Chuck E. Cheese: 9th Circle of Hell

After about a year of begging, my little ones convinced me to take them to Chuck E. Cheese (you really must click on this link...it is a witty, subtitled photo montage of Chuck E. Hell...it will give you the true picture of what the Cheese is like). It was worse than I ever could have imagined it. You wait on line for about 20 minutes to get in. Then you wait on line to order your overpriced food - $40 for pizza, french fries, salad and drinks. Then you wait at your table for the swill to be delivered, as music blares, screens show dissonant kiddie images in every angle of your peripheral vision, and your children are jumping up and down, anxiously waiting for you to let them run around in the mayhem. After you eat your crappy food, you get to follow your kids all over the arcade portion of the joint, where they beg you for tokens to play the games and they fight over who won more tickets. THEN, just when you think it's over, they want to go into the "Supertube" or something like that - a giant plastic tube that winds around and around and around, like innards only much more colorful, and empties into a slide where your sweaty children tumble out and then race up into the tube once more. Luckily, there is only one exit to the tube, or else my anxiety level would have been REALLY skyrocketing. As it was, they took an insanely long time to come through the tube and out the bottom - Bri told me that Addy was doing anything he could to avoid the slide because that was the end.

But just when you think you're done, you have to feed all the tickets your kids won into a "ticket muncher" which counts the tickets. And of course there's a long line for that. And then when you conquer that battle, you have to go to the front of the whole place so that the kids can exchange the ticket-muncher receipt for the junkiest little toys you have ever seen. I begged my kids to give their receipt to some children they thought might not have as many toys as them at home....no such luck.

More line waiting. And then, the line to get out the door, which was actually a good thing: there was a security guard checking to make sure that each parent left with only their own children.

After exiting the 9th Circle, we went to Dunkin Donuts so that I could indulge in a warm cup of caffeine for the ride home, which I promptly spilled all over the ground as soon as we left. Ah well. I survived.

Then, just in a bid to enjoy some peace and quiet, I ended up staying up a bit too late, watching more of my Lost marathon....loving it.

Which brings me to this morning.

I don't know how it got so late, but I ended up arriving at Shala X at around 9:45. And then I don't know how it ended up taking me so long, but I didn't finish my seated poses until 9:55. It wasn't my most enjoyable practice ever - how could it be, after such a wonderful practice yesterday? But it wasn't my worst practice either. And to clarify - using subjective qualifications to describe my practice, I am not in any way referring to the outer manifestation of the practice. That, as usual, is the same, as usual, perhaps even a bit deeper in my twisty poses, which I am beginning to really love, perhaps even more than forward bending. Rather, I am referring to my internal aspect.

After practice, I decided to go back to where I had been last night - not Chuck E. Cheese, but the same shopping center in Long Island City (really, part of Queens) to the National Wholesale Liquidators store, otherwise known (by me) as the Small Impulse Purchases Store. The main draw, however, was that Dunkin Donuts and the promise of a quiet cup of Marshmallow coffee.

What a wonderful way to transition from my practice to mindless shopping: a honey raisin bran muffin and that nice cuppa Marshmallow flavored joe. As I sat sipping my coffee and dipping my muffin top (the actual muffin top, not the flesh poking out over my track pants), I mulled over my practice with a small smile. How can it be that Mari D is really happening for me? This summer, I honestly thought that for the rest of my life, I would be yanked into it and negotiating with my teacher to let me move on in spite my failure to master the twisting and the shoulder-stretching, which is so crucial to so much of the rest of the practice. I didn't know much this summer. I was a newbie. Still am. But I know a little more now. And what I now know is that practicing the same things every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, something gives.

My press-ups are starting to last beyond a nano-second, which also feels nice. I expected that to take a couple of months. I'm kinda sorta contemplating what Buhja Pidasana is all about, but honestly, I am really not physically ready to add any new poses. I really want my practice to tighten up, to get shorter, before I add on. I don't want to be adding new poses when I am currently feeling spent by the time I get to Mari D, when my upward facing dogs are still starting to fall apart towards the end of practice (this is a side effect from my abdominal surgery this summer), when I am still working so HARD to get into Mari D (I can finally say that I am not working so hard to get into C anymore...never thought I would be saying that either...in fact, I am beginning to find Mari A to be more of an effort than Mari C, which is probably reflects how hard I am working my lower back in this time of learning to twist)....So, I am not in any way jonesing for the word from Sir.

I look forward to the time when I AM though. It's a kind of nice feeling when practice starts to feel monotonous, and you get to coast for a bit, until the next pose(s) are added...

I have to say that I really enjoy working with Madam on Tuesdays after almost everyone else has left the shala. She gives quite a bit of verbal instruction in addition to her hands on adjustments, and I "get" what she says - her verbal adjustments have been incredibly helpful. She's really quite a good teacher...I wonder if others realize this as well?

It's probably why I ended up coming later than usual today...I think I really wanted to work with Madam. It's the only chance I get to all week.

It's funny to me that I need to analyze my behavior in order to realize my feelings. One would think that the feelings would come first and the behavior would follow. But then, if that were true, no one would need a shrink, I guess.

YC