Sock It to Me

For about a year I was plagued with the inability to purchase socks. For a time, my usual resource would be Amazon.com. I have since decided that they are the devil because of their decision to disallow funds filtered to Julian Assange (It's not a matter of whether he was right or not, I don't like a massive corporation deciding what causes I can donate to.).

I then turned to Target. No go again. They were among the first to contribute large quantites to the GOP once corporations were deemed people (again, it's not a matter of who the money went to, it's that the donations themselves are morally reprehensible). Target also allows their pharmasists to deny birth control to patrons which is especially disturbing knowing that they have locations in rural communities where they may be the only source for contraceptives.

Again and again my attempts to buy socks were thwarted by moral dilemmas. Finally, after months of darning the thread-bare upper-foot covers (the bottoms had long since deteriorated) JC Penny featured ads with Ellen DeGeneres.

When controversy arose in the form of a botched FaceBook protest, (the "Million Moms" page who's group comprised a couple folks paid for by religious groups) they followed their stellar first act with a not-so-subtle answer of Father's Day ads with two dads! While the LGBT community was hailing JC Penny for not backing down, I was rushing to my computer to order armloads of socks.

When my mailbox finally contained the blessed pairs of foot-warmth I had so been yearning for, I was overjoyed! I ripped open the bag and slipped on a new pair, not even bothering to wash the socks.

The next few minutes were very happy. My feet were cushioned, clean and fully covered! Over the course of the next few hours, however, I discovered that all was not well. It seems that the holes in my socks, generally located at the heel and ball of my foot, gave me a lot of traction. I could easily run accross my slick wood floors when the teapot whistled or when the telephone I had left on the counter needed answering. Now, I slipped pathetically and had to shuffle my feet when attempting to run. This gave me the quick but tiny steps of a cartoon geisha. My feet were moving very quickly, but the steps were so tiny I might have well been walking.

And that, my dear readers, is why I sit here with three of my toes slowly being drained of blood because they have poked out of their holes again and are being strangled by the few threads still holding the sock in one piece while a drawer full of brand-new socks sits in the bedroom.

We two shall never be parted...or three. Whatever.

Awww, Camping!

The Boy and I went on a canoe camping trip last weekend. When I tell people this, without exception, they squeal, "Camping? How romantic!" I wonder what experiences these people must have had to make them so delusional.

Living in the city, I find it reasonable to assume that these people have only seen camping through the eyes of Hollywood, where people wake-up with perfectly separated, full lashes and hair perpetually under the influence of a light breeze. It's best to assume this is the case because the other possibilities are that A) They are insane B) I have been camping wrong.

 Canoeing Offers Numerous Bonding Opportunities with The Boy

In my experience, camping is less a romantic getaway and more preparation for apocalyptic survival. All luxuries that mask your loved one's body odor have been removed. Simultaneously, so has the shower that would ensure a quick-fix. Lovingly prepared meals ("Honey, I know you love your empty starches so I added a potato to your meal!") have been replaced with... um... whatever you can heat on a stick with an open flame. And may the gods help your relationship if you neglected to bring pre-cooked foods; nothing smashes 'the illusion' like the trips to the woods. 

Do you think you will be different, you can sneak off under the guise of 'looking for kindling'? No, you can't. Nature will call after your second beer in the canoe. You will have to ask to pull over to the shore. Then you will have to dig through your waterproofed gear to find the roll of toilet paper. That's a sexy moment for you. Try wiggling your butt as you walk up-shore to find a tree just out of your lover's sight to squat behind, you know, to accentuate the mood.

And for all of you saying, "But sleeping under the stars is sooooo picturesque!" Yes, it is beautiful. It is also cold and uncomfortable. Do any of you women have hips? You know how your mattress allows those hips to sink down so your spine stays in-line? The forest floor doesn't do that. If your figure is anything like mine your side-sleeping spine takes the shape of a hockey-stick. That "L" crook will hurt like the dickens in the morning, but you're so cold that you don't care. When the sun stopped kissing your skin, or gnawing on it if you forgot to re-apply sunscreen, it left in its wake cold that could harden the nips on a polar bear. 

Sunscreen poses another sexiness-dilemma. Applying it liberally, and often, will leave you sticky, smelly and give you zits. Not applying it leaves you red and swollen with bits of skin that peel off you in pale phillo-dough-like layers. 

If you are contemplating your first camping trip with your loved one, let me tell you something that is equally relevant to a potential threesome or a potential camping trip, "You have to be REALLY comfortable with your partner before trying it out." 

The best reason to go camping with your partner clearly isn't the romance. It is the comfort you get knowing that you can depend on each other. You both survived the trip without attacking the other person with an oar (hopefully). The day after camping you can both truly appreciate the little things, like order-in sushi, and let the things that don't matter go, like walking in on the other person peeing. At least this time he was peeing in a designated area.

Staggering Beauty

One shouldn't remake a movie or song unless you feel you can add something to it with your own artistic voice. I can't possibly do a better job than the following article so I won't try:

Reddit Shaming Turns Beautiful

Move Over, Angelina. The Most Beautiful Woman in the World Has a Beard.

I can only hope to someday be as beautiful as this woman. I believe religion is dubious at best but sometimes, out of the pretense, indoctrination and partisanship, a flower so rare and beautiful blooms that you feel disingenuous faulting the soil.

The only shortcoming I see with the Jezebel recap is glossing over the bravery of the original poster. Frankly, the title, "douchebag" doesn't fit this guy. It takes real guts to apologize like he did; not just a token, but a genuine admission of wrongdoing to all the communities and individuals effected by his comment. Bravo, douche, bravo.

A Fine Display of Geekery

I would like to share my (flat-fingered, I know, I am working on that) geek-crane.

Similar to the standard-crane, geek-crane supplements the usual deep-breathing meditation with images of ewoks and wookiees.

Whenever I do crane I see myself as a Millennium Falcon. PEW! PEW!

Lightly Sacrilegious

A shout out to all my Jewish yogis:

If yoga had brought me out of the house and not shown me exercise - Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If yoga had shown me exercise and not strengthened all the muscles - Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If yoga had strengthened my muscles and not my mind - Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If yoga had strengthened my mind and not eased my eczema - Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If yoga had eased my eczema and not unburdened me of athsma - Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If yoga had unburdened me of athsma and not given me more self-confidence - Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If yoga had given me more self-confidence and not humbled me - Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If yoga had humbled me and not given me coping mechanisms for stress - Dayenu, it would have been enough!
If yoga had given me coping mechanisms and not shown me the way to find peace of mind - Dayenu, it would have been enough!

The way I was taught Judaism was to question everything* and, as illustrated above, to be grateful for everything. Many of us are atheist Jews in my family and I see nothing contradictory in this.

Growing up I loved singing Dayenu (the psalm that has been Weird Al Yankovic'ed above) loudly and off-key with my family. Dayenu has similar meaning to hallelujah. The song goes through all the wonderful miracles bestowed upon the Jews in their flight from Egypt citing that G*d could have done only one thing and it would have been a miracle but he kept going.

We were the proverbial weary traveler and G*d was the gracious hostess throwing piles of shrimp, oh wait, that's not really going with the Jewish theme now is it, um... latkes at us. Latkes really aren't as lavish as what I'm trying to get across here but you get the idea.

The moral of the story is that when a hostess gives you a latke, don't get all, "Where's my gefilte fish?" on her, be thankful for the latke and for the fork.

Although, honestly, you should never ask for gefilte fish. Just on principal.

There are a million things my yoga practice has given to me and I would have kept up with it had it only given me an arm muscle or two.  Had I received even the smallest bit of good, it would have been enough, yet look at how much has been piled on! Dayenu!

* Passover is the major holiday in our family. The service teaches you how to answer questions because questioning is important. My sister even put an orange on the sedar plate one year. When we asked "Why on earth is there an orange on our sedar plate?" she responded, "Why not, the service does not tell us not to put an orange on the plate. We should also question what is not in the service and why not." The idea being that a bunch of men wrote this stuff down and they might have been a wee skewed in their judgement of women. You know, a just smidge *massive eye-roll*.

More Energizing Than Half-Tortise

Training has begun again for a small group of yogis at my studio. With the new year came a boat-load of new additions to last year's routine. While I approve of all of the changes (not that it would matter if I didn't) they do make for a noticeably longer training session. Last year, we struggled through 40 back-bends in a row. We would approach those backbends with the nervous anticipation that marks the high-point in any routine -- be it camel pose, the 3pm push at work, or that one point running up-hill that always makes your legs ache. 

This year, the backbends are sliced to bits and sandwiched neatly between handstand push-ups. For me, the push-ups are fun, making the backbends less tedious. For more bendy, less muscular folks, I am sure it is the opposite. Either way, most of us get a nice sandwich out of the deal, the bread being the delivery system one puts up with in order to obtain the delicious peanut butter and jelly middle. MMMmm. Just a moment. ....

*wipes crumbs off face* This new format, while containing delicious proverbial peanut butter, also has a plethora of bread to wade through. This section gets long. And tedious. I have not actually checked, but if I were to estimate the time, my guess is about 8 hours for this section of the routine (I am pretty sure time and space bends in that room). At the four hour mark* things can get a little loopy. No amount of counting backbends in fun languages (last week included counting like The Count from Sesame Street and Pig-Latin) staves off the desire for a looong water break. 

Fortunately, the exact point where we all lost hope last week coincided with the ipod's random choice of George Michael. I don't know about you, but for me, the nostalgia factor of George Michael is high. Combine it with the also high cheese-factor and you have a winning combination for a few "I don't give a football if you are watching" dance moves from yours truly. 

Sweat-Slingin' Dance Par-tay!

I can not dance. At all. I do not care. My completely soaked-in-sweat tiny yoga shorts were swinging in a rhythm that was as close to the beat as I can pull off. 

A few chuckles from the rest of the crew later, possibly some inspiration that nobody was going to look sillier than I did, and we were all gyrating in our sweaty glory to "Faith." 3 minutes and 16 seconds later we hopped right back to it and crawled down the wall for our final two rounds of backbends. I have now incorporated the dance-party into my training sessions and, like yoga, they defy logic for energy creation. 

I highly advice impromptu dance-parties when you need a little energy. If you feel gross, are highly un-coordinated, unmotivated, and covered in your own diaphoresis, all the better. 3:30 push at work? Mid-hill on a long jog? Stop, plug in some C&C Music Factory-style guilty pleasure and bust-a-move.

* Times may not be accurate

Adult Beverages Lose Their Status Near My Mouth

As I am thirstily drinking my water, tipping the glass so far up that two streams form at the corners of my mouth, rushing down my chin and forming dark spots on my t-shirt, it occurs to me that I should stop drinking my water like this because a considerable portion of the precisely-measured supplement I just added to said water is not making it into my mouth. Reason number 3,487 that I am not yet an adult. 

I'm not really all that thirsty, just that sloppy.