Another reason for me to hate the state of Mississippi

I have been to Mississippi once and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I've only been to Jackson, but I figure, if that's how it is in the state capitol then the rest of there is no hope for the rest of the state. My impression is that the place got stuck in 1953 or so and just never moved on. One of my favorite blogs summed up my feelings for MS well:

Surprise! Who knew Mississippi was still a state? We just assumed that after the Civil War and Trent Lott, America would just kind of let the lease run out.

Well, I read this little jewel in this month's issue of Essence Magazine:

George Lambus, a Black republican running for mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, says he's tough on crime - and thinks the best way to fight it is to bring back the hanging noose.

Go figure.

This working woman has got to work!

So, time is ticking down to the arrival of our little bundle of joy! At my last appointment with the midwife, she said that Baby K was in good position and even though my due date is still a few weeks off, just consider ourselves at "any day now" status. How exciting!

Well, now that I am clearly walking around with a stomach akin to a regulation size women's basketball under my shirt, I'm getting lots of questions from strangers about my worklife. People are amazed that I'm still able to get to work everyday (but not so amazed that I can manage to walk around a mall or up and down the streets). Then when I inform them that I am only going to be off for 6 weeks post-partum, they are completely flabbergasted? Six weeks?!

Apparently, around these parts (and maybe its a West Coast thing), women go on maternity leave 3-4 weeks before their due date. Why? What the hell am I going to do around the house all day other than watch Judge Judy and play don't-blink contests with Figaro? How boring! It would be nice to only be on a half-day schedule, because I start to get a little tired around 2:30, but nothing to run home about!

Also, women generally will take off 6 months to a year after the baby is born. I think that's nuts! Of the 13 moms in our childbirth classes, 1 was not returning to work at all (which is completely reasonable to me - though not my style), 1 is returning to work after a year, 8 are returning to work after 6 months, 1 after 3 months, 1 after 8 weeks and myself after 6 weeks. The rest of the class thought us two "short-timers" were completely nuts. How could we even imagine to manage that we would be able to return to work so quickly. Won't we miss the baby? Won't the baby still need us to be home with them?

After explaining (not that we needed to) that some of us need two paychecks to run a household, their scorn turned to pity that our poor husbands can't provide for us. Of course they didn't say as much, but you could see it on their faces.

I'm sick of these crazy people around here making me feel bad about my mothering before the baby even gets here! I don't think I'd take off more than 8 weeks even if I could! How boring (in my opinion) for me to be sitting around the house with no companionship other than a baby. I need the stimulation of adult conversation. I need work day lunch with my favorite coworkers. I actually love my job and will miss it while I'm on leave (though, I won't miss the actual working part of it). I am blessed in that Baby K's daycare is about 150 yards from my office, so I can go and see, cuddle, snuggle, spy on, breastfeed, kiss, and hug my little one whenever I please.

But sheesh! Give me a break! Sorry, just had to vent about that. Meanwhile, Purdue broke my heart (as expected) last night by losing. We always get sooooo close!

Well, the weather is back to normal here. No more frigid temperatures, torrential rains or freak snow storms. Gone are my fears of slipping and falling on ice (which I managed to do, but at least it was only once and I was already close to the ground).

This week, my college is celebrating the legacy of MLK with a bevy of invited guest speakers and performing arts ensembles. Its a great time to be on campus because there is so much activity going on. Plus, on the eve of the inauguration of President Obama, there is a sincere feeling of hope and excitment of things to come. The mood is infectious and I find myself smiling for no reason other than being glad to be a living witness to this time in our history.

I've identified my areas of focus for 2009. Last year was a good one, but it was a bit overwhelming and I think I put my mental needs to the side to be sure that other important areas of my life (ie. my marriage, my career(s), my family) where well taken care of. Well, now that I'm confident that things won't fall apart on account of l'il ol' me, I can take care of myself.

The areas that I need to focus on are:

1. My spirituality - Without a local church home and the absence of my ashtanga yoga practice have left a void and my relationship with the Divine has suffered because of it, I think. Good news is I'm pretty sure wer've found a church home and I've carved out 2 hours on one day a week to continue to my yoga practice. Because if there was ever a time for pranayama (breath and control of mind through breathing) then this pregnancy and the impending labor is surely it!

2. My ability to multi-task - This has never been an issue for me, however, I've never been a mommy before (and I'm assuming that my raising of Figaro the wonderdog doesn't count). So, I need to be sure that I can balance parenting, my career, my small business and being an attentive wife all at the same time. This will mean that I must remember to say no to some volunteer activities and try to keep at least an hour of "me" time each week in there somewhere. "Me" time is so important for us only children. We really suffer without it.

3. Having "unplugged" moments - Between my desktop, my laptop, my handheld and the phone at home I rarely get a minute of peace. And when I do find myself with sometime, I'm always scrolling through the DVR list to see what my dear recorder has captured for me while I was preoccupied with something else. Thanks to the writer's strike, I broke it off with quite a few tv shows I used to follow. I'm down to about 3 hours of tv a week and I don't feel so bad about that. Anyway, the more minutes I can spend without logging on to something, I'm sure the better off I will be.

I think if I can master these areas, I can handle whatever 2009 throws my way with a minimum amount of stress and worry. I want to be able to devote most of my energy to my family and I'll be no good to anyone if I don't have a leash on my own special brand of crazy.

Starbucks vs. McDonald's

So, among other mega-conglomerates, the Seattle area is home to Starbuck's HQ. Well, in the last few months, McDonald's has started serving (pretty yummy) coffee shop-style products as well - lattes, cappucino, espresso, iced coffees. As soon as they rolled out this new section of the menu, they launched a full-on attack on Starbucks. There were commercials of people sitting in a Starbuck's-looking coffee shop finally realizing that they were paying too much for mediocre coffee. Snapping out of it, kicking off pretentious clothing and over-pronouncing words and running with glee to their nearest McDonald's. Those commercials were great too watch. The latest phase of advertising has been about billboards lining the highway very near Starbucks HQ (and elsewhere in the area that read

Four dollars for coffee is dumb.

.

There's also my favorite commercial where a woman comes up to the counter and rattles off a super long coffee shop style order (Come on, we've all done it - "I'll have a vente half-decaf skinny vanilla latte slightly foamy please"), then she realizes she's at McDonald's and rejoices in the fact that all she has to order is a medium coffee. Hilarious.

Now, since I think Starbucks coffee tastes burnt and is over-priced, I've really enjoyed this little media blitz. But, Starbuck's is beginning to get embarrased. Even though their media people keep saying that they will not join in the pettiness of McDonald's ad campaign, they've been releasing statements everyday saying that they think the campaign is juvenile and that Starbucks does not resort to tit-for-tat advertising.

Only in Seattle, would news of a Starbucks/McDonald's designer coffee war be a headline in the news even though we're in a massive global financial crisis, at least two wars and political corruption exposes.

Any dream interpreters out there?

I have been having the weirdest dreams lately. The pregnancy books mention that the unusual hormone levels can often cause this, so I'm not worried. Normal, unpregnant Karla already has crazy, vivid dreams that I remember like movies when I wake up. However, lately, they are super weird and more real people are involved (usually my dreams are filled with imaginary friends or people I am no longer in contact with).

Saturday night, I dreamt that my dad passed away while I was home for a visit. A sudden death. I remember feeling an extreme heaviness and depression, but not necessarily being sad or angry. Weird!

Sunday night, I dreamt that hubby and I crashed into a young woman's car while we were visiting some other place. Apparently, the law of this place is that if you cause an accident (even if noone gets hurt) you must be punished by death. So, after the cars were towed and we made sure everyone was okay, we waited at our guest house for the police to show - which they did - and inform us of the day of our demise. On death day, my friend took me to my favorite place for breakfast and I remember thinking as I enjoyed my ham, bacon and cheese omelet that in a few hours I'd be dead.

One common thread in both dreams is that my cousin J showed up after bad news was delivered and took care of things - making phone calls and arrangements, making sure I ate and bathed, etc.

Clearly, J is my guiding light, but I don't understand the rest of it. Any clues? Dream readers, help me out here.

Bikram people are crazy!

I took my first Bikram Hot Yoga class last night. If last Monday was the day of yoga victories, this Monday was the day of yoga defeats. Let me give you a rundown. First of all, the room was heated to somewhere between 112-120 degrees. No worries, I was expecting that. Felt like Houston in August at noon. LOL! We started with this weird pranayama exercise that I got absolutely nothing from and felt absolutely stupid doing. And that lasted for about 5 minutes (too much pranayama!). The rest of the class was force yourself into this position, and then hold it for a minute. Other side. Now repeat, only this time for half a minute. Then, for some reason, we were demanded to go into savasana for about 2 minutes between each seated posture (Clap! Clap! “Quickly! Turn over! Hurry! Now relax!” WTF?). All of the standing postures were done with locked knees and elbows and bent backs. This had me totally out of alignment. We topped off the class with a choreographed breath of fire that is called something else in Bikram Hot Yoga. Then the teacher put us in savasana and left us there. There was no chanting, not even an “om”. We all drank water all through class, which I guess is necessary to keep from passing out, but I could literally feel my internal fire being extinguished after every gulp. So in short, the class was not meditative, felt “funny” cuz I was out of alignment the whole time and was not nearly as challenging as ashtanga.

Are his shorts in this picture wild or what? LOL!

I think Mr. Bikram the guy who invented the famous kind of Hot Yoga was “that guy” in yoga class who was always trying to muscle through something. He probably didn’t have the stamina to finish a whole ashtanga class and was frustrated with having to pull back from a posture because, if he focused on alignment, he couldn’t go all the way into it. I think he’s the guy that you hate having your mat next to because he spends the whole class looking over his shoulder trying to outdo you in each asana. The fact that this class is done in a mirrored room, facing the mirror, using your reflection as the focal point (how does that work because doesn’t your focal point need to be something that won’t move?) leads me to suspect this guy is obsessed with seeing how good he is. The intense heat is just to help you go deeper into postures, there’s only one twisting pose, so it’s not even really that cleansing (in my opinion). In short, Bikram Hot Yoga is the little strip mall church that has splintered off from the main church because the deacon wanted to be pastor. LOL!

Having said all of that, I will give it a fair chance for the remainder of my 2 week pass, but last night’s class really made me realize how much I miss ashtanga. And how much I’ve learned about proper alignment and the benefits of breath during my practice.

By the way, one of the first poses (I won’t call them asanas cuz this just doesn’t feel like yoga to me) was called “wind-releasing pose”. LOL! I was like, “Oh no! I hope no one farts!”

If you're curious about the sequence, click here for photos.