Family Van Ride

Dear Yogarapstar...I mean Dod,


Well let's just start things out right...there we go, no TNR for me Dodster! I loved that very true observation and I will try to buck the TNR trend whenever possible. This past week when I submitted a grad school paper and had to grudgingly change the font to TNR, I felt to guilty letting you down--but a grade is a grade and these professors have no humor for reading a paper in gigi.

 I apologize for my absence, I have been super busy with Burleson girl graduations, PASSING MY BOARDS (!), and light traveling. So with that in mind, today I want to recognize a man whose birthday was this week and who has provided endless amounts of humor throughout my life (both with and at him)...my dad. A man who made fanny packs fashionable, demanded my high school boyfriends take their hats off to view their eyes and also told them to turn their music down when entering "his neighborhood."  A man who once painted my finger nails from the front tips inward leaving horrific polish streaks, and who has proudly driven a mini-van from the time they manufactured them to the time when both children have now been out of the house for close to 10 years-aka NOW.  The reason I bring him up is that it is amazing that I am alive to post this as I saw my life flash before my eyes 10-20 times on the trip to and from Savannah for lil' burl's graduation. And so the trip began, we all loaded into the merlot/orange minivan (mom, dad, seth, and me) for the start of a family vacation.


I would just like to note that the day we arrived before the big trip was coincidentally my birthday, unfortunately, my mom forgot to pick up a birthday cake (which I didn't mind) but the best part was that she made one in 10 minutes out of items from her freezer: frozen angel food cake, defrosted cool whip for icing, and then (this is the best part) she cut a straw into candle sized pieces for mock candles...hilarious! I loved it of course.




Now, as you know my dad is an early riser and I have determined he is on a continuous race with life. I mean this is a man who I once observed plant a full container vegetable garden in 1.5 hours. He literally did two chucks of the shovel and threw the poor abused plant into the shallow holes and just threw a little pine straw over them. Amazingly they survived and did produce vegetables. Although he says each tomato is worth about $20 according to his spending for the garden.




So early riser insists that we leave no later than 7:30 am. I informed him I would leave at 9am in my own car if this were the case. We negotiated 8am--I think I lost the negotiating. So we pile up into the van and off we go. I think what my dad likes about my mom is that she has cut down on any unnecessary travel stops by keeping the van stocked like a mini-mart. You need a tissue, wet wipe, eyeglass cleaner, chocolate meringue puffs, cooler of water and diet orange drinks, small metal baby spoon (??), or grapefruit...just flash your lights at us and we can distribute it to you from the electronic van doors. Now, Dod, we rode about 2-3 feet from any given bumper at ALL times. Tractor-trailer included. Seth and I gave each other looks and at one point he held up his crossed fingers and just closed his eyes. Early riser was in a race with life on the highway. I mean what would the benefit be to arriving in Savannah pre-hotel-check-in?? Well, to say we had done it and brag to others about our ability to beat anyone's travel time. I think he senses that others don't respect him driving a mini-van, so he raises his ego by bragging about all he has done faster than anyone or traveled to in his van the past 24 hours--noting the amazing number of passengers his van held. At one point I remarked that the children riding in the jeep with the unzipped window, whose tail we were currently riding, might be run over were they to fall out. Seth informed me that they would just bounce off of our front hood.


Now I love my father and he is a great person, but he is also not allowed in most Wal-Marts.


One time "someone I know and love" kept going down an aisle where a person was on one of those mobile riders and they were overweight so he couldn't get by, so he goes to the next aisle and encounters another "Wal-Mart easy rider" at this point he remarks loudly that he will be heading to the gun section and will be right back--don't panic readers I'm sure he was just going to get a bb gun--that "person" who I am referring to that is. The funny thing is that his co-customer banished him to the van and the Wal-Mart easy riders were completely unfazed. I guess they are used to fellow customer commentary and don't appear to be bothered by it.


Another trip, this same person waited in a ridiculously long line to pay for an item at the Wal-mart only to have the crazy lady in front of him begin to pull $1 bills from her shoe to pay! He tells me (and basically her since we are 2 feet away) that some people should not be allowed in public. I just sent him to the van.


Best part of my whole trip was seeing a beautiful big head on a billboard reminding to "I can afford to get my annual appointment." Check this beauty out:

Sorry I am too computer challenged to make it bigger.  Also in other news, have you ever seen this terribly disturbing show called "toddlers and tiaras"??? Crazytime times 10.  They dress these poor spoiled brats up in slightly streetwalker-looking clothes, fake teeth, and wigs, pay $500 for them to parade around on stage to win a $5 rhinestone crown for the most adult looking 3 year old.  Shameful.  The moms are always lacking in looks too...hmmm.  With that in mind, time to get my big booty to the gym-I mean garage-I am trying Seth's p90X--I feel kind of like a whitetrash qvc tv shopper that we even own this workout video system, but I don't feel like driving a lengthy 10 minutes to the gym since they cancelled the workout class I was going to last night and I am kindof boycotting them for 24 more hours. OK, so I will let you know how it goes GILAD!

Love you miss you,

Burl-Womble

Stranger than Yoga, is being Geena Davis' Daughter

Dear Burl-Womble,

I wonder why the universal font is Times New Roman?  Being the kind of women who can hand write letters in more fonts than Word even bothers to offer, this decision to use TNR made by Bill Gates or whoever it is at Microsoft making such huge decisions, is border line offensive.  Why not Curlz?  Sure, it hurts your eyes after one paragraph, but at least it has some personality.  Why not Lucida Sans Unicode?  The straight lines that end in pentagon like edges are soft enough for a woman's use and militant enough not to make a man feel like a pansy using it (unlike aforementioned Curlz).  I suppose some things we will only know in the after life, but if you see Bill or Melinda in the Piedmont area, please take the time to make the big ask:  Why TNR, why?

Moving forward, last night I took a yoga class (not yogalates, so tell Bray to put her hysterics on hold, there will be no saying yogalates out loud today).  Now, mind you, I have been clocking in at the gym once or twice a week.  Long gone are the days of kickboxing, weight lifting, and toe touching, but since I noticed my buttocks starting to hang low, September is my renewed attempt at dedication. 

I enter the room, 5 minutes late of course, from the nap I just woke up from (not to mention in LA, we have to park in a ridiculous structure on Level 3 and walk 5 minutes through a restaurant row, up an escalator, into the gym, where there is a long line of willing torture participants, across the top floor of the gym, through a meat market where a woman has to wear tight pants at her own risk, down another set of stairs, beyond the trainer corner and into the 12 x 12 yoga room that is so packed with people you can practically smell your neighbor).  I park it next to the door between a bald man with an adorable pot belly and a grandma who seemed to be reliably "zen".  We started the class pretty normal-you know, lights low, poor choice in music meant to relax you, down dogs, plank poses, Warrior 1, 2 and 3, teacher who half sings, half speaks in low monotone voice saying things like, "You're not here to kill yourself...take your time...listen to your body".

Side note:  Actually Miss Yoga Teacher Never Gets Pissed Off in Traffic Person, I AM here to kill myself-that's why I came to the gym-because my butt is going South at the ripe old age of 28 years and 7 months and the only way to up the ante, if you know what I'm saying, is to kill myself in this stupid hot box yoga class set in the middle of the grossest meat market in LA County.  Second, no, I am not going to take my time, I am going to push myself to the limit in as little as time as possible and if a tendon snaps, then by God, it will have snapped while whipping my butt back into shape.  Finally, I will not be listening to my body, which thanks to the time of the month and the tension I feel from trying to fit 30 hours into each 24 hour day, desires only salty things like cucumbers with tamari and sesame seeds, sea salt and black pepper potato chips, spicy sweet potato fries, sweetened carob raisens... and let's be honest, anything else in the house.  Your advice is bad.  Tonight, I shall not take it.

Anywho, we were in the middle of the Warrior Vinyasas, but I was craving a little triangle pose.  She would get so close...and then let me down by putting an elbow on the knee, arm over my head pose.  When we finished a few, she said, as she walked over to the stereo system, in her monotone, soothing, half-singing voice, "Now, my students, you are on your own."  Great, I think to myself, just great.  I came to this lady's class to repeat these dang warrior poses and teach myself-what kind of cl... wait a minute, is that DMX?

Yes, Burl, it was DMX and I went right back to freshman year, when 1) we used to see him party hard around the NCSU campus and 2) started bouncing to "Ya'll gon' make me lose my mind, up in here, up in here".  Monotone Teacher voice began to giggle softly in her headset microphone, "I hope there's not cursing."

Well, well, well, maybe she does have a temper on the 405 freeway (10,000 times worse than the Raleigh Beltline).  As we all know, DMX does nothing but curse, so after a few f-bombs, she scurried like a wild dog to the stereo system to change the song to TuPac's "California", as if that would be better or have less cursing. 

Bursting with joy because this is the kind of music gym rats all over America kick their own butts too, I got busy with my Reverse Warrior into Triangle Poses into plank into that hurt your tricep as you hover above the ground pose, into up dog into down dog, walk or softly jump your feet towards your hands, long leg stretch into hands over head stretch, then REPEATEN POR FAVOR on left side.

It doesn't end there.  She busted out some moves I have never seen in my young yoga life, but apparently needed a little Neo-Soul to do so, and cranked up Floetry's "All ya gotta do is say yes... all ya gotta do is say yes..."  I can't even type the rest of the song without blushing-what kind of yoga class is this anyways?  She went on to prep us for splits...which you know I haven't done since Senior Year Cheerleading when I had to do my version of a cartwheel (looks more like a 5 year old kid doing upside down karate kicks two different ways) into splits, so you can imagine, this exercise along with my forcing myself to excel in every posture, was quite frustrating.  Then she did this and suggested we join her:

Kathryn Michael Burleson Womble!!! (do you see how the font changed back to TNR when I inserted this picture!  Dangit Bill and Melinda!  I am going to change it back) Post her rap/neo-soul movement, I realized she had completely lost her mind and I began to laugh hysterically as I attempted to put my elbow underneath my leg that refused to engage in the sideways split pose.  It wasn't too long before my pot bellied bald friend began to do the same, soon followed by Grandma "Zen".  So now that half the front row had fallen over sideways in pain and hysteria, she singed songed, "Yessss, that's right, yoga is fun."

Yessss, Strangest Yoga Teacher on Earth, Yoga IS fun... because you are crazy.  But I'll be back next Tuesday, giggling with the others in the class who work out because we have to and not because we enjoy this kind of sick medieval buddhist torture.

These are the moments I miss you most Burl Womble.  When you visit, we'll take her class together. 

Love you forever,
Dod

PS  I have no idea why you are fretting over Charlene.  She has some of the most gorgeous stems I have ever seen on a woman (so do you).  She dressed so well and she certainly had the best (sweetest and warmest) personality (her only competition was Annie, whose sarcasm was a fan favorite).  Plus, she was beautiful to boot (so are you).  FYI, Lately, I have been compared to Geena Davis (they keep saying in our work meetings whenever she comes up, that she could be my mother... Unfortunately, this is the picture that reminds them of me...And yes, they certainly do put it up on a huge screen for all the men to enjoy).  I also do not find this photo very complementary when it is in direct relation to me.

PPS  Well, I ended up taking the 3rd part of Yoga Teacher's advice late last night.  Carob raisens, tamari almonds and sea salt and black pepper chips were my late night snack.  Dangit, she won Burl, she won.