Chucky Cheese

As long as I can remember, I have hated mascots, clowns and puppets. This particular fear goes so deep that even dolls and claymation can give me the heebeejeebees.

It also is a fear held my all five of my sisters. I'm pretty a sure it can be tested for via amniocentesis.

My poor future children will never know Disney Land/World. They will never see Mickey or smell the sweaty custom Goofy is walking around in. I feel only slightly bad about this.

This weekend's trip to Chucky Cheese only added the number of things I plan on depriving my future spawn of.

The place was awful.

I love my sister in law. She is JACKPOT when I comes to in-laws (and you know I'm being honest because she does not read this blog), but I hated her this weekend for making me go to Chucky Cheese. I consider Chucky Cheese to be a culmination of all my fears and hatred. I walked around thinking "Oh dear God what is this place?". Playthings from the late 80's, screaming children, huge singing and dancing animatronic mice. And the minimalist in me almost died when I saw children running towards the toy counter clutching their hoard of tickets in their sweaty hands in order to collect their junky trinkets. Oye vey!

I wish I could have been a better sport about the whole thing, but my hatred of all things mascot etc. was in full swing and I could not get the literal or figurative bile to settle. What made it worse were the parents. One mother behind me told her child to "stop being such a little $h!+".

And that's my cue to leave.

So why had I put myself in such a terrifically horrifying place? For the love of a nephew, of course! It was was my first nephew's birthday. He was adorable and sweet and deserves every uncomfortable moment I experienced. After all. You only turn four once. And what's a little panic attack compared to that?

How old are you Joshua?  

I used to do yoga

I used to do yoga. I loved it.  Well... sometimes during the class I hated it, but then loved it so much after that I would forget I hated it.

I think I miss yoga mostly because goes against everything that is natural within me.  And for 90 minutes a week, that might be just what I need. A little swim upstream to shake me awake from what is usual and expected of me.


Last week a friend of mine asked me to go to a new yoga class. Our old teacher had fallen in love (with a tree, or some pretty rock formation, no doubt) and moved away to get married.  She promised the new teacher was comparable to the former teacher who we both had swooned over.  And by swoon, I do hope you know I mean, we loved him for his impeccable sirsasana and peace chants.

This new class started with 10 minutes of meditation--or in non-yoga terms; awkward silent sitting.  10 minutes may not seem that bad, but just try sitting completely silent for two, even three minutes.








I'll wait.

















Hard, right?

After meditation, we did the normal yoga stuff.  Dogs (downward and upward), pigeons, and warriors.  You know the drill.

After the usual stuff of yoga was over, the class came to an end.  Which means savasana. Aaaaah, the celestial nap that marks the end of suffering.  This savasana was so welcomed that at one point I had to pick my consciousness up off the floor, give it a good smack on the hinny to make sure I was awake.  I actually had a moment of panic thinking that I may have drifted off into a deep meditative state sleep, and was the only person left in the room and it was 3 am.

I wasn't. This time.