Day 22 Death Race 2011, School-Zone Style
I planned to go to a morning yoga class today, but after the school run, all I wanted to do was get off the road. Is everyone rushing out for free McDonalds coffee?? Are they all on crack?? (Are those two things related?)
Today I witnesssed the following:
-one driver clearing his windshield of ice, with his bare hand, WHILE HE WAS DRIVING.
-two drivers making left-turns without looking at on-coming traffic, and without there being a sufficient break in on-coming traffic to do so safely, which they’d have known if they’d looked. Which is probably why they didn’t.
-numerous drivers blasting right through the school cross-walk. Nice.
-one particularly unpopular lad, so determined to turn left out of the school parking lot that he had a line-up of at least 15 cars behind him, drivers growing more vocally irate by the millisecond. Turning RIGHT at that spot is a challenge. Left is usually impossible. One car finally squealed over the median to get around him. I’ve timed it: he waited longer than it takes to turn right and go all the way around the park with the lights.
-and the deadliest of all, teenagers. The first time I almost killed one, I was sitting at the afore-mentioned intersection, waiting to turn right out of the school parking lot, craning my neck to the left to find a break in the traffic, when I saw an opening. Inching forward at about 0.5 km/hr, suddenly, out of nowhere, a skateboarder whips around me from the sidewalk on the right, slamming his hand on my hood and grinning as he passed. HOLY $#!& I was wobbly for hours.
But then it happened again. And again, plus once with a kid on a bike. It’s never the same kid twice. I don’t get it. It’s not like they’re all getting killed; we’d have heard the sirens. It’s as if they have to take turns or something. Maybe there’s a roster. “Good news, Braydon/Hunter/Carter/Dylan, you’re up for Monday’s Idiot Skateboard Kid role. Good luck! Don’t forget to sign your organ donor card.”
But I’m on to them. Now I wait for the split-second when they’re almost in front of me, then I lean on the horn and watch them soil themselves. I hope I scare the crap out of them, ’cause they sure scare the crap out of me.
Day 21 Is it the sunshine?
- At March 06, 2011
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In Life, Roxanne Writes On
- 0
Were the stars all aligned just right? Did I have the perfect balance of carbs, protein and caffeine in my system, with the correct amount of digestion time prior to class?
I don’t know, but my practice was a breeze today. Balance was good, I almost got my frickin’ right knee straight in Standing Head to Knee, Camel was no problem and there was less snap-crackle-pop in my joints than usual.
I’m two-thirds through the 30 day challenge, and I can see the end of the tunnel. I haven’t lost an ounce probably because, well, you know… pie. But I’m so ripped I should be on the cover of some muscle magazine. You know, the one for middle-aged mothers with delusions of grandeur.
So I went home afterwards and got out the pick-ax, spade, rake, secateurs and gloves, and went to work on my 5-years-and-counting, take-no-prisoners landscaping project. The dogs and I enjoyed a couple of hours of sweaty outdoors time.
I’m such an idiot. I wasn’t sore from yoga. But now I’m sore from gardening.
Day 20 Consider Yourself Warned
I’ve reached that stage in an exercise program where my body has reached a plateau, neither improving (as far as I can tell) nor leaving me in a limp puddle of humiliation after a class.
Now, they tell me, it becomes a mental challenge.
NOW it becomes mentally challenging?? I don’t know what that means, exactly. From day one, it’s been a mental challenge to stay in posture when my hamstrings are screaming. It’s a mental challenge just to get to class every day. It’s a social situation, which automatically makes it mental challenging for me. And NOW it’s getting started??
I’m scared.
But I have noticed one thing, and maybe this is what they’re talking about. I’m pretty damn proud of myself. Yessiree, bob, I’ve made it 20 days in a row. Yup, lotta sweat. Lotta laundry.
And I’m not afraid to talk about it. To wear yoga clothes all day, every day, to be make-up free and proud, to casually practice postures while waiting in bank line-ups. (All part of the social challenge referenced above.)
“You run marathons,” I might comment at a cocktail party. “How nice for you. I,” pause for effect, “do yoga. Bikram yoga. The hot kind. Here, feel my abs. FEEL THEM!”
If I’ve had a glass of wine, it can quickly devolve into an anatomy lesson, a sort of reverse sexual assault. Which you’d think would make me popular at parties, but no. Apparently I do something weird with my eyes that frightens people.
Mental challenge, pshaw. It’s a mental challenge every day, just to be me. Bring it on, I say. BRING IT ON!