liveonearth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
liveonearth) wrote2007-06-19 08:43 pm
liveonearth) wrote2007-06-19 08:43 pm
The Cat Chronicles
Shakti just bit me. I finally got a good feel of her left hind foot, and though she is walking on it, she did not like my checking it out. There is the scabby lump over the puncture wound, but there is also a lump in the bottom of her foot. I couldn't tell if it was a broken bone or just swollen tissue. It was pretty hard. She stopped me from feeling it with a warning bite--didn't break the skin, but she could have. She got her message across.
This morning, soon as she went outside, she caught another bird. I went outside to water the plants and saw her tormenting it to death. I closed my apartment door to keep her from bringing it inside. When I went out to go to work I stepped on it. She had brought it to my doormat, as an offering. I tossed it back in her hideout where she likes to eat the birds. No wonder she doesn't eat much cat food.
At work I was able to work through everything that was on my calendar, answer all email and check all the upcoming stuff by about 2pm, even with going out to lunch with a friend. I got fairly bored with surfing the web, and left for home a few minutes before 5. I had a dinner date with another friend, and finally got some sushi. Yes, I will still eat sushi in spite of what I just learned about imported fish from China. Always have been a risk taker.
It was only after the sushi that I began to feel normal again. I have felt kind of weird ever since last night's yoga class. Al taught a very different class from his normal one. First of all, he had not practiced on Monday. He said that it was the first Monday in something like 4 years that he had not practiced. I could tell a difference in him. He was less grounded, and less blissed out. But the yoga that he had in store for us was ... different.
He told us up front that it was going to be difficult, and that if we practiced those poses, they would be transformative for us. The practice involved a lot of forward bending, both standing and seated, and a lot of hip openers. There was one hand balance which involved....let me see.....bring your right foot forward into a lunge, back leg straight and whole foot on the floor, then insert your right shoulder under your right thigh, put your right hand on the ground, put your left hand over your right foot, then pick up your right foot. All your weight is on your right hand and your left foot. Your right thigh is outside your right upper arm. Once you have your right foot off the ground, straighten your right leg and gradually turn your body toward the sky. I came closer than ever before.....fell out of the pose on both sides, but I am beginning to feel it....the nerve connections are forming....it is one that I will begin to practice. I don't know what to call it, but it is difficult. We also did the dead bug, and lots of variations and movements to and from the dead bug asana, and by the time I was done my inner thights were burning. And my mental status was.....altered. I was introspective and calm, too calm really--sedated. I slept like the dead. Woke up still that way. Felt kind of that way until now.......it's as if I'm waking up, even though I've been up all day.
The kitten is gone out again now. She is usually out when I retire for the evening, and comes in some time in the night. She sleeps on one of my chairs, and in the morning she moves to the bed and cuddles with me. I think she is good for me. I need some love, and if there are no loving people in my life, her version of love helps a lot. Simple animal bonding. We're pals.
I am working on how I can take her to Portland with me. I am planning on it. I will board her in a kennel somewhere for the week or two that I stay in the hostel, looking for my home. I will use a small Uhaul trailer to transport my desk and other items, so I can keep the truck bed open enough to sleep in for the journey.
This morning, soon as she went outside, she caught another bird. I went outside to water the plants and saw her tormenting it to death. I closed my apartment door to keep her from bringing it inside. When I went out to go to work I stepped on it. She had brought it to my doormat, as an offering. I tossed it back in her hideout where she likes to eat the birds. No wonder she doesn't eat much cat food.
At work I was able to work through everything that was on my calendar, answer all email and check all the upcoming stuff by about 2pm, even with going out to lunch with a friend. I got fairly bored with surfing the web, and left for home a few minutes before 5. I had a dinner date with another friend, and finally got some sushi. Yes, I will still eat sushi in spite of what I just learned about imported fish from China. Always have been a risk taker.
It was only after the sushi that I began to feel normal again. I have felt kind of weird ever since last night's yoga class. Al taught a very different class from his normal one. First of all, he had not practiced on Monday. He said that it was the first Monday in something like 4 years that he had not practiced. I could tell a difference in him. He was less grounded, and less blissed out. But the yoga that he had in store for us was ... different.
He told us up front that it was going to be difficult, and that if we practiced those poses, they would be transformative for us. The practice involved a lot of forward bending, both standing and seated, and a lot of hip openers. There was one hand balance which involved....let me see.....bring your right foot forward into a lunge, back leg straight and whole foot on the floor, then insert your right shoulder under your right thigh, put your right hand on the ground, put your left hand over your right foot, then pick up your right foot. All your weight is on your right hand and your left foot. Your right thigh is outside your right upper arm. Once you have your right foot off the ground, straighten your right leg and gradually turn your body toward the sky. I came closer than ever before.....fell out of the pose on both sides, but I am beginning to feel it....the nerve connections are forming....it is one that I will begin to practice. I don't know what to call it, but it is difficult. We also did the dead bug, and lots of variations and movements to and from the dead bug asana, and by the time I was done my inner thights were burning. And my mental status was.....altered. I was introspective and calm, too calm really--sedated. I slept like the dead. Woke up still that way. Felt kind of that way until now.......it's as if I'm waking up, even though I've been up all day.
The kitten is gone out again now. She is usually out when I retire for the evening, and comes in some time in the night. She sleeps on one of my chairs, and in the morning she moves to the bed and cuddles with me. I think she is good for me. I need some love, and if there are no loving people in my life, her version of love helps a lot. Simple animal bonding. We're pals.
I am working on how I can take her to Portland with me. I am planning on it. I will board her in a kennel somewhere for the week or two that I stay in the hostel, looking for my home. I will use a small Uhaul trailer to transport my desk and other items, so I can keep the truck bed open enough to sleep in for the journey.
no subject
For the one semester I did yoga, I felt sedated after almost every class. That is one reason I choose not to do it now. It makes me too mellow. I don't want to do anything afterwards but relax.
I wouldn't worry too much about the sushi at the sushi place. I doubt much, if any of it, is farmed, except the salmon, which I suspect to be farmed because the flesh is so soft. Might be worth asking them, who knows.
I am off to California! Back on LJ tonite.
no subject
...on yoga:
I think that beginner level yoga classes are often sedative because forward bends have that effect, and most beginners have very tight hamstrings. The teachers work hard to get your hamstrings started lengthening because so many of the asanas depend on that.
Backbends are stimulating, energizing, not sedating. And it takes a while to begin to be able to do them.
Yoga is a long term study....it has taken me years to begin to realize the benefits. I disliked yoga for the first 10 or so years that I tried it. For an assortment of reasons, that all had to do with myself.
no subject