*Yes, this is a REAL headline. Not from the Centralian Advocate but from the NT News last year. No wonder no one takes the Northern Territory seriously!

This: Why do my parents leave ‘urgent’ messages on my answering machine about things that other families would treat as news? Is it because they’re retired, don’t really have any hobbies and need to create DRAMA and INTEREST in their lives? It freaks me out to get home from work or yoga and there’s three messages on my phone. When I call them up, they’re super calm, just wanting to tell me some very old, very ill distant rellie that I haven’t seen in 20 years has passed on. What am I supposed to do about it? Bring back the dead?

And This: I don’t get scrapbooking. I just don’t get it. On one hand, it looks as though it was invented by some really cheesy American Moms, who 15 years ago, were into patchwork, then were into folk art, and then into stamping and now they’re into scrapbooking. The clutter and mess created by scrapbooking leaves me gasping for air – and that’s just looking at the blogs of these people. There’s  a whole consumer industry of little paper and card doo-dads, just waiting to spend the hard earned $$ of these ladies and clutter up their already cluttered homes.

Whatever happened to just cutting out pictures and sticking them in a REAL scrapbook?

And This: The shoulderstand (salamba sarvangasana) is my nemesis. I am not friends with this pose. Here is a scene from my Iyengar class last night:

Amanda: (thinking to herself) oh… I might try salamba sarvangasana with 3 blankets tonight.

Sets up pose. Goes back into Halasana. Then … can’t raise my legs. I feel like a dork. Worse,  I feel like a DUCK!

Iyengar Teacher: You need to press the weight into your elbows.

Amanda: I can’t. I think the three blankets have tilted me too far forward.

Iyengar teacher gets wedge and puts it under elbows. Tells me to press down. I go up into salamba sarvangasana.

Iyengar Teacher: Lift up through here a little more (the mid spine), press your shoulders down and broaden your collarbones. She moves on to help someone else.

Amanda: Promptly gets muscle cramp beneath right shoulder blade. Mind freaks out: this hurts. I hate the strap around my elbows. I don’t have control and I’m going to hurt my neck and end up in a wheelchair.

I wimp out because the cramp can’t be ignored and have to release the strap, go down into Vipariti karani and then into the shoulderstand prep with my feet against the wall.

At the end of the class, I resolve to totally deconstruct this pose. What’s wrong with me, that, after 10 years of yoga, I still can’t effortlessly do a shoulderstand?

Parivritta bakasana – no worries! But shoulderstand… next please!

And also this: I discovered just yesterday that as I’m now P3 level in the NT public service, I no longer get time in lieu when I do bushwork on the weekends. Wahhh!!!!

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