Although I am in construction and am accustomed to a "less compassionate" and certainly less politically correct environment that doesn't mean that I don't feel anguish with certain decisions.  There are two circumstances that cause me a great deal of strain right now.  Throughout each of them I toil over and over and over again in my head to find some sort of win - win that I can live with.  And tonight nobody wins.

The current president of my Rotary club is an absolute brilliant leader.  He works both wisely and tirelessly.  He has moved the club in one year further than most could dream of in five.  I am honored to be on his board.  Tonight I watched him go through the mental toil over an issue where frankly, nobody wins.  We can't stick our heads in the sand and we can't wait for time to pass any longer.  

Although he is an amazing leader, he didn't want to deal with a sticky situation because, like several of us, he saw that nobody wins.  I feel guilty that I forced him into confronting it and I expect that my personal relationship with him has suffered as a result of my insistance.  Again, more of "nobody wins".  

I don't think anyone sitting around the table didn't feel a level of anguish tonight.  I ask myself now, how could I have handled it better?  The situation is too fresh for me to know the answer.  If I knew how, I would have dealt with my leader in a fashion that perhaps didn't damage our relationship. I wish that he wasn't put into a situation that he would rather face a cononoscopy instead of tackling.  

I wish that I could have found the way of win win.  Today, nobody wins.  The question however is, how many truly lost?  I don't know when we will have that answer. 

On Valentine's Day, my honey took me to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens to enjoy the most breathtaking orchid display that I have ever seen.  This week, the garden sold many of of the orchids from that exhibit.  Not only did I get a beautiful morning walk in the garden, but I walked away with two armful's of beauty.  Now selfishly, I would love to keep them all but, I did get many for my friends to enjoy.  

It was such a crappy week that I am glad it ended on a note of beauty.

It has been several months now and I have to say it, I miss my friends from Bikram yoga.  I bump into them all the time as the studio where I take Ashtanga is the same studio where the Birkam (Hot) yoga studio is offered.  I am friends with one of the owners and she is hysterical.  My favorite FAVORITE yoga moment over the course of now~ six years was when my friend was teaching the class and I was getting into Garudasana (Eagle, shown above by Bikram).  When she saw the quantity of drama instead of efficient movement I was using to get into the pose and said "Candace ~ WHAT THE HELL, this isn't your interpretive dance class".  I didn't fall at that moment but I almost had to excuse myself while I laughed to the point of tears!!  I miss the silliness, the camaraderie and my buddies (although I do enjoy time outside the studio with a few of them).

I can't do Bikram right now because the heat is too hard on my adrenals.  My adrenals cause terrible joint pain, I mean some days it is my knee and elbow and other days it is everything, including feet, hands, wrists, hips ~ ug.  Ashtanga is so hard on my knees that I have now counted three classes where I just start to cry from the pain.  Bikram on the other hand only has really one pose, toe stand that would be tough on my knee.  

I like Ashtanga and Iyengar better than I like Bikram yoga.  It is change, new, exciting.  I like Ashtanga better than Iyengar however the Iyengar classes help me in Ashtanga as I get a chance to get into the poses with props so I can feel what I am trying to do in Ashtanga.  Unfortunately, because of my demanding schedule right now, I can't make it to Iyengar and won't be able to again until May.  That is OK, it is a long yoga journey. 

Still, I miss my buddies.  After you have gone for a long time, you have a sort of "yoga team".  You watch new people progress and are proud of big moments for them.  You see if your friends need a hand or just sharing of electrolytes or a hello.  You move your mat and make space for people and they for you when someone is running late and after a stressful day, that is a great act of kindness.  It is yoga, you share and the group energy is powerful and you are focused on energy because you know the postures well so you go within.  When you are weak you find more inner strength and you can feel the group strength in the room and that inspires you to do more.  I can see in Ashtanga that group of people that have been practicing together and have that rapport.  It is a significantly smaller and younger group than in Bikram and I am not a part of it.  That doesn't diminish my experience but what I am pointing out is what can enhance your experience.  

I hate to admit it but I miss the mirrors too.  It was a wierd dimension of Bikram yoga but I get it now.  I could watch the details of my postures, and as I am into visualization, I would learn and improve and see myself do the poses before I could actually do them.  I feel like a big dork in Ashtanga but I wish that I could see myself improve.  Even for the expense of seeing how much my yoga has slipped since I am in so much pain.  I can't enjoy small victories and I don't have a team anymore. 

I miss my friends at Bikram yoga, especially since I am suffering and I know I could get strength from them.  I miss my yoga team.  

Today has been a FUN day.  Our guest speaker at Rotary today was Mr. Dikembe Mutombo (the shortened version of his full name).  WHAT A GENTLEMAN!  He is fluent in ten languages, came from Kinshasa, Congo, went to college at Georgetown to be a Dr. but well when you are 7'2" life has other plans for you.  So instead he had an amazing career in the NBA and spends his life making the lives of people that he will never meet, better.  He has a gift.  It is a gift of pure joy and love and he gives it to everyone he meets.

He could be the most caring person I have ever met and I have to good fortune to meet caring people all the time at Rotary!

He spoke about his foundation, http://www.dmf.org.  This man saves lives EVERY DAY.  He built the first hospital in 42 years in Congo!  He participated with Rotary in Congo administering the Polio vaccinations.  With his support, he and Rotary reached 8.2 million children under the age of 5.  That is an entire generation of children that I hope never know the word Polio nonetheless the disease.  He is a champion on education and delivering medicine to people in Africa suffering from HIV/AIDS.  This man is love and service and I had the honor of running the meeting today.  I got a hug from an angel.  

(PS and I am wear stilettos in this photo and I still don't reach his shoulder!) 

I have been out of Ashtanga for almost two weeks.  This is a result of either being on the phone with my lawyer late in the afternoon at my office, or being in a series of meetings GALORE.  (Oh and a couple days because the motorcycle fell over in the mud and my right shoulder, knee and ankle hurt but that is another story)

This makes me a big horrible grouch.  Well, maybe more of a bitch to be accurate.

So THANK GOD Wednesday night was mysore night.  Now I can not do the full primary Ashtanga series yet so I have to stop at Kurmasana, tortoise pose.  I was always fascinated by this pose.  Bhagavad Gita says "When like the tortoise, which withdraws on all sides its limbs, he (the aspirant) withdraws his senses from the sense-objects.  Then wisdom becomes steady.  The tortoise symbolizes looking inward, and controlling very carefully what is put out."  

NOW THAT SOUNDS PERFECT!  So I always thought the pose looks so relaxing.  You are resting your head on the ground, breathing slow and steady, totally going inward.  How cool.  So instead of embracing the posture, I am hell bent and determined to force myself into the pose.  Since it was a mysore class, I asked the instructor to help me.  I love this instructor and she WILL get you into the pose if you ask. Holy s*&T!  It only LOOKS relaxing.  I have tried over and over again to get into the pose but couldn't get my knees close enough to my shoulders so my legs press down on my elbows and that sucks.  It hurts and you cant get your chest down toward the floor that way.  So Lori moved my knees toward my ears and pushed me down.  

Look, it is bad form to swear during yoga but like a trooper, when I say "oh S-H-I-T" Lori said "are you breathing????".  No, just swearing.  

Then after that comes Supta Kurmasana, sleeping tortoise.  Yea, I was doing so well with the awake version that the sleeping version seemed appropriate.  

But sure enough Lori contoured me further toward supta kurmasana, looking something like this:

This is a huge deal but not even the full expression of the posture which looks like this:

I thought my shoulders were coming out of the joints when she pulled my hands around to get me to bind them behind my back.  I pulled my feet as inward as possible but no, they were not above my head although I was damn happy at where they were.  

I think my version of tortoise is much like my version of life right now.  People are telling me to relax and to breathe and I am trying to struggle my way to get to a place that looks relaxing.  Not exactly withdrawing of the senses.  Not exactly a road to peace and happiness.

 I learn so much about myself on the mat it is amazing.  Occasionally, I get into some really fun postures too!

I am a part of one very large community service organization.  I love it.  But what I don't enjoy are the weeks where it is meeting after meeting after meeting.  This is typical in the springtime as we are preparing for the upcoming year.  The upcoming year starts July 1 and we are in our big push.

So I spent all Saturday and most of Sunday in training. It was fantastic however the only "down time" I got this weekend was my rust to get laundry and other house chores done before a quick meal with my honey before he had to travel this week.  

Then Monday I had our regular meeting and Monday night our board meeting.  Today we have a half day long range planning committee meeting.  

Again, I love this group but for the next two years I have to remember to be patient.  It is finally springtime and I want to walk my dogs more and spend time working in the back yard but I need to be inside, planning. 

WOOOO DOWN BOY, love you all but I need a break!

The flip side of this equation is how proud I am of our group.  We have a large group and it is well managed.  The team is competent, values long range planning and we accomplish A LOT.

I think I just need my incredibly long overdue vacation.  I am headed to San Diego in a few weeks and I am desperate for down time.  One of the problems that I have been trying to solve at work for two years has reared its ugly head and I am spending all my work time on it and my free time in meetings.  I haven't had a REAL vacation in over a year.  Last year my "vacations" were tagging along with Mark to some of his places for three days or so.  This is a very nice option but not what I want.  This is 3.5 days with Mark and 5 days of me taking a lead primary series with THE Ashtanga guru in a beautiful sunny beach location.  Classes are about two hours a day.  The rest is DOWN TIME.  AAAAAhhhhhhhhh  I love the sound of that.  DOWN TIME.  My lofty goals will be to walk around, take photos, get a massage, take a nap, perhaps get a pedicure, read, knit.  Down time.  

I'm so close to burning out of everything.  Down time can't come soon enough!

I am aware that anger is just what sits on top of sadness. So after a good bit of anger at some point the sadness just breaks through.

Although I would love to think that I can contain every ounce of each of my emotions at every second of the waking day, I know that I am completely full of bs. Sometimes, that anger changes to sadness so fast that I can't stop the tears from coming. I had one of these moments this past weekend. I have been angry for several days and finally I got closer to the heart of the matter and just let the tears go, down my cheeks, saturating my shirt spilling onto the counter. Letting some of it go.

Now to be clear the anger and the sadness weren't just about something that was a few days old, it goes back to things that are a few DECADES old. The feelings are the same, the people are different.

I feel hung over today. I am bone tired (that much emotion and my adreanls need a down day but I don't have down time), I feel spent. I want to curl up and put something silly on tv like "Kung Fu Panda" and come back to some level place.

On one level, I am so happy to be past the anger. On the other I am to a place where now I have to learn something new. I learned to recognized a pattern that started when I was a child of behavior of the people that I love that make me sad. What I don't know are the behaviors that I want instead. The healthy behavior that makes me happy.

After the anger, the opportunity to learn. I haven't gotten to that place yet, such as after the rain when you can smell the wet grass and see the flowers sparkle and reflect light from the rain drops. I look forward to getting there as right now, I just feel ~ completely spent.

So as my day progresses I just get more and more pissed off.

Now I have my mail up and running and my windows virtual machine has crashed four times on me.  F*&^%r.  Until Timberline software is supported on OSX I have to keep the damn virtual machine running.  Normally, this isn't a big problem but today it seems everything is a big fu*&^%g problem.

But that just frustrates me.  It exacerbates my anger.  I am truly angry because I am in a situation where I believe that not only do I have the right to be heard but that I should be a priority to be heard.  Everything should come second to my needs in this case as I have been disregarding when I stated I wanted to talk. 

WTF? Really, I am the last person on the planet that wants to talk about feelings but you know what, when I never do it and I ask to do it I am not crying wolf.  Then I fu*&ed the situation up further by sending mixed messages and apologizing for being distant so now this person thinks that I just want to focus on what aplogizing more?  NO I WANT MY TIME.  ME MY FUCKING TIME.  I AM NOT A WALLFLOWER AND NOT TO BE DISREGARDED.  I have perpetually been patient and tolerant of this persons schedule but this is FUCKING OBSCENE (see I'm so angry I stopped editing)

Have to go meet my plumber now.  Now I find that it will cost me $650 to install a meter inside my home to fight my water bills. 

Lovely.

So my day started off bad and now, I am on hold with Apple tec support because I don't have email.  For a nerd like me that is just misery.  Error messages on my ipad, macbookpro, ipad and iphone.  Grrrrr...  

That was after I got the impression that someone wants to blow off a discussion with me about my feelings.  Not thatI ever want to talk about my feelings any way but as I have stated that I did, I got a total blow off.

OH, my mail is back, maybe today won't be the big pisser that it has started out to be...  

When I get what can potentially be horrible news I frequently say nothing.  An invisible bead of glue puts my lips together.  It is as if on an unconscious level if I discuss or say whatever it is out loud the bad thing gains power and becomes overwhelming.  

I don't have children.  Although I am in a committed relationship we live in separate houses.  So aside from my dogs, I am essentially alone.  Within 2 years of my divorce I lost four dogs.  I had a pack that was between the ages of 14 - 16, arthritic but had long and wonderful lives.  Each one was happy and healthy until the end of life.  Losing each one was like having my already damaged heart shredded into nothing.  Lets face it, after my life experiences, it is simply easier for me to have an open honest accepting relationship with my dogs than it is humans.  I love them unconditionally and I receive love, comfort, laughter and so much more from them.  Each one has always been a rescue.  

Currently I have a five year old border collie, a four year old mixed cutie and a 1.5 year old strange chihuahua/greyhound sort of mix.  Yesterday was time for Max to have his annual physical.  Last fall when I would run him hard in agility or playing catch or whatever he would limp so I asked the Dr to x ray him.  The doctor saw something.  He isn't sure as it appeared on the shoulder.  He doesn't think it is what I fear because from the time Max started to limp to now he would most likely be gone.  So in one month, I will take him back for a new set of x rays to see if he has bone cancer.

OMG bone cancer. My boy.  My boy that cheered me up when I was low.  My boy that has IBD and loved each of his siblings so much that each time I lost one of my dogs, he wound up hospitalized as his IBD would be so bad that he couldn't help himself.  When I rescued him, he had been shot by the prievous owner and never had human interaction.  He is vibrant and kind to all other dogs.  I am due at least another 10 years with him and I think that I am actually going to pray.  Right now I feel totally frozen, I can't speak about this but somehow my fingers can type it.

After my Dr appointment this morning, I will pick him up.  He will almost wag his butt off and put his paws around my waist to hug me.  He will try to kiss me over and over and over again so that I know how much he missed me.  

Please don't take my boy from me.  Right now, I am just frozen.  Lips pursed together without anything coming out.