Number 3 (Revisited) – Yoga Class: Complete!

Session # 2 – The Gumby Hour

The second 60-minute session (yes, I was still watching the clock) was perfect for a group of limber, bendable yogis was looking for.  Everyone in class was as flexible and limp as a strand of spaghetti; I was no exception.  There was only one problem: I was the only strand of spaghetti who didn’t get to spend 12 minutes submerged in a pot of boiling water before class. 

The non-stop regimen of bend this, bend that, put-your-left-hand-on-the-yellow- circle-and-your-right-foot-on-the-blue took its toll.  At some point during the assault the instructor dropped a block on my mat as I was sweating profusely trying to touch the back of my head with one of my ankles.  (Apparently the block—hard foam about the size of a brick--is used in yoga for practitioners to compensate for any physical limitations they may have.  I wouldn’t know, as my pride wouldn’t let me stoop to such desperate measures.)  A couple of minutes later the instructor passed by my mat again and nudged the block with her foot up against my side.  However, I refused to admit defeat and continued trying to wrap my right leg over my left shoulder without that damn block.  It wasn’t long before she made a third pass by my mat, leaned over and whispered in my ear: ‘Are you hurt?’  ‘No,’ I replied.  I lied.  I would like to add that somehow, some way I also survived, blocks be damned.

Session # 3 – The Wallenda Hour

All that was required for the third 60-minute drill was some semblance of balance.  Therein lies the first problem: When I was born and fell out of the Balance Tree I managed to miss every single branch on the way down.  The second problem was that the balance portion of the program immediately followed 20 minutes of bending and stretching that pretty much sucked every ounce of energy out of both legs.  So when the instructor had us on our feet the final 40 minutes of the evening—and by ‘feet’ I actually mean ‘one foot at a time’—things got ugly.  As you may remember I mentioned I had the good foresight at the very first session two weeks ago to place my mat next to the wall.  Tonight that decision paid huge dividends.  If not for the wall, I would have spent the last 40 minutes on my ass.  (I wasn’t kidding when I said I missed every single branch.)  I heard the man on the mat next to me being told by his wife the trick to maintaining balance was to focus your eyes on a specific spot on the wall.  Let me be the first to say simply placing my left hand on a specific spot on the wall proved to be a viable and simpler alternative.

Interestingly enough, the next morning in my office I tried several of the balance poses I couldn’t do during yoga class.  I did all of them.  Damn near flawlessly, if I do so say so myself.  Game on: Bring on next week!

Session # 4 – Next Week: The Grand Finale

Three inches of snow fell in the Atlanta area today.  In other words, Atlanta came to a standstill.  Yoga class wasn’t immune to the standstill, evidenced by this Email I received from the instructor five hours before class:

Greetings, Yogi:

Due to the snow and the closing of the Kedron Facility we will not have practice tonight.  My apologies to your hamstrings (she remembered!) as they were on our agenda tonight!

Tonight was to have been the last class of our January session.

February enrollment is open.  Enjoy a few sun salutations as you watch the snow fall.  Stay warm and safe!

Namaste,

Shelly

February’s yoga class will have to go on without me.  I’ll keep doing my yoga, but I’ll do so in the privacy and safety of my living room. 

That way the next time Atlanta is hit with three inches of snow, this particular yogi will be keeping his Namaste alive.

Whatever that means.      

Number 6 - Run in Hokas

Of all the things I knew prior to January 1^st that I wanted to do for the first time this year, none caused me more anxiety, more apprehension or more cause for deliberation than what I did today. 

I’m making a special notation in my running log to mark the occasion: January 25, 2014 - I finally ran in my Hokas.

You see, I’ve had my pair of size-10 Hoka One One’s (that would be the official name of the shoes) in their original box in my closet since September.

September of 2012.

So you may be wondering why they’re making their first appearance today. 

What can I say?  I like to live on the edge, and what better time to run in Hokas for the first time than 2014, my Year of Living Dangerously. 

Let me back up for a moment.  I’ve been having a variety of physical ailments and impairments ever since running, walking and crawling 100 miles through some God-forsaken mountain range in California in the summer of 2006.  (Fact #1: When it comes to running in the mountains, I am a fish out of water.  Fact #2:  If a fish remains out of water too long it will die.  Fact #3: I believe you see my point.)  Since that particular race I’ve been on a yet unfulfilled quest to find the ‘perfect running shoe’ to absorb the punishment I subject my body to as I continue to run every single day.

A couple years ago I heard more and more runners commenting on how much they loved running in their Hokas.  They were the new kid on the running shoe block and everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon.  I began asking the runners I saw wearing Hokas what they thought of them, and without exception they were all huge fans.  I saw more and more of them on the feet of runners of all shapes and sizes at various races.  According to the favorable reviews I was reading and hearing, Hoka running shoes were living up to its company slogan: Time to fly.

So after giving it more thought than ever before about buying a pair of running shoes, I broke down and ordered a pair of Hokas online.  The caveat was the cost: $169.  Running shoe experts will tell you to expect 500 – 600 miles from a pair of running shoes.  Doing the math, it appears it would be cheaper to drive a HumVee 500 miles rather than run 500 miles in a pair of Hokas.  At that price the One One’s better do everything I dreamed of, if not more.  At the very least I expected them to make me feel like I’m running along a path of covered by a layer of cotton balls; best case scenario they make me feel like I’m running on a cloud.

This morning, after spending the last 16 months in my closet the Hokas found their way onto my feet for the very first time.  I opened the shoebox—large enough to hold a toaster oven—and my One One’s finally saw the light of day.  (That’s a lie.  It was 5:00 a.m. and even when my run was over the sun still hadn’t made an appearance.  Word of caution: I’m apt to lie at the drop of a hat.)

‘What an odd creature,’ I thought to myself.  (Actually I said it out loud and our orange tabby Moe, who was sleeping in the chair I was sitting on the edge of to put on the Hokas, thought I was talking to him.  I already told you I’m apt to lie at the drop of a hat; perhaps now you believe me.) 

The white pair of Hokas sported HUGE heels that brought back memories of the white platform shoes I wore to my senior prom some four decades ago.  There was an extra pair of shoelaces in the box but for the life of me I don’t know why because the shoes featured an intricate lacing system where the laces are threaded through a plastic gizmo that gives way to a leather whatchamacallit and for the life of me I couldn’t see how the shoelaces could be removed since they actually formed one big loop with no loose ends.  (There wasn’t an instruction manual in the shoebox; by all rights there should have been.)  Through a couple minutes of trial and error, I did manage to figure out how to tighten the shoelaces (it involved separating the blue and the gray halves of the plastic gizmo and pushing them back together once the laces felt snug). 

At 5:30 Al and I headed out for our regular Saturday morning run.  It was 16 degrees with a wind chill bringing the temperature down into single digits.  I took my first couple of steps…and I can most definitely assure you I was not running on the clouds.  Not even a path covered in cotton balls.  I remembered one of the runners I asked about Hokas telling me it took three or four runs until you could truly appreciate their performance.  Three miles into my run I heard the familiar ‘clap’ as my right foot struck the asphalt.  ‘When will it be my Time to Fly?’ I thought to myself.  (Again I lie. I actually directed this question to Al, who had no earthly idea what I was talking about.)

We interrupt this message for a brief public service announcement.

If you’re running in expensive running shoes and stop on the side of the road to answer nature’s call on a dark, cold and very windy morning it is highly advisable to do so with your back to the wind.

We now return to our regularly scheduled message.

So after my first 10 miles running in a pair of Hokas, I’m disillusioned, disappointed and just a little bit disgusted.  Not as disillusioned, disappointed or disgusted as when I ran in a pair of Sketcher Go Run’s (Can you say ‘goodbye shins?’) for the first time, but pretty darn close.

Sure, I’ll give them a few more tries in the next few weeks; after all I did invest $169 in them.  But for now I have to go.

It’s Time to Cry.   

Number 5 – Leave Auburn as a Winner

This seemed like the perfect opportunity.

The Florida Gators basketball team had a record of 14 wins—including a perfect 3 – 0 in Southeastern Conference (SEC) games--and only 2 losses and were ranked 7^th in the nation.  Auburn’s team was sporting a record of 8 wins and 6 losses (including a 19-point loss at home to Northwestern State) and was still winless in the SEC at 0 – 3.  So when the schedule called for the Gators to play the Auburn Tigers it seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to visit Auburn, Alabama and leave as a winner for the very first time. 

Up until now I was oh-for-Auburn.  My first trip to War Eagle Country was in 1989 to see the Gator football team lose to the Tigers by a score of 10 – 7.  Seventeen years later Cindy made the trip with me to Jordan-Hare Stadium.  Before the game we found a parking lot at a local church that included parking, all-you-can-eat barbecue and all-you-can-drink beer for only $5.  After parking the car, loading a plate full of barbecued chicken and potato salad and being handed an ice cold beer, I asked the woman taking my $5 bill if the pastor of the church knew what they were doing.  Her reply: ‘Who do you think handed you that beer?’  Thank the Good Lord for Southern Hospitality.  Time out for a brief tally: Two trips to Auburn; two Gator losses: Auburn 27, Florida 17.

My third chance to grab a victory in Auburn was in 2011.  Cindy and I watched the Tigers beat our Gators 17 – 6 in what could have been the worst college football game in history.  If there were ever a game that neither team should have won, it was this one.  Auburn’s offense was anemic; the Gators’ even worse.  It was a minor miracle that Florida’s offense even touched the ball, considering the Gators fumbled five punts during the game.  I can remember the Gator football teams in the ‘80’s having trouble fielding punts, but even at their worst five fumbled punts would constitute an entire season, not a single game.  Cindy and I left the game a couple of minutes before it was over (a rarity for us) because we had a feeling things were going to turn ugly once the clock read :00.   We hit that nail on the head, because after the game the Auburn fans were taunting us without mercy, chasing us to our car much in the same way the angry villagers chased after Frankenstein’s monster with their pitchforks and burning torches in their hands.

So getting back to what I was saying earlier, I was oh-for-Auburn.  If you factor in the Auburn Half Marathon I ran in 2010, well, I didn’t win that either so at this point you can say I was oh-for-four in Tiger Town.

But today things were going to change.  Cindy and I left our home in Peachtree City in plenty of time to make the 3:00 p.m. tip-off, especially since the game would start at 3:00 p.m. in the Central Time Zone.  If you can grasp Cindy’s propensity to be late you can appreciate me not letting her in on that little tidbit of time zone information until I parked the car across the street from the Auburn Arena about 90 minutes before game time.  A bit peeved, Cindy asked me how long I had known that Alabama time was an hour behind Georgia time.  I told her ‘since about 7^th grade,’ which proved once again that her sense of humor and mine are in two different time zones as well.

I’ll get to the outcome of the game in a moment.  But first I have to tell you about the game within the game, or as Cindy and I call it our two hours in the Twilight Zone.

·      First time out: Several hundred miniature parachuting cows fall from the rafters, a promotion from the local Chick-Fil-A.  I noticed one boy running back-and-forth along a mostly deserted aisle with three cows in one hand and two in another; his sister in the row behind him with a handful of her own.  I’m guessing with the number of free coupons they accumulated their parents didn’t have to worry about dinners from the next week or so.

·      Second time out: The cheerleaders scoured the crowd looking for the ‘loudest fans,’ easily discernible by any fan in the first couple of rows doing pseudo jumping jacks and shaking their heads and shoulders uncontrollably until a Domino’s personal pan pizza was placed in their flailing hands to calm them down.

·      Third time out: One lucky fan was given the chance to WIN A CAR!  All she had to do was make a 94-foot putt from one side of the basketball court to the other.  Moments after her putt ricocheted off the feet of the members of the press in the front row at courtside, the public address announcer commended her on her GOOOOOD TRY.

·      Halftime: Two fans appeared at mid-court dressed as a pair of Michelin Men, their costumes so ‘inflated’ that their arms stuck out straight to their sides and their mobility was severely restricted.  Their challenge: To engage in in a bout of ‘sumo wrestling’ with the winner to be determined by the first rikishi (sumo wrestler) to make their opponent fall to the floor twice.  In an entertaining performance the red Michelin Man beat the blue Michelin Man two falls to one and enjoyed the spoils of victory: a gift bag from a prominent wireless service.   I can only imagine how proud this would have made the Japanese, the Founding Fathers of sumo wrestling. 

Them again, the parachuting cows and the Michelin Men couldn’t hold a torch to the three ‘fans’ standing immediately behind Cindy and I.  As far as we could tell, two of them were Auburn fans and two of them were Florida fans.  Why we had a hard time identifying their school affiliations will be evident once you become familiar with some of their dialogue we overheard during the game.  I’ll give them nicknames so you can keep score at home:

Basketball Savant (BS):  The Gators are the ones in the blue uniforms.

Grasshopper #1: Is Auburn in white?

BS: Yes; wearing white makes them the home team.

Grasshopper #2:  What does Florida wear when they’re the home team?

BS: Orange.  Sometimes white, it just depends.

Grasshopper #3: Tweeeeeyht.  Tweeeeeyht.  (Annoying sound similar to the sounds the smoke detector in our house made the last time I burned something in the microwave)

BS: That player just got fouled in the act of shooting. 

Grasshopper #1: What happens now?

BS: He shoots two free throws.  They count for one point if he makes them.

Grasshopper #2: What if he got fouled trying a three point shot?

BS: He can shoot as many as three free throws, but he only gets to shoot as long as he keeps making them.  If he misses the first one, he’s done.

Grasshopper #3: (After the first free throw is made) Tweeeeeyht.  Tweeeeeyht. 

BS:  Billy Donovan just called a time out.

Grasshopper #1: What did he do that for?

BS: Some of the players need some Gatorade.  They’re getting tired from running up and down the court and Gatorade gives them fresh legs.

Grasshopper #2: Is that why the players are sitting on folding chairs while the coach is talking to them?

BS: Now you’re catching on. 

Grasshopper #3: (As the Gators are drinking from their Gatorade bottles)  Tweeeeeyht.  Tweeeeeyht. 

Yep, these guys had about as much business being at a basketball game as I do being at a science fair.  (Believe me, if you knew me better you’d be in stitches right about now.)   I was shocked when I turned around after the game was over and saw these four fans looked to be in their late 30’s.  Judging by their ongoing dialogue for the past 40 minutes I would have sworn they were at some age where they may not have had too much exposure to the game of basketball at this point in their lives.

As for the game, Florida was fortunate to leave Auburn Arena with a 68 – 61 win, considering they did it without any noticeable contribution from any of their guards. From what I’ve seen of the Gators so far this season, it was one of their poorest efforts.  But a win is a win. 

Or as the Basketball Savant said about the play of the Gator guards: ‘The smaller players’ job is to dribble the ball up and down the court and give the ball to the bigger players so can make the baskets.  That’s why you don’t see Florida’s smaller players scoring many points.’      

Number 4 – Attend an Allman Brothers Concert

Last Christmas morning, once all the presents were opened Cindy leaned over to me and said there was one other thing she intended to give me: Concert tickets to see a tribute concert at Atlanta’s Fabulous Fox Theater in January.  An all-star lineup would be taking the stage to sing the words and play the music of the legendary Gregg Allman, a unique one time only event.  However by the time Cindy called to purchase the tickets, the show had sold out.  Cindy felt bad about it, but I felt even worse because I know how much she loves the Allman Brothers and had yet to see them perform in concert.

So you can imagine my excitement when my sister called me right around New Year’s Day and asked if I’d be interested in getting a pair of tickets to All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs and Voice of Gregg Allman.  It just so happened that Tom, a friend of hers had a pair of tickets available.  At this point I was so excited about the prospect of getting the tickets I’m not exactly sure how Tom ended up having the  tickets available. Hope might have said he landed a backstage pass, was asked to play with the band or was heading off to astronaut school; I can’t say for sure because I wasn’t really listening.  All I heard was I might get my hands on a pair of tickets to see the Allman Brothers Band!

At Hope’s request Tom gave me a call.  Now get this: He was willing to sell the tickets to me at face value!  I thought to myself that Tom must be really excited about getting a backstage pass/playing with the band/the prospect of traveling to outer space (I really need to listen better).  Before I even put a check in the mail to pay for the tickets ($340 for the pair and before you even ask: Yes, that was face value) I had an Email from Tom with the tickets attached.  What a great, trusting guy!  If Tom didn’t live in Washington D.C./on a spaceship I imagine one day we could be the best of friends. 

On the night of the show we were hurrying along Peachtree Street to get to our seats by the advertised 7:30 p.m. start.  People everywhere were asking if anyone had tickets for sale.  It was all I could do to refrain from asking how much they were willing to pay, figuring I could come up with enough money for a 4X-HDTV if I ran into the right customer… or get arrested by an undercover policeman for scalping tickets because as you may already know karma hates me.

We get to our seats maybe five minutes early, giving us 35 minutes to dry off before the show finally gets underway around 8:00.  There isn’t a bad seat in the Fox (unless you end up sitting behind Alice the Goon or one of the Atlanta Hawks), but the instant the first note is played everyone in the house is standing and they’ll stay standing for the next three-and-a-half hours until the show is over.

Gregg Allman’s friends took the stage—one after another to sing and/or play with the talented session musicians on stage to perform some of the finest southern rock one could ever hope to hear.  Maybe four or five songs into the show the song No Way Out got things smoking.  No, I’m not referring to the music because the music had been smoking since the very first song.  I’m referring to smoking, as in*mari-jay-wanna.  It’s the first time I’ve caught a whiff of ‘the evil weed’ in a concert since the ‘70’s, a time when the deed with the weed warranted nothing more than a hand slap (from the law) or an a**-kicking (from your parents). 

*I trust this isn’t a news flash for the Fox Theater management.

The musicians throughout the tribute were amazing and it was evident they all wanted to be there.  The classiest comment I heard all night was from Trace Adkins. After singing I’m No Angel and Trouble No More he told the crowd: ‘This is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my career.’  I’m no fan of country music by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m now a fan of Trace Adkins.

Some of my personal favorites of the night were Widespread Panic’s rendition of Just Ain’t Easy, Gregg Allman and Jackson Browne’s duet on Melissa, Eric Church’s performance of Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More, and every single note played by Allman Brothers Band guitarist Derek Trucks (that man can make a guitar cry for mercy).  For me the highlight of the night was the Allman Brothers performance of Whipping Post, a 20-minute extravaganza illustrating the musical talents of each member of the band. 

Other featured performers included former Allmans keyboardist Chuck Leavell (the girl sitting next to me said she shared a cab with him once) and Zac Brown (Cindy reminded Zac Brown came into her store one time and spent quite a bit of money).  I wanted to tell them both that I might possibly know one of the boys in the band (I couldn’t be certain Tom was up there because we’d never met in person and I had no idea what he looked like). 

Rounding out the talent was Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave), Dr. John, Pat Monahan (Train front man), John Hiatt, Taj Mahal, Martina McBride and Vince Gill.  (Speaking of Vince Gill, a woman I worked with in the ‘80’s had a crush on him, always commenting on how good he looked in a pair of tight jeans.  I imagine she might be surprised to see him now: His jeans were still tight, but the reasons were all wrong.)   There were a couple of other musicians but I missed their performances because Cindy sent me to the lobby to buy her a beer and apparently the people at the concession stands were feeling the affects of whatever was in the air (mari-jay-wanna) because I have never seen anyone stone cold sober take three minutes to pour a glass of beer from a tap or even longer to make a mixed drink.         

Towards the end of the night Gregg Allman was presented on stage with a pair of framed certificates for his life’s work. 

As for Cindy, who bought a copy of the Allman Brothers Band’s double album Eat a Peach the day it was released back in 1972: She finally got to see one of her favorite bands of all time.   

And me?  Well, I just might be friends with an astronaut.