head and shoulders

We've been going to a yoga class once a week. Yes, we, the hubby and I. After several weeks o the Wii Fit, it gave the hubby confidence that he would actually do a yoga class. Hell, he does the tree pose better than I can.

The instructor at the club is quite good and knows how to make corrections in people's bodies and gives alternatives for the people who can't do the poses to the entirety. We get there early and often the instructor of the kick boxing class just before it often tries to honestly promote the class, but you can hear the snarkiness in her voice. What can I say? Yoga is slow and most people only know how to go fast.

I've noticed that I still have alot of stiffness in my upper back and shoulders. I can't raise my arms straight above my head. Maybe if someone moved them into position I could hold them there, but otherwise I can't get them there. I always like yoga class as I always feel taller and lighter afterwards.

This past weekend had kali seminar on double weapons, which was quite a workout for the upper back areas, then went to Sunday class where my body told me, that this was enough.

So here I am Monday, resting in bed with the laptop and a hot compress wrapped around my shoulders, hoping to loosen up all the muscles that have gone awol on me. And I thought I was making such progress too! Though I find myself still doing a bit of work, since I can prop myself and the laptop in such a way that I can still rest, which I can't do even in my ergonomic workstation and chair.

I'm hoping this is my one step back to make two steps forward which is a typical habit in my body. But I guess after I heal from this, I should look to strengthen and lengthen.

changing weather

A friend on facebook commented to my update of "why do I always get sick when the hot weather hits?" and reminded me of how the body dislikes rapid change. My body does not take heat well. My body especially doesn't take rapid heat fluctuations well. I know this because I picked up another cold right when the heat hit. This cold is not so bad if it was regular weather, but it is dreadfully horrible in this heatwave.

Yesterday the wind kicked up all sorts of crap into the air, and in order to survive the office that is our "easy-bake oven" I took refuge in the air-conditioned bathroom that felt like a chilly 50 degrees, though I'm sure it was more in the 70s, splash some water on the face, arms and neck which dried by the time I hit the office just 20 ft away. Repeat. No, I'm sure that didn't help any either. In the evening I went to bowling which wasn't much cooler, yet threw one of my best series of league coming 9 pins short of bumping the top woman in the high scratch series category and 9 short of my ultimate league goal of a 600 series. (I'm so close I can taste it!).

Afterwards, I was going to go get gelato with my sister to celebrate the 218 game I rolled in the 3rd game, but as soon as I sat in the car, the body just started giving away. The nausea, the headache, the exhaustion. Hmm...feels like heat exhaustion. I had drank water all day and ate nachos during the game to try to get some salts back in the body. I went to bed and the slight itchy throat that had given me a bad but livable cough earlier in the week, got worse.

So rather than put my body through those extremes again, I decided to stay home. Grant it I don't have AC, but our place is predictable in temperature and there's a shower if I can't get my body cool enough with an electric fan and gatorade. That seemed to do the trick. While I still created a pile of used and blown tissues next to me, I am able to type this post without a sniffle nor cough. Home was warm but not dreadful and I jumped into the shower twice, once in the morning and once just before dinner, which we had outside in a restaurant patio, which was lovely.

And while my body dislikes the current heatwave, I can't imagine living someplace where the weather is even more extreme. Maybe my body will toughen itself out eventually if I did, but for now, I am still a California weather wimp.

end of the ornery

I've been not just ornery but ARnery the last five days or so, as my body tackled that nasty cold going around along with the braces finding an opportunity to yank my neck and back every which way all in time for the lovely weather weekend. It really is enough to make someone go from ornery to arnery.

I hate being sick. As much as I like sleeping in and relaxing, I hate being sick. Plus my body has a way of delaying sickness in time for the weekend where there are no excuses but be sick. I'm not much for sitting still.

Anyway, I got to Tuesday night and I just didn't want to go to class, still being sick and all, but I went anyway. I teach the class, so I can teach without actively contaminating the students. Being in the agitated state I was in, decided to explore the recent lessons of restriction and repression, how rules, objects, locations, words, both guide us as restriction but sometimes fight against us as repression. When and how does a weapon feel so awkward that you can't do what you want to do, how sometimes you give yourself alot of restrictions to force you in a different direction than you're used to, and how somewhere between being restrained and restricted there's an avenue of wondrous freedom.

It was an interesting exploration of what holds us back and how much weight we give to the context in which we learned something. For instance, all the students started out frustrated since they were stuck with the pair of weapons I asked them to use and really only learned a couple of really basic techniques to use them that didn't really work in a fighting situation. Then I gave them a different technique to use, but a technique they were used to doing in another context at another distance. This too was difficult for them to get their bodies to do and it took a while for them to adjust, but once one of them did he said the things that he thought held him back disappeared. They didn't matter.

I can see how sometimes being in the mode of studying can be the greatest restriction. When studying something we create in our minds alot of parameters about the way something should be done in order to create a repeatable event. The parameters let us study the affect of a certain trait, say speed or force. We do a form or repeat a technique over and over, changing speed, observing what happens. But to jump from this, the technique to actually using it and applying it, the parameters we set up for ourselves to execute the technique become a hindrance. In our minds we think the same rules should apply but they don't.

I came out of class lighter, the pain in my neck from my body resisting the adjustments had gone away, I had a surge of energy that I hadn't felt in a week. There is so much more to learn!

I love market day

I love going to the farmer's market, wandering the stalls, sampling the fresh fruit. The one by our place also has numerous restaurant and specialty food booths with Afghan, Indian, Thai, Vegan Soul Food, French pates and meats, and bakeries.

We take our bayong and take the nice stroll down to the park. It seems like every grocery store is selling reusable bags now, but they really can't compare to a serious bayong that you can load to the hilt and still have it so the handles aren't cutting into your hands. Americans, we're just new to this idea of reusable bags for purchases.

We might have an idea of what we might want to get: bread, some fruit, but for the most part we just wander and see what's there. Often we buy something to inspire us for the weekend meal.

Today's shopping included:

-1 pomelo
-1 original belgian waffle with powdered sugar (that I ate on the spot); they also had nutella and whip cream, but I settled for the basics. It was very good. A really dense waffle, a real breakfast.
-Ceviche - made with sole and another fish; The guy's mother made it, I had to buy it. C'mon, his mother made it! You would have bought it too!
-Sashimi grade salmon- We cut it up and had it for lunch and dinner
-Chicken duck pate with truffles - we got that from the French guy who sells all sorts of sausages. I wanted to try the Cassoulet, but that was $29/jar.
-guacamole
-cheese-mint sauce, lentils, cilantro pesto and two spinach balanis from the Afghan vendors that give tons of samples
-1 sweet french loaf that was soft as a pillow
-1 cheddar cheese loaf
-1 cabbage for the corned beef I bought at costco the night before, which I'll attempt to cook in the slow cooker tomorrow night. It is March afterall.
-1 samosa with cilantro and yogourt sauce from the Indian stand. I wasn't as enchanted with her sauces, but the samosa was very good.

Oranges were tasty, but the strawberries seemed out of their element for this time of year.

In less than an hour we had walked and sampled the entire market, and hiked back up the hill. I can see why my grandmother enjoys going to the market. Here, we only go once a week and keep everything in the fridge. But in the Philippines, they go every day, early in the morning. She likes to go and get the loads of vegetables and meat for the day's meals relying on her 80+ years of knowing what is in season, what is not. Then bargaining with the vendors.

I'm not sure if I would like going to market every day, mostly because I probably wouldn't have time to, but it is a different kind of food cycle. A different way of interacting with the people who make or grow the food you eat.

Waitfulness or This morning's dream was strange too

This morning's dream was strange too, though I have promptly forgotten what it was. I'm not much into interpreting dreams obviously. Mostly because if it's really that important that my conscious self should know there are plenty of other very conscious omens, signs, feelings, coincidences, or people just straight up telling me to my face what I need to know. In fact, I think I get way more than my fair share, but the spirit world is neither fair nor allows you to share your ability to see these things.

I do remember once crying in a dream and then waking up quite spiritually fresh. I only remember that one because it was such a surprising unconscious dream symbol to conscious feeling.

Oh well. Energy wise feeling like I could leap out of bed, then after I did, my body reminded me that I shouldn't be leaping so high nor so fast yet. So while my mind and spiritual energy as it were wanted to get up and go, for the sake of my body I needed to consciously slow down.

I've been feeling really really hungry, but then I can only eat two tacos. I felt like I could speed walk past a group of students, but had to tell myself to trudge along behind the pack. That my exterior sometimes does not have to always reveal the speed of my interior self. Oh but when they are in alignment, I can imagine how fast I could go! And even then I would probably be better off slowing down and waiting.

unconscious consciousness

Decided to stay at home today and take a sick day. I endured much of yesterday with cramping legs, sore throat and blazing headache to make a couple of important meetings. I cancelled another meeting, bought some jamba juice, and went home and slept. Oh, for a good 16 hours or so, waking up every couple of hours to see what time it was and maybe take a few more sips of water or juice.

I find that I've often gotten sick around the same time I get a new wire for my braces. I think it has something to do with the wire yanking the teeth which yank the muscles. Or it could just be coincidence, considering the hubby has been sick for the last few days, though I don't know if he had the same symptoms. He coughed the whole time, I'm hardly coughing.

I had alot of strange dreams. I don't usually remember dreams at all. But I do recall seeing a flooding cage of hamsters in my parent's dining room, seeing and speaking to a cousin I hardly new and who had passed away a long time ago, and a strange work meeting that seemed to be occurring in my bedroom because I was simply too weak to get up (OK maybe I was just reimagining how the the previous workday actually went for me).

I feel much better today than yesterday but I think that's mostly because I'm home with the discretion of taking a nap when need be or lying down when necessary. Though obviously, I'm still at my computer. In any case, I haven't been doing any brain functioning activities while on the computer. It's interesting that when I'm sick I can almost feel how much energy it takes to actually do a mental activity.

Anyway, back to resting.

eagle eyes

I went in for my annual eye exam. I only started doing these last year. I'm blessed with good genetics in that my parents didn't really need glasses til they hit their 50s. Last year, since I was so focused on health and making sure I was making good use of all the medical insurance and benefits that my employment provides, I went in for an eye exam at the UC Optometry clinic. Alot of my coworkers who wear glasses really loved the service there, so that's where I went.

Last year, the Optometry clinic student said I had the signs of sun damage, so I bought a pair of sunglasses, and I mean real sunglasses. Unlike going into a store to buy them, they made sure those things fit on my face and you know how hard it is to fit glasses on an Asian nose. So ever since then, I've been hooked on their service.

Today's service went quite well also. Nice guy, good interaction, good clear instructions on where to look. They test just about everything from peripheral view, eye pressure for glaucoma, and of course stare at the front and back of my eyes.

Turns out I have 20/15 vision, probably no as good as an eagle that has something like 20/2 vision, but slightly better than the norm. The hubby is rather astonished at how I can pinpoint signs from quite a distance. I'm a touch farsighted, though at this point that doesn't mean much since I would also assume that perfect vision is a rather rare thing. He said probably as the years go by I'll be pulling the paper farther and farther away from my face.

I'm actually surprised I managed to get through it so well considering I had not had much sleep the night before. The peripheral test was kind of tricky as they had just put the dilating drops in my eyes and I noticed how the screen would blank out as my eyes were adjusting.

When the Attending came in to check the back of my eye as well to verify the student's findings, I could hear them talk jargon and numbers about what to record. The Attending says that bothers some people, but I didn't really care, they're just numbers until they give me an explanation for them. She told me that the numbers were all in a good range and that was fine by me.

Tthey gave me a pair of the plastic wrap around shades but said it probably wasn't necessary on a cloudy day. I wore them for a half hour and then put them away since the sun wasn't going to come out any time soon.

It'll be interesting when we have kids, what kind of vision that they'll get. In the hubby's family, he hasn't been able to see much of anything since he was 5 and his brother has perfect vision and only needed reading glasses once he got into his 40s. Go figure.

making space

The glacial body adjustments caused by my braces has now made its way to the middle of my back and the lower ribs. It's like having that stiff muscle that you just can't stretch out. Not too painful but dreadfully annoying. Yet, I am learning about the multiple muscle layers that make up the core that I remember coloring in anatomy class. If I had known it was going to be like this, I might not have gotten braces, but while I'm here I might as well make it a good thing.

As my body creates space, I've started making space in my physical surroundings which includes consolidating to a smaller storage locker, rearranging closets, and creating enough space in the bedroom floor so I can do my morning and evening yoga. I'm hoping in creating space externally, will help with my body creating space internally. And while I mostly talk of the physical layers here, there are spiritual and philosophical layers to this I don't discuss in this forum. But in the end, as bothersome as these physical things are, they represent significant changes that I hope will bring about greater things in my life. Sometimes you have to get things in order, before you can go anywhere.

In our last class, Tuhan mentioned the book, The Tipping Point. The main example of the idea is that it's the little things that can turn a neighborhood around: removing the graffiti, weeding and mowing the lawn, picking up the garbage, stopping the petty crimes. But that you have to be consistent and immediate in your reaction to these small things. But this idea works with alot of other things in our lives that we are hoping to change.

So creating space in the bedroom is the start of a personal experiment to take care of the little things in that room and see how it expands. I know the body and mind will resist, thus the aches and stiffness this past week. The clutter attracts one kind of energy, the openness attracts another for good or for bad.

on the menu

I've finally gotten a chance to browse through the various cookbooks we've bought or be given over the last couple of years. My staple book that is already showing it's wear and tear is America's Test Kitchen.

I used to order from a company that preps meals into ziplock bags so you can freeze them and cook them when you see fit. And based on what I learned from getting those meals, I'm trying to think of how I can do the same thing with these recipes. Obviously stews, casseroles and stir frys are quite good for this kind of thing. And why not prep a week, maybe even a month's worth of dinners in the fridge for an easy quicky stir fry. And if I can do all the prep on the weekend when I actually have time, all the better.

The first step in doing that was to make homemade pesto, which I've never done. We recently unpacked a mini-prep machine we received as a wedding gift, so it was the perfect time to learn to make pesto. I didn't know how much 4 cups of fresh basil was, so we bought excessive amounts. And I forgot to buy pine nuts, but then remembered reading somewhere that pistachios, which the hubby serendipitously purchased, could be substituted. It was enough for three batches, two of which I popped into the freezer and one I added the parmesan to for dinner that night. It worked out well and it was enough pesto to slap on some roast chicken for the rest of the week. yummy! and way better than the jarred variety, which we still have from costco.

Also on the cooking list that night was carrot bundt cake. Before the hubby would buy apple pie or other dessert for the week, but now I'm into making cakes. So far I've tried bundt cake, banana bread, and now carrot cake. I've cooked banana bread and carrot cake before so pretty easy, though it took me 40 minutes to grate the 1 lb of carrots in the batch, but it was worth it. I'd like to try the banana bread and bundt cake again as they turned out decent but not as good as I would have liked.

Next up after I season my pastry board, I'm going to try making pizza dough to compliment the pesto and challah bread. But it also means to look to purchase a couple new things for the kitchen including a kitchen scale (for the bread making) and a roaster, which is what the hubby would like to do more of. Which means I need to rethink a few of the kitchen cabinet spaces to better organize them for what we need and to use up or get rid of things we haven't used.

whole brain or half brain

During my recent training a work, they covered the Whole Brain model. It says that the brain is a mix of 4 quadrants which they categorize by color: blue, green, red, yellow.

Blues: analytical, bottom line, technical, financial, expert in a field
Greens: organized, detailed
Reds: Interpersonal, emotional
Yellows: Dreamers, big picture, artists

You start by choosing a group of colors that you feel you are most like. I think when I did this the last time I was very yellow, though most people are a mix of 2-3 colors and often have a dominant default. When I'm relaxing, I'm very yellow. Don't really keep track of time, into aesthetics, can draw larger concept out of detail. Next I think I'd be blue, partially that the field that I'm in attracts blues. People who collect and analyze data. Next is red, people who like people and are good at socializing and being aware of people's feelings. Lastly, I only have a touch of green and often only when I commit to focus on a thing.

The different colors have ways to communicate. Reds and Blues, Greens and Yellows are diametrically opposed which means that they have the greatest difficulties communicating, yet they fulfill each other's greatest needs. Greens can be obsessively very narrow, so yellows can get them to see the big picture. While yellows don't do enough planning, greens are right there with the details.

Of the four Green is very distinctive mostly because the other colors often notice them as very detailed, but can also be seen as controlling and obsessive with their one way.

All four are really necessary and really necessary when working in a group as each dominant feature gives you something. 4% of all people in a challenging situation can think with all four parts. 12% of CEOS can do this. I guess that's a trait of being the head honcho.

I find, that if push came to shove, I often will become the missing color. Want a tightly run meeting? Sign me up! Yet at home I sorely lack a green initiative though I go through my bouts. It kind of ebbs and flows.

I also started noticing the "colors" of my family members. The hubby while quite green at work, is not very green at home and with me only with bursts of it, it can be a challenge because there are tasks that have to happen that are most suited for green thinking. My mother is definitely high on green as she needs things put in order and seeing this order comes quite easily for her, which explains our arguments about keeping my "yellow-minded" room clean. As a yellow I need to understand the big picture and why things must be done a certain way. Also because my mind likes to explore possibilities, it's difficult for me to choose a way to organize as my mind wants to wander into numerous other configurations and I just don't know which one to pick. When they say, "everything has a place" my mind asks "why is this place better than another?" At school I was quite neat, but that's because everything had a place and someone else chose that place , and sometimes there were rewards for doing so. Plus the method to organizing must "make sense" to me and not simply well because it has to be this way or this is the only way to do it. I immediately rebel against those notions because I constantly believe in options. My sister too is a green, which explains our reactions to how we travel.

I'm getting some semblance of "green" mindedness at home, but it still must "make sense" to me. Hanging clothes in color order makes sense to me. Doing 15 min a day, makes sense to me.

But just because you are dominant in one color doesn't mean you can't be the other colors. You can consciously do things to be less default. And it's good to stretch in this way as it helps you understand how people communicate based on what's important to them. Yellows want to know why. Greens want to know the details. Blues want to know the bottomline. Reds like to know how everyone is doing. So part of the reason someone stares blankly at you when you ask them something, may just be because their brain literally does not comprehend the way in which you are asking. In my adulthood, I often felt like I could never be as organized or take care of a household the way my very green minded mother did and I would feel bad that I was "failing" at it because I couldn't do it in the way she did.

It's like how a track coach once told me to run faster, but didn't give me any tools or drills to learn to run faster. As far as I knew I was running as fast as I could. I couldn't comprehend what faster meant. How do you run faster? How much faster?

By being multiple colors and trying to achieve whole brain also allows you to be more of the proper color when necessary. There are advantages and disadvantages of being each color. And understanding different ways of thinking allow you to view different approaches to the same problem.

Now that I have a bit more "why" answered, this "standard" I used to hold myself up to doesn't bother me as much anymore. I just understand it as a way of thinking, but if I focus on the goal, what are the different ways to reach that goal. In understanding this, I now integrate "green" things with a "yellow" approach. If I knew why certain things should be organized in a certain way, then it's easier for me to keep it neat.

Kermit was right about how it wasn't easy to be green, but we're all chameleons, so we don't have to stay that way.

One step at a time

The campus has a new get fit walking program and is handing out pedometers for free. They even have a website you can go to to log all the steps and miles you've taken. Plus if you do other activities you can list them as steps and add that to your activity list.

The work I do makes us a bit of a nomad in that we travel back and forth between client offices as far away as downtown Oakland so we naturally do alot of walking. But now with the pedometer I can find out just how far that means.

At one client in a big warehouse I clocked 0.65 miles just walking back and forth between the areas. On a typical day I might walk about a mile and that includes carrying a backpack with a 4lb laptop and other necessities.

I used to go to a water exercise class in a private women's pool on campus twice a week, but for various reasons I haven't been able to make it there for nearly a year, in and out of being sick, increased work duties, etc. But those are just excuses. I'm getting closer to getting back to that class. I've brought my swim gear to my office, so I can't say I didn't bring my stuff. And now I'm working on clearing out time during that lunch hour to be on campus. It doesn't mean that I'll make it there, but at least now I can see it and choose to use that time or not.

I bought a pedometer last year, but gave it to the hubby to use. It was too big and kept falling off my waist. But certainly the new log website gives me incentive, plus if you tally up so many steps then you get prizes like a water bottle and stuff. Nothing big or fancy, but still fun to get.

Today was busy, my feet are a bit sore. I've walked over a mile and a half today and the day isn't over. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all adds up.

the power of glacial movement

As the braces continue to change the structure of my face and eventually the structure of my body, I find myself waking up each day to what feels like a different world as the body is constantly shifting, then shifting again.

I have experienced these kinds of changes in my body before, but nothing at this speed, continuity, and amount. I sit in Kali class this morning and the concepts brought up today, explain alot about the levels of pain I've been experiencing.

There is the wire that pulls on the teeth that pulls on the muscles. The first reaction of the body is to pull back, creating a tension that cascades throughout the body, a conflict in the body that my body doesn't want to change.

After a day or so, the body relents and then adjusts, but now the mind has not caught up with where the body is. There are new sensations, sensitivities. The mind now creates a tension by resisting the new sensations, the new way the body moves. Another conflict, a point of confusion.

In the meantime, all the adjustments makes me fatigued with the mind and body seemingly always on, always sensing. Sometimes the new motions make me afraid that I might pull something again as the movement doesn't flow as smoothly. The body and mind innately are afraid of change. Evolutionarily speaking, we like status quo if it means our basic needs are met.

Each day there are muscles and part of my body I wasn't aware of. Sections that connect in ways I didn't realize.

To deal with the fear, with the conflict, I find myself constantly reminding myself to relax, to not allow the fear to create more tension, more pain, but to try to accept more and more the changes that are happening. And at the same time to try to expand my capacity to take on the new experiences, so they don't feel as earth shattering, so I learn not to fight.

In the interview at KPFA, they asked me why I would train in something that seems so violent. And I would say now, is in learning how to fight, one also learns when not to fight and learning not to fight is a much much harder lesson due to the stubborness of the body and mind. My body feels pain because there is a conflict with what I know and what really is. To reliave this pain, I have to remove the conflict, find ways to adjust the body and the mind to take away the conflict. I have to change.

I don't think my orthodontist warned me that this would happen, but when I decided to get the braces I kind of knew it would. And I jumped in knowing that there would be big changes I needed to make. As I told one of my students, it'a a good bad thing.

Today there was a technique in which to do well you can't muscle through it. I found that because of the weakness in my back and shoulders I wasn't going to muscle it anyway and it allowed me to adjust more readily. Though I was still afraid to move faster. I believe it's just a matter of time before the body regains its strength in these new ways.

And I have to be careful of being too careful. I can't let my mind believe that there is pain when there is none simply because while I'm "injured" there is pain, that as I get stronger, the pain does not remain. I'm not sure if that made any sense. But it's like experiencing putting your hand on a hot burner. At first, the skin while injured is quite sensitive to touch. And the mind and body program if I touch the burner, there will be pain. And now my body reacts to even a cold burner with a perceived pain. This is what I have to be careful to avoid.

I could feel this today even standing still. There was no pain in the body, but my mind was fatigued from being in this new position, and so I felt pain. So I had to stop and try to move the mind away from the pain, to reduce my reaction.

This is the glacial movement of the body. Adjust, change, conflict, resolution. Different stages in different parts of my body.

The great irony of course is that I asked for this. I wanted these lessons because I told the universe I wanted to go somewhere and to go there, I needed to change. And well, the universe answered.

The other day at a party I saw many of my sister's friends, many of whom hadn't seen me in a long while. And of course they asked, "What have you been up to?' And I could have said a myriad of things, but in my mind I kept thinking, well, lately, I'm just standing still. And if I was younger I would think that answer would frustrate me because I would have thought that standing still was the death sentence. But there are many many things to learn from the things we cannot see moving because there is a motion to all things living whether we can percieve them or not. A 50+ year marriage. A baby sleeping. The glacier carving the mountain. The still lake. A cloudless sky. A tree.

The universe via my body

The universe via my body is telling me:

-I should stand taller
-I need to stay focused on the path ahead of me
-I shouldn't sleep for more than 2 nights without my buckwheat pillow
-I should stay put and not move
-I'm stubborn as all hell and I really should stop fighting the universe

on the menu

Every 7 weeks I get a new wire for my braces to shift my teeth some more. Each time they put in a larger grade (ie thicker, springier) wire. It's no wonder people with braces lose weight, every 7 weeks you're back on a liquid diet as your teeth are sore from the shifting. You know it's bad when McDonald's is too "hard".

Thus on the tonight's menu is breakfast for dinner:
blueberry pancakes (first time I made them from scratch and not from bisquick)
scrambled eggs

The pancakes turned out really well and surprisingly easy to make from scratch. Why did I ever need bisquick? I mean how much time does it really save me? In reality, not much considering I can use the same ingredients to cook more than just pancakes and biscuits. D'uh!

Scrambled eggs, I didn't quite get the proper technique of pushing and lifting in the pan and they became slightly overcooked. I'm striving for that nice creamy but not chewy scrambled eggs, but perhaps I need half and half according to one cookbook.

I've been quite inspired from the successful strawberry cheesecake from a few weeks ago and now that the seal has been broken on the mixer, I feel like I should bring it out more often. Nice part is that decent baking pans don't cost an arm and a leg like decent pots and pans. My only issue is counter space.

Next up, I'd like to try my hand at making bread without the breadmaker appliance. Seems ambitious, but we'll see.

saturday at home

The hubby went north on his trek to find the rest of his mother's family tree. He found a relative who has now traced the family back to the 1850s. They certainly weren't a family of sharecroppers.

In the meantime, I stayed at home to do homey stuff since it feels like I haven't been home the entire week. I was thinking about going to a martial arts gathering this morning in downtown Oakland, but instead I crushed graham crackers for my strawberry cheesecake crust. I had seen a recipe for the ultimate cheesecake on the Food Network once and since then, I had been wanting to make cheesecake. I even picked up a spring form pan earlier in the week and finally opened our cuisinart mixer we received as a wedding gift.

I don't like cooking as much as I like baking. And it was a rather simple recipe. Instead of the blueberry topping, I decided to make a strawberry sauce from the berries we had picked up from the market last week. That was alot simpler than I had thought it would be and it looks like a basic recipe I could use with any berry.

It was fun finally unpacking the mixer. And I thumbed through the enclosed recipe book for the next thing to make.

While waiting for the cheesecake to cook, I rearranged a closet, folded some clothes and went through a few more boxes. I know I did alot, a part of me feels like I barely made a dent, but that may be because I wasn't touching the piles I had been avoiding. sigh. Then again, I ended up doing alot of stuff around it. OK, I'm going to have to suck it up and set the timer. In the meantime, the strawberry sauce is cooling, and I wait for the neighbors to finish drying their clothes and think about how nice it would be to live in a single family home with a garden and kitchen counter space.

(just try) talking with your mouth full

I got the back braces and the lower wire installed today. My teeth no longer meet. OK, they meet at least two contact points. They're already changing my facial muscles, which I could feel down my neck. I can already feel the bottom teeth shifting.

I was chatting with a friend about it. He said he thought it was give me a softer look and certainly change my feng shui. Feng Shui, the way of wind and water, is often talked about regarding spaces (working or living spaces), but these spaces we embody are a reflection of our bodies.

The door to your home allows things in, holds things in, and lets things out. The mouth is the same, the portal into the body. I can't bring things into my life if the door is bad. I can't eat healthy food if my mouth is bad. Fresh fruits and vegetables are all more difficult to eat. They're now finding how the gums link to heart disease and diabetes.

Tomorrow I'll be achy. My teeth are getting sensitive. My jaw realigns. My teeth straighten. My doorway improves. Better opportunities enter. The door is able to keep things out. My smile changes. My look changes. This is good.

Growing up I didn't care for fashion or looks and really thought of myself as rather plain, but I also didn't take care of myself either. But now I see that it's both: the inner and the outward beauty, the building and the body. That all of this on the outside doesn't mean anything without something inside. And this inside doesn't mean anything if no one can see it.

Last year I thought I had transformed. But I couldn't even break a wooden board when I wanted to. And it showed me that although I had thought I had changed, not much had changed. I'm not sure where this is all going, but I believe in the end it's good. And I really don't know what I'm becoming, and perhaps I am simply becoming the person I always have been, and it's just now finding a way to come out.

state of the art

While my mouth was full of the cheek separators and bite block, my orthodontist tells me that the ceramic brackets (ie see-through) I'm getting on my top teeth are state of the art, that the old kind apparently took longer to adjust teeth, but that these are on par with the shiny metal ones on the bottom.

They actually look pretty good. From a distance they're not that noticeable, again compared to the metal ones. And they're much smaller than the brackets I remember on my sister's teeth 20 years ago.

They also stuck some separators between the ever so tight back teeth to make room for the back braces next week, so it feels like there's something chewy stuck between my teeth in the back.

They put a wire on my top teeth already as the wires to bring my back teeth in won't really be going in for some time since there's more work on the lower teeth to get done first.

And now along with all my computer equipment, I've got a whole pack of dental hygenic tools (toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, small bottles of mouth wash, a tiny in between brush that looks like a mini bottle scrub).

For lunch I had a croissant and soup, as I haven't memorized the full list of items that will knock my braces out of alignment and that list unfortunately lists just about all the crunchy and chewy foods I like to eat. Oh well. Fortunately wine and cheese is still on the edible list, that is, until I get pregnant (and no, I don't know if we are or aren't yet) and the wine and a few of the cheeses will fall off the list as well. But better to fix all this stuff now than 20 years later when it can't be fixed.

I should also be getting a mouthguard in a couple of weeks to wear during Kali. They tell me I can get it in different multiple colors. I saw an example that was blue and gold though I'm not sure I'll go that Go Bears.

cold burns as much as heat when you are numb

Hot compresses for the shoulders, and now cold compresses for the face. Actually, sounds like a day after a rough day at Kali! But it's not.

I got 4 teeth extracted for my future orthodontics work. And 10 hours after beginning the procedure, I'm still numb, a little bit, down in the chin. Though a tingling sensation is finally working its way through. The procedure tended to be a good thing as one of the teeth was already infected, a tooth I've had trouble with for some time. It would have eventually affected my sinuses as well. And in the long run if I don't have these things done now, 20 years from now I'll be looking at gum surgery, or even possible higher rates of heart disease and diabetes. The mouth, the feng shui door to your body.

A friend asked me if it would change the profile of my face. My orthodontist didn't think so, but I think it'll change alot more things in my life than my smile. It'll hopefully make it easier to maintain dental hygiene, and it has already change where my tongue lies in my mouth, as one of the teeth used to jut inward, I can already feel more room on one side. It may even change the way I talk, but I'm only guessing.

Since one of the roots of the teeth were really close to the sinuses, I'm not allowed to sneeze for the next 3 weeks. Good thing I don't have allergies and when I do sneeze I need to do so with my mouth open as to reduce the pressure in the holes in my head.

A bonus for today is that I have no neck pain or stiffness today (though that could simply be the tylenol talking). I have another acupuncture appointment tomorrow afternoon. She mentioned that I would feel good for a few days after the treatment, but that there tends to be relapse several days later.

Along with removing overcrowding and blockages in my body, I've been working on clearing overcrowding and blockages outside of my body as well, which includes using the new appliance more often. Things often go hand in hand that way.

I'm also back to a liquid diet for a couple of days. Downing Ensure in it's various flavors. But I am allowed to drink milkshakes and eat ice cream but am not allowed to drink through a straw.

The braces will come on in a couple more weeks after I let my body heal from all this trauma I've brought it.

[It seems like I've been blogging alot on this topic. I actually have been writing about other topics, more specifically about what it means to be a man and how this relates to the Virginia Tech shooting, but more often than not, the blogger interface would lock up just before I posted or just as I click publish. I'll take that as a sign that those words aren't ready for public consumption yet.]

eu de chinese herbs

Well, I've replaced trying out the Fragonard perfume sampler with a boiled bundle of Chinese herbs, which kind of smells like sweet tea. The acupuncture treatment went well. I'm not that squeamish around needles. She said it would feel like a mosquito bite, which as the sweet blooded American, that was something I was used to too.

I had a friend who does pressure points work on me before the appointment which was good because he was able to remove several layers of stiffness, so by the time I got to the acupuncturist there was just a lingering deeper stiffness.

She took my pulse on both sides which lies fairly deep in my wrists. Then my blood pressure, then she looked at my tongue. I lay facedown while she put 25 needles in various places in my shoulders, ankles, knees, hands and ear then tried to keep from moving for 40 minutes or so. It's kind of interesting. If I moved the energy around my body I can actually feel the needles from the inside, but I couldn't quite find the ones in my hands or knees.

We measured my neck rotation range before and after and it looks like there was some progress between the two times. So I scheduled three more appointments in the next couple of weeks. She also gave me a hot compress of Chinese herbs to boil and use externally. Since we're in the midst of planning for a family, she decided not to give me anything internal.

She also tried a couple of needles on the top of my fists that she turned while I moved my neck around which also helped some.

My coworker was like, "you're just falling apart!" Well, that's fine, sometimes you have to take yourself apart. Let's just hope I put myself back together better than before.

it's like

It's like I might as well have a rod in my spine but with electrical volts if I turn the wrong way. The past few days my neck has been getting stiffer and stiffer. I know I pulled something sleeping when we were in Spain but now that I'm back to work, my body decided to let me know that I was back to work.

If I sit in perfect straight posture, no pain. Lean on a stack of pillows, same thing. It's just all the positions in between, like turning my head that will send piercing bolts through. Hmmm...which probably means that although much of my back is tight, I'd put money on a nice tiny spine muscle creating the chain effect. Boy those tiny muscles don't complain at all, but when they do, they sure are LOUD!

My sister is asking her accupuncturist if I can trade in for her spot on Tuesday afternoon. I've never been to a treatment before, but my sister swears by her. Plus I'm willing to go because unlike the first time around I don't think I could last a month with this going on.

This pain feels similar to the same one I had at the beginning of the year that healed a few weeks before Europe, except that this is a few vertebrate higher which is limiting my arm movement and definitely making me move rather slowly when turning my head to look at something.

There's such a fine fine balance of the spine that I've been learning to feel out. I've been learning to move smaller trying to find that sweet spot where the weight is evening distributed and the body can relax, until I move again.

After the party, we went home, I took an extra strength tylenol and laid down for several hours. There's still some stiffness in the more surface muscles of my neck and stiffness in the extreme turning, but I've gotten some movement back. And you know it's bad when I'm taking tylenol, which I hardly ever take unless it's really really really bad (and even then).

So while I looked forward to perhaps picking up the pace of life, the universe or my body which is my physical universe has reminded me to slow down and take it easy. And oh yes, to quit slouching too.