Category: Holidays

With Much Gratitude

This was the first time in a couple of years that I wasn’t participating in an annual tango festival over the Thanksgiving holiday. Instead, I celebrated Thanksgiving four times with different groups of people.

The first was a monthly poetry potluck that occurs every third Saturday at a private residence in Dripping Springs. This was only the second time I’d attended and I’d even brought along another poet who had read his powerful piece about a life-altering accident at The Austin Writers Roulette just the previous Sunday. Of course, my favorite part of the evening has consistently been where we all sit around a large round table in the kitchen and enjoy each other’s food and enlightening conversation. What a perfect antidote to all the money-greedy logic that swirls around us on a daily basis.

The second Thanksgiving celebration occured on Monday at the studio where I train capoeira. Instead of having an actual training class, we had a berimbau workshop, where all of us capoeiristas sat in chairs in a circle (roda) and played the different rhythms (tocas) that our teacher led us through. Although I’ve been taking capoeira music classes for nearly a year, I could never distinguish one from the other. Yet, when our teacher wrote out the berimbau tablature on a white board, that made the music more tangible for me. I’m sure my understanding would greatly increase if I actually bought a berimbau and practiced at home. Yet, I don’t need one more instrument to add to my graveyard of untouched musical instruments.  I still keep my guitar in its case and my practice drum kit in its box with the promise that “one day” I’ll have time in my busy schedule to take classes again, which will motivate me to start playing again.

After an hour of playing, we capoeiristas slowly drifted away from the berimbau roda and toward the ever-growing food table, especially when our contramestre arrived with all the food he’d ordered, mostly red meats, beans, rice, but there was a curious absence of turkey…not that I am complaining!

Tuesday, my school hosted a pie contest, where the teaching staff and faculty were all invited to bring a sweet or savory pie.  Two lucky male teachers were recruited to be the judges, a job both foolishly thought was wonderful in the beginning.  Once they got to the tenth pie, they looked ready to vomit. Up until I suggested it, they didn’t even have a bottle of water to help them wash down the samples in between pies.  My pie didn’t win, but I enjoyed the brief camaraderie, which was sweet and fleeting like the best-tasting pie on one’s palate.

The fourth and final Thanksgiving occurred on the actual day. A fellow capoeirista who’s mostly been out of the country on a photography assignment breezed back to the States a few months ago and landed at a beautiful house out in “the country.” I’d love to make friends like he has with beautiful homes where I could just crash for a few months at a time while I worked on my art.

At any rate, the dinner guests were mostly capoeirista orphans along with some of the host’s other friends. One humorous trend among our capoeiristas is the fact that so many of them play chess and whenever we get together, an unofficial chess tournament breaks out. They talk far more crap than one normally hears during a capoeira roda! For some reason, I have never remembered to bring my go board, which is a strategically more challenging game than chess, but I think what I like the most about it is that every piece has equal value; it’s the strategy behind the moves that causes one piece to be pivotal to the overall winning of the game or not.

Nonetheless, my mind was focused on bringing wine, a bottle opener, my unique-looking wine glass, homemade cornbread and the corda I’d been working on.  The latter was an incomplete project that I’d started during a corda-making workshop three weeks ago. Every capoeirista wears a corda to show their skill level. Although some groups just use a rope, which is dyed as the player advances skill levels, in our group, we braid the cordas.  I almost have the skill, but at least I had my own entertainment in the beginning  of the evening when the host and contramestre played chess and I had no one else to talk to; so I braided.

I enjoyed the different social groups and mixes of food. It’s wonderful that the focus of Thanksgiving is now celebrated with a coming together of “family” and the food is the star. I’m such a foodie and Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday, after Halloween, where everyone puts their best dish forward…then feel guilty about how much they’ve eaten afterwards!

I managed to avoid that guilt since I didn’t gain a single pound. I didn’t overeat even though I sampled all the food I cared to eat.  I stuck to my bikram yoga routine, which helped process and burn off the food. Plus, I made it to my regular Saturday morning capoeira class during which contramestre nearly trained some of us to the point of vomiting!

In addition to eating and exercising, I avoided the Black Friday shopping frenzy by making my own holiday cards.  This is the second time in a row that I’ve done this and I’m so pleased that I’m getting better at my card-making skills.  As a matter of fact, I was less motivated to cut up most of the paintings on my walls since I’ve also become a much better painter.

Since I’m still “allergic” to Facebook, this is about the only way that people who I hardly ever communicate with will get any word from me. And boy, what words they are getting from me!  I wrote out about half of my greeting cards during a tripy open mic and the rest, I’ll write out on location at a 24-hour internet cafe. When I spoke to my mother this morning about what I intended to do later this afternoon, she confessed, like so many apathetic people who I’ve heard from, that she’s cutting back her Christmas card sending.  She’s only going to send to immediate family and those who send her a Christmas card early in the card-sending season.

It’s ironic that she feels this way since she usually attends church.  I, on the other hand, hardly ever attend church, but I read the Bible every day and pray every night.  I just feel that the only gift I’m going to send some people will be my handmade greeting cards, which is a dying art and also one of many of my creative pursuits. When I reflect on what the purpose of my life is and how I spend my limited days on this planet, I know for sure that I’m not wasting my time using my talents pursuing happiness and sharing my art.

Black Angel Halloween

For this month’s Austin Writers Roulette, I dressed up as the Angel of Redemption, which worked because I introduced myself as such and then read my short story, “Renouncing the Devil.” Yet, when I put on the same costume yesterday to celebrate Halloween, my favorite holiday, I just told people that I was a death angel. Short sweet and no further explanation necessary…of course no one guessed that.  Instead I was asked if I’d dressed as Lady Gaga or Nicki Minaj.

My first stop was at a friend’s apartment where many of us started our night.  A group of them got together to be dress like lucha libre characters. Another was a power ranger and I was amazed to see the flamboyance of the Mad Hatter. That got me into the Halloween spirit.

Unfortunately, none of my friends from that party were going to the Zombie Ball with me. One of the days, I’m going to convince at least one other person to attend. Nonetheless, this being Austin, I was immersed into a friendly, creative crowd of Halloween revelers who enthusiastically posed, sometimes for multiple shots, given my shitty camera.

I had a great time dancing and watching groups of people strut their stuff down the red carpet to have their picture taken.  I conveniently stopped them to take their picture as well. Some costumes were cleverly from the neck up like the fish head couple,  but others were far more elaborate such as the samurai and geisha couple. The scariest couple was the zombie prisoner and a woman who just looked like voodoo incarnate. 

When I finally went inside, a pole dancer was in the middle of her routine. Unlike last year, this performer entertainer wowed the crowd with her skills without taking her clothes off. At the risk of sounding prudish, I think it’s sexier to leave something to the imagination…

Unless you’re a burlesque performer! Those ladies cleverly worked in the big reveal after three or so minutes of singing, dancing and teasing the crowd. What was so refreshing was the confidence the women had strutting their stuff without a care in the world–or plastic surgery.

Then a three-member troupe of circus performers contorted their bodies, danced with twirling lights and hula hoops.

Around midnight, the costume contest commenced. The female winner was a skeleton showgirl and the male winner was a zombie, but he won not just for how well he did his make up, but he had the most impressive zombie walk, truly adding another layer to the whole costume.

In between pole dancing, aerial dancing, costume contest and burlesque, a couple of bands played.  The first one I wasn’t too impressed with and went back out to the red carpet to oooh and aaah over the costumes, but the second band was edgy and threw in jazzy tunes and quick syncopated rap. The last band of the night were from Brooklyn and had lots of percussion. I listened to about half of their set before my age caught up with me, dreaming about what I want to be next year.

Staycation 2012

The one adult thing I had planned to do during this spring break was file my taxes. The rest of the time, I’d indulge my creative passions: writing, dancing, painting, training capoeira,  swimming and doing yoga. The last three things may not seem like artistic pursuits, but without the stress from the daily workplace grind, I found myself exploring different boundaries within the exercise disciplines, from slightly altering the way I kick when doing the butterfly stroke to modifying my grip when I’m practicing bikram yoga. Somehow, like magic, my capoeira capabilities change as both my strength and flexibility improves with the other two disciplines.

I worked on my taxes a little Monday through Friday, with the final blitz of “getting her done” on Friday.  I’m glad I took my time since this was my first time to file taxes on my own as a small business owner rather than returning to a professional tax preparer. I learned so many things, including that, by sheer luck, I’m using the “correct” credit card for my business expenses. I learned on Tuesday that my business credit card provides me with a year-end summary, breaking down my expenses into different categories and organizing the information into several graphic styles. That just pleased my little Virgo heart to no end!

I made four birthday cards for the family members who were born in April. I still need to create more to get better at card-making, but at least I got them all completed and mailed off while still on vacation. I had the brilliant idea to make all the birthday cards for my family and mail them out in January…that way they can open them on their actual birthday and I could cross that off my list in one fell swoop.  One of my sisters laughed at me, but I’m seriously thinking about doing that for 2013.

I completed 1 1/2 mini paintings.  I can already tell that both of them will eventually be cut up further and in some shape or form help decorate a future greeting card. I’m not saying they’re ugly, but cutting out the flaws really helped my last batch of paintings.

I trained capoeira on my normal days, but at least I had more energy for it. I’ve even been practicing a traditional Brazilian dance called afoxe.  It derives from a Yoruba religious practice,, which in turn became candomble in Brazil, but we’re dancing a secular version. As a matter of fact, I’ve found myself in the surprising role of choreographer, or should I say “dance modifier”?  I simply modified funga, which is a West African welcoming dance. I’m impressed that I still remember the sequence.  I’m so happy that of all the things I’ve learned and have forgotten, I still remember that one dance, which was the first West African choreography I’d learned.

This is all in an effort to help out the fundraiser that we’re hosting at the Capoeira Evolucao studio next Saturday. In addition to dancing, I’ll have Tribe of One available since my capoeira teacher is allowing me to sell it in exchange for a comission to the studio. I excitedly emailed the information to my professional writers’ association. I advertised it as a “Brazilian style book signing” and included the event flyer. They were impressed at the packaging of the event. One writer showed me her date book where she’d penciled me into her schedule.

Speaking of writing, after Tuesday’s monthly writing meeting, I was inspired to put a gag on my inner critic and let my imagination and fingers fly.  I had been wondering how all these professional writers could generate pages of material on a somewhat daily basis.  Imagine my surprise when I heard writer after writer admit that the first draft is SHIT! Some confessed to having no dialogue while others stated that their first draft was almost exclusively dialogue with no tags, emotions or background setting.

The next morning, I raced through incorporating a huge portion of the notes I’d gathered when I was in Utila to research my story. I had the ability to do that all along, I just hadn’t freed myself from pursuit of perfection. Another thing that totally makes sense to me now is why pour so much time and energy into a particular sentence, paragraph or chapter for the first draft when I may end up completely changing it or cutting it altogether?

And of course, I’ve managed to grow the overall height of my ever-rotating stack of books.  Can’t say that I’ve read more than I’d planned to since I still waited until bedtime to read. I truly think having a hammock on my balcony would help that. I still love how nearly every book has a tangential association with every other book.  Some of the connections are intentional. Others are uncanny coincidences that I dreamily think the universe wanted me to read.

Despite the fact that I’ve done yoga about 7 times during this break, I’ve come down with the sniffles, which I’m tempted to dismiss as allergies flaring up again. Yet, part of me thinks that it’s psychosomatic. I know this is the last day of vacation and my body’s reacting like this. One of my friends took pity on me and gave me a variety of herbal teas to help me through it.

Every little bit helps.  Just like last night, when I returned from the matinee milonga, I completed the photo gallery of celebrities to base my comic strip characters on and emailed the file to my sister. She’s going to illustrate for me. I’m so excited for this collaboration. I’ll have to figure out how to schedule writing this script into my already busy schedule.  I already know that it cannot be a daily pursuit, but I’ve got to make it a weekly thing.

Come what may tomorrow, I’ve truly enjoyed my break and the rest of the school year will rush into summer break.  Amen!

Water Wench

As much fun as I’ve had during this Presidents’ Day weekend, one would have thought that I actually had a long 4-day weekend like my students.  Truth be told, without the responsibility of supervising students, I enjoyed spending Friday at an all-day professional development series of workshops. I was a little late to the first session, but walked in as if I were on time. After all, if I would have had to teach on Friday, I would have taken the day off since I attended a concert the night before.

I’d heard Trombone Shorty and the Orleans Avenue band nearly a year ago when they rolled up in Austin to open for another band. This time, they were the headliners. Their high-energy Louisianan soul music was just what I needed after two days of grading mountains of makeup work from students who had surprisingly squirreled their assignments away to hand them in at the last moment.

I arrived in the mezzanine section during the middle of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band’s set. I had a terrifc view of both the stage and the crowded floor. Many concertgoers wore Mardi Gras beads, which I had not thought to bring. My mind had been so preoccupied with the end of the marking period that I could not spare half a brain to maximize my concert outfit. I also saw two women who I know from the samba school and even a coworker on the packed dance floor.

I texted one woman to let her know where I sat and ask her if she planned to stay on the floor.  When she replied that she would, I made my way down to the floor to join them. Ha! The person working the door politely told me that I could not join the people on the floor since my ticket was for a mezzanine seat. Somewhere in my twisted logic, mezzanine seating is much better than a standing room only floor; so anyone with a mezzanine seat should have a virtual access pass to the floor. Apparently the venue’s logic didn’t bend like that.

Instead of trying to talk my way in, I remembered my usual complaint about how women tend to be problematic when I work security during Carnaval and thanked the attendant for letting me know.  I returned to my mezzanine seat and continued chair dancing. All went well until an entertainly inebriated woman turned around and shouted at me, “Hey are you OK? I worry about you sitting back here all by yourself!”

Gee, thanks.  Up until that point, I wasn’t aware that I had the whole row to myself, separated from my friends by a cruel interpretation of ticket purchase.  I didn’t burst into tears or anything girlie dramatic, but I did reflect on how I used to be the unofficial social director when I lived in both Egypt and Mexico and to a lesser degree in Honduras.

Something happened along the way to curb my enthusiasm for arranging things, but not for attending events. I made up my mind to do the sociable thing next time and invite some friends to go with me for the next big cultural event, which turned out to be the upcoming Cirque du Soleil show. In less than 24 hours, three other capoeiristas excitedly emailed me back about attending the show. 

Since I didn’t attend the concert after party, I was able to sleep in an hour later than usual and still feel refreshed for the professional development workshops. My favorite things about the day, besides not supervising students, were the chance to win one of 25 raffle prizes, receiving a free class set of rulers and a 12-pack of scotch tape and lastly a luxurious 1 1/2 hour lunch with some of the other science teachers. The workshops themselves weren’t too painful and one in particular, truly helped me understand a new online service that the district has already purchased.  I’m going to get my Physics students on top of that this upcoming week.

Our PD ended an hour earlier than my regular workday.  I celebrated that by making a “Teresa Hot Chocolate” (chocolate syrup, Baileys and Kahlua) and reading several things that I had received via email. Even with that afternoon mini-vacation, I still made it to my capoeira class on time.

My capoeira teacher had us to wear ankle weights and hold 2-lbs hand weights as we did various capoeira moves. Then he picked up a PVC pipe that was about 4′ long and 3″ in diameter and proceeded to swing it at us as we did the ginga, the basic capoeira step that looks like dancing a jig.

Although I was not wearing any corrective lenses, I managed to keep my eyes on the pipe and never got hit–unlike some of my capoeira buddies. One actually dodged when the capoeira teacher swung the pipe in one direction, but rose up in time for him to hit her on the side of the ear.  She was awake then!

After the weight training, we did 3 sets of 40 of my favorite spin kicks, armada. During the middle of the second set, those 2.5-lbs ankle weights truly began to kick in. By the third set, I felt that I was getting too much of a good thing.

The next hour, we trained several acrobatic moves.  Normally, I stay for about 15-30 minutes of this, but I stayed to practice several moves, especially the handstand. We started off attempting to walk on our hands, then kick our legs in the air while balancing on our hands. My favorite exercise was going into a handstand and slowly falling into a backbend. I practiced kicking my legs up to flip over backwards out of the backbend, but felt like an elephant trying to jump.

I slept soundly that night! I woke up, drank my morning smoothie and swam laps. I’m glad that I chose to stop torturing myself at night to swim during the week. Swimming works so much better for me in the morning. Yet, whenever I change one part of my routine that usually means losing something else.

When the weather grows warmer, I’m going to be tempted to paint out on my balcony. Somehow, I need to work painting back into my schedule during daylight hours when there’s a nice shade on the balcony. That may mean buying a shade…

I attended my tango class later on, dressed in my capoeira uniform. My plan was to dash from tango class early in order to participate in a capoeira performance at a nearby middle school. That presentation was cancelled due to a mixup in dates. Nonetheless, some of my male tango friends were amused by my corda.  I whipped a few of them with it.  Well, it was there!

Thursday through Saturday were dreary rainy days. (I know we need the rain, but I prefer a warm spring and summer rain.) I had a few tempting things to do Saturday night, but in the end, I treated myself to dinner and a movie at home and went to bed early. That was a wonderful call since I got up at 5:30. I’d signed up to work at a water station for the Austin Marathon. Sometimes, I just like to do something different for a change.

God must be a runner since there was not a raindrop in sight, but I was still plenty cold. As a matter of fact, my toes did not fully thaw out until I attended my bikram yoga class afterwards. I helped set out three layers of plastic cups half full of water. Then without warning, the woman in charge of volunteers made me the water wench.

Of course she didn’t call it that, but she needed someone to monitor the portable watertank and had the technician who’d brought it give me some pointers. There was nothing too hard about the job although I still managed to screw it up. When the announcement came about breakfast tacos, I abandoned my post ahead of everyone else and got two freshly made breakfast tacos.

After telling a few of my “teaching in Honduras” war stories, I looked around at the church family room where we ate and realized that everyone who had been using the water hoses to fill the cups were inside eating. I dashed out to check the water tank. Yup, it was full.  I walked over to the spigot to turn it off only to discover that it had already been turned off. I felt a little bad that someone else had done my job, but felt even worse when the volunteer supervisor excitedly told me that she had to turn off the faucet because the tank had overflowed. That’s when I noticed the big wet spot on the sidewalk.

A good natured volunteer asked, “You ever notice no matter how much you water a sidewalk, it never grows?”

Yeah, well embarrassment does.  The volunteer supervisor then asked me several times what the water tank level was.  I can’t say that I blame her since keeping the water at a particular level and all the tables full of water cups were the two main reasons we were there.

In the meantime, I joined in with the cheering and applauding crowd as the runners arrived. I marveled at how several of the runners still had a brisk pace, a smile on their face and interacted with us. And we’re talking at the 20th mile! I kept hoping to catch a glimpse of someone I knew, but I only succeeding in thinking I knew some people at first glance. The two women who I knew were running, only participated in the half marathon.  More power to them.  I wouldn’t even care to run 13 miles.

Then again, my life is one marathon of juggling various activities. Like those athletes, I sometimes wonder how much I can take before my routine gets the better of me?

Super Saturday

I once joked that it was a good thing that February 2012 had an extra day since I’d probably have something scheduled every single day before the month arrived.  February has arrived and my prediction did not come true, but that’s only because a few things are scheduled on the same day…like this past Saturday for example.

I used to have a “swim day” sketched into my weekly schedule. For the past three weeks, I’ve swum on three different days, with this past workout happening yesterday. I even debated whether I should do it since I was going to capoeira music class, tango, a baby shower and then for most of the night, Carnaval.

Of course, since I’m 41, my main worry was would I have enough time to take a nap before Carnaval! My music class turned into an informational meeting about our security duty at Carnaval. My capoeira group has been forming a roda around the samba school and drummers for the past couple of years in order to keep over zealous partygoers from disrupting the show. Although my capoeira teacher gave us a quick lesson in how to do a basic takedown, I assured him that women were the worst offenders since guys tend to be polite–even if drunk.

Tango class was jam-packed with beginners.  It was nearly a cattle herd rather than line of dance. I’ll redeem myself this coming Thursday during the intermediate class.

I eventually found where the baby shower was taking place and was pleasantly surprised to see two women who used to train capoeira. As a matter of fact, the mother-to-be was also a capoeirista.

I returned home with just enough time to change clothes, put on a little eye makeup and my fun Halloween false lashes and head over to a pre-carnaval party with several other female capoeiristas who were ambitious enough to make their own theme-based costumes. This year’s theme was The Wizard of Oz.

One of the ladies had a witch’s hat; so I borrowed it for the night. I got in “line” to have my makeup done by one of two women there who were makeup and costuming enthusiasts. Although my on-the-fly costume wasn’t as flashy as theirs at least I wasn’t plain Jane capoeirista.

We walked over to the venue and miraculously all 26 capoeirists were on time. As usual, the show was spectacular and I only had to contend with one hostile, older black female during the first show.

By the time the second show rolled around, the crowd had swelled to over 5000 people and we had a time opening up the space even though we had barricades to help us.

Afterwards, all the female capoeiristas who had costumes changed into them and we formed an unofficial samba de roda and danced until the cops asked us to leave around 2 am. I had tried to get someone to walk me to my car about 30 minutes prior to that, but everything worked out.

I knew upfront that I wouldn’t make my usual Sunday 10 am bikram yoga class, but the noon class was wonderful. At least I reset my spine just in time for another fun-filled week.

NYE’s Revelry 2011

As I busied myself washing clothes and unpacking from my weeklong Christmas vacation with my family, I came across the gift my nieces and nephew had given me: a mesh sponge, body wash and hand lotion.  I put the mesh sponge in my gym bag, the lotion in the bathroom and paused when I thought how I could best use the body wash. 

I’m one of those adults who still suffers from acne on her face and back, which is why I have to use medicated soap to keep it in check. Then, I figured the best way to use it would be as hand soap. So, I poured most of the body wash into my soap dispenser in the kitchen, which was nearly empty of its yellow liquid soap. Afterwards, I dashed off to do a hundred other things. 

By the time I returned to the kitchen to fix myself something to eat, I reached out to use the soap and wash my hands and saw a ghost. Not a “real” ghost, but the mixing of the two liquid soaps formed a ghostly image that sent me running for my camera. I couldn’t have created that intentionally, but was amazed at its appearance.

Although I try not to be superstitious, I come from a long line of superstitious people. I dismissed the ghost’s appearance as being nothing more than the mixing of two liquids–despite the fact that the following day, I received a parking ticket!  Surely not the work of the soapy ghost, just the coincidence of one event following the other.

As a matter of fact, the last day of 2011 was wonderfully well-spent, starting with a trip to the library to get The History of Mathematics and another book about how to draw superheroes.  My latest creative scheme involves drawing two of my characters.  They happen to be the personification of mathematical concepts; so now I have dreams of evolving into a graphic novelist.  Why not?

Then I dashed off to a 90-minute zumba class. I normally stay away from zumba classes, but since this one was being taught by my favorite samba teacher, I trusted that she’d put her special spin on the whole experience.  Totally kicked my butt, but made that margarita and chilaquiles afterwards go down smoother.

Once I finally returned home, I showered, surrounded myself with books on my bed and took a much deserved nap.  Of course I managed to read after waking up more refreshed. I finally got up to make the spicy bean dip that I was taking as my covered dish to the NYE’s milonga. Then I got dressed in my latest Goodwill purchase: a dreamy, dark brown silk skirt with another previous Goodwill purchase, an elegant white top.

My first stop was at a laid-back house party of one of my capoeira sisters. I brought over the last of my Christmas chocolate to share.  I figured after spending seven days eating two desserts a day, I’d do myself the favor of jettisoning the excess candy from my apartment.

Although the conversation was very entertaining, I headed to my second and final NYE party stop. I saw the grill full of meat and nearly empty picnic tables once I arrived. When I went inside, I did not see anyone eating.  I joined one of my friends at a table and asked her if everyone had already eaten.  She said that no one had eaten yet.  Figures!  I’d arrived two and a half hours late and was the first person to fix my plate and eat.  Long live Black people!

Afterwards, I replenished my lipstick in the bathroom and readied myself for a night of dancing. According to the tango “rules,” only men ask women to dance.  I broke that rule for most of the night. My male friends were near and readily available; so I just took the initiative of asking them. And nothing temporarily boosts my confidence like looking sexy.  That $5.99 skirt certainly made me look like a million bucks. Or was it the other way around?

At the stroke of midnight, we toasted, kissed cheeks and started dancing a medley of dance genres besides tango. I amazed my friends with my samba skills. Then one friend led me to do a dance I’d never done before.  I asked him afterwards which dance he’d just led and he told me the hustle…very different than the hustle I remember my sisters doing in the 70s.

Since I was determined to start off the New Year continuing my habit of going to bikram yoga at ten am, I started packing up my things to leave. It’s a good thing I’d already planned to leave since my allergies had curiously started to flare up outta nowhere (another soap ghost effect?).

The yoga studio was especially packed since the 60-day challenge started today. Yogis are encouraged to do yoga for 60 days in a row.  I’m participating in my own challenge, which is to increase the number of times I attend yoga from eight times a month to at least ten.  My left hip will especially thank me. I’ll just see where life will take me with a newly healed hip in 2012.

Christmas 2011

My sister, Renee, and her family, once again, hosted us for Christmas.  Ten people and two bathrooms, lots of good food and even more good laughs.  And much to my surprise, no cold!  I came busting out of Dulles Airport fully bundled, complete with a knit ski cap and immediately started stripping–only down to my regular clothes!

As much as I’d coached myself about not overindulging with the sweets and other fatty foods, I hungrily devoured my sister Carla’s homemade bonbons with pecans.  My direct flight did not include a meal and I was not about to pay for a snack after paying $25 for my checked bag.

Coupled with my near-empty stomach, my father took the scenic, traffic-ladened route back to Renee’s house. Fortunately, my mother always rolls with snacks in the car, especially popcorn. I wasn’t in the mood for popcorn, but she also had sweet potato chips and premade cheese and crackers. So, before I could even step in my sister’s house, I’d already downed three different snacks.  So much for avoiding the junk food!

Renee had the grand idea to type up an itinerary of what we were planning to do while I was here and email it to other family and friends. Of course, that did not get off the ground, but I managed to send out a text to a few friends about our upcoming trip to the wax museum in DC. So far, only one out of three friends can definitely make it. No matter what, it’ll be fun to go to DC then eat afterwards in Chinatown.

I’m impressed that any of my nieces or nephews still believe in Santa Claus, but my 11-year-old nephew set out three cookies for Santa along with two celery stalks for the reindeer.  His mother convinced him not to pour the milk yet, saying that she’d do it before going to bed. Ha! I remember years ago when I set out a slice of rum cake for Santa along with a glass of milk.

The same nephew got the present-opening party started around a quarter to 8–about an hour later than what I thought. My sister, her husband and their three kids all assembled in the living room. The kids tore through their presents while Renee captured it all on video. She politely asked if I was ready to be “on camera” and I told her no. I had to walk past them to get to the bathroom and certainly didn’t need that zombie walk recorded for eternity.  At least I knew to change out of my bed clothes first.

I was so happy to see all the gifts I bought enjoyed by their recipients. I must admit, though, Renee had set me up this year to expect that I was getting a digital reader from her this year. The only reason I thought this was that she called me up a few weeks ago to see which one I wanted “if” she was going to get it for me. This morning, she handed me my usual Christmas gift–a $50 Visa gift card. Not that I’m complaining, but I could have done without the false expectation.

Of course, one of the best gifts I received was the one I bought myself: the latest Vitamix model.  My mother purchased it for me on base since she could get it cheaper and did not have to pay taxes. She had not bothered to wrap it since it was a gift to myself, but she did put it under the spectacular Christmas tree.  I waited until this morning to open it. Both Renee and Mom were a little jealous of the kickass cookbook that came with the blender.

I’ve evolved into a blender cook and have “sacrificed” about three cheaper blenders to the cause.  I already had some bright ideas of my own about what I was going to prepare with my heavy duty blender, but the included cookbook was truly a surprise.  I’m going to have a good time going through those recipes–at least until get the hang of it.  I’m amused that most of the recipes instruct me to add the ingredients in the order that they are listed. I’m now wondering if I should have used such logic with those cheaper blenders. I only followed the blending of the dry ingredients by the wet ones.

Mom pulled a prima donna and dashed into the bathroom to shower rather than joining us for the gift opening.  By the time she emerged, we had already cleaned up the wrapping paper and had gathered her gifts in one convenient spot so she could sit in comfort and unwrap them.

Finally, my other sister, Carla, had put the final touches on breakfast and we ate. Again, I reminded myself not to overindulge since we’d probably do nothing, but download movies until my brother-in-law finished Christmas dinner. As a matter of fact, Renee hasn’t scheduled us to leave the house until tomorrow.  It’ll be so good to stroll, even if it’s around the mall!

It’s always a joy to visit my family, but the temporay sedentary lifestyle nearly kills my spirit! I’ll have to get back into my good habits when I return to Austin…until my next family visit in the summer!

“Morticia Addams”

I believe in celebrating Halloween like a celebrate my birthday, over a period of time.  Anytime I get to dress up more than once in order to observe Halloween, I’m very happy.  I don’t know if there’s any deep, pyschological meaning behind dressing up as someone else for a period of time other than using another creative outlet, but since this past Halloween fell on a school day, I rose to the occasion.

Even though I’ve taught at my present high school for three years, I’m still not clear as to whether I’m actually allowed to dress up for Halloween.  Nonetheless, I’ve done it three times now and not once have I’ve been talked to about it.

This particular Halloween, two of the principals walked into my first period class in order to do an unannounced observation.  They had their laptops tucked under their arms, but seemed disoriented when they looked at me.

One of them whispered in my direction, “Oh, she’s not here.”

As I walked toward him, I whispered back, “Who’s not here?”

At that moment, I had come close enough for both administrators to see that I was indeed there, but just in disguise.  They laughed, looked around and noticed that the students were testing and walked back out without bothering to evaluate me.  Normally, if the students are taking a quiz or test, the administrators don’t bother to type up an evaluation since they want to observe teaching.

Yet, that was one of my favorite experiences of the day since most people don’t immediately recognize me if I wear a wig. Many of my students initially thought that I was a substitute teacher as well. In addition to the wig, which is slowly developing dreadlocks of its own since I don’t have a comb or brush, I wore a dress, make up and had my nails painted.

I usually don’t bother with getting my fingernails painted since I’m very active, but my manicurist convinced me to try gel polish, which dries with the help of UV light and lasts for two weeks.  I must admit that it is very impressive stuff, but with my busybody self, this polish has only lasted a week.  I’m going back to the salon to get it removed since regular nail polish remover isn’t strong enough to do the trick.  Nonetheless, this industrial-strength polish has been a far less frustrating experience than the usually cheap ass polish that chips mere hours after having it done.

Now that Halloween is officially over, I’ll just have to rely on my usual expressions of creativity through my writing, dancing, painting and whatever creative opportunities I can eek out of my teaching, given the district’s climate of pyschopathic testing.

Halloween 2011

This Halloween, I got a clue early and bought my ticket for the Zombie Ball.  I’d heard about it last year, but had gone out of town during my favorite celebration. Perhaps that was a blessing in disguise since this year’s Zombie Ball was held in my new favorite venue, the Moody Theatre.

As par for the course with me, I attended this event by myself, but that did not stop me from having a good time…and posing with one of the most impressively costumed guys there.  He reminded me of Darth Maul, but definitely devilish whoever he was supposed to be.

As a matter of fact, most of the crowd took pains to be “someone” for Halloween with just a few of us generic zombies.  After seeing the caliber of costumes, I’m either going to start making my costume in the summer or save myself the grief and rent a costume.  I usually take more pride in making my own, but seeing how Halloween kind of snuck up on me due to all the other activities I got going on, I’m losing my costume-making mojo.

Aside from costume watching, I enjoyed listening to the bands although I’d never heard of any of them before.  As a matter of fact, the only entertainers I’d heard of was Brass Ovaries, the professional pole dancing group.  Once upon a time, I’d wanted to try out pole dancing classes, but none of my friends would check it out with me. Damn social stigmas!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that a troupe of burlesque dances were on the docket and as one woman commented in the women’s room, they weren’t all a size zero! I was impressed that all the women in that group, who all ranged in different body sizes and shapes were all brave enough to bare all down to their nipple pasties.

One burlesque performance, if I can call it that, involved a guy dressed as the devil on stilts who carried a bouquet of baby dolls parading through the crowd to the stage and several muscle bound men carried a coffin on stage.  A vampiress popped out onto the stage from the coffin and another woman appeared from behind a tombstone. At first there was some little cat and mouse dancing between the women.  Then it looked like a battle between them.  And just when I thought, “I bet those two women are going to start making out,” they did.

In between bands, there were a few aerial dancers, who varied in skill and entertainment level. I’ve seen aerial dancers before and was somewhat disappointed that all the performances were solo.  That interaction between the performers was missing for me.  At least they varied the medium: rope, hoop and cloth.

I must admit, I could have done without the stripper, who performed before the headlining band, the Bright Light Social Hour.  Granted, she was a renown pole dancer and I could clearly see her skill level…I just didn’t need to see everything else! At least in burlesque, there’s a little more tease and entertainment.  I got up to use the bathroom when the stripper, wearing nothing more than a love cord around her waist and a provocative smile, hopped off the pole and strode over into a portable glass bowl to bath for the audience.

That’s when I discovered that some drunk wench and broken one of the toilet seats in the women’s room.  I have no idea what said beast had done to break a toilet seat clear off its base, but I felt a pang of fear that the action of some bitch would jeopardize the future of Zombie Ball being hosted at such a wonderful venue.  The Moody Theatre is less than a year old and I’d hate for it to fall so quickly into disrepair. I reported it to one of the employees after the show was over around 2 am.

Certainly the cherry on top of the evening was discovering that I did not have to pay for my parking!  Paid parking alone is usually enough to stop me from going downtown.  Yet, I bit the bullet and parked at the Austin Convention Center parking deck since it was only a few blocks away.  I’m sure that it was a Halloween special, but in the future, it is good to know about that parking deck whenever I’m going to a concert at the Moody Theatre.

Labor Day Weekend 2011

I cannot remember the last time I spent both a Friday and Saturday night at home…even during the two and half months when I first moved to Austin and was unemployed, I managed to go out to the free events.

Yet, after work on Friday, I swam laps, came home, warmed up dinner and finished watching a movie that I’d started the night before.

Saturday morning, I took a capoeira class, came home to freshen up and eat lunch, then took two tango classes. That was particularly touching since I’d taken tango lessons for over a year before taking a three-month break.  I stayed away long enough to miss it. Fortunately, I attended the second class and learned that one of our tangueras was returning to her native country, France.  So, I got to say good bye to her.

Then, I dashed over to my favorite nail shop.  Although it was a risk without an appointment during a holiday weekend, I was not disappointed.  There were three guys and two women ahead of me. They were all friends and since we had to wait, some of them decided to make a drink run.

They returned with two bottles of champagne, a bottle of OJ, and a bottle of cranberry juice.  And the best part, they shared! So, it was like being at happy hour in the nail shop. I sipped my chilled poinsettia (champagne and cranberry) while talking to them and thumbing through the magazine I’d brought.  By the time I returned home, I felt that I’d already met my social quota and it was only 7pm.

Of course, one of the things that I love doing the most is just taking a few hours to read. I never know what will inspire me to add to the story that I’m writing or in a future lesson plan.

As a matter of fact, I think the reason I’m much happier in the classroom this year is because I’m back to writing all my lessons.  The most I’ve used of someone else’s stuff is a quiz, which I still went through and modified some things.  I’m so fortunate to teach upperclassmen and have an elective course with no official curriculum.  That way, I have a creative challenge to keep me on my game.  The way I see it, I’ll save myself a trip to mediocre-ville if I’m actively engaged in the fine art of lesson planning.

Tomorrow, I’m going to a BBQ, hosted by my capoeira teacher.  I’d like to say that I instigated the whole thing although, truthfully, this group gets together on a regular basis.  It’s just that I’ve had the idea of making a cheesecake and decorating it with fresh fruit in the shape of the Brazilian flag for a couple of months now.  I baked the dessert today, but I’m waiting until tomorrow to put the fruit on it.  I’ve never done that before and don’t exactly know how that’ll affect it…I could always research it, I guess.