Ommmmm- Calmness

Davey is in Florida remodeling his parent’s bathroom.  Last report, the electrical, the plumbing and the framing are complete.  This weekend, he starts to put up the sheet rock.  He is enjoying the nice weather and pool time with his niece. 

The past week and half has been really calming.  It’s like I just realized how crazy the past couple months have been.   I’ve had great family time, some good runs and a couple nice yoga sessions.    All the while, I’m still teaching my online classes.

There are not really many people that you can invade their house for a month and they ask if you can stay longer.  I’m lucky.  I’m staying with that couple.   Walter is a charismatic, cynical handy-man ( a strangely endearing combination).   Ruthie is the kindest, compulsive whirlwind you will ever meet. She leaves a trail of warm feelings, chocolate chip coffee cake and post it notes. 

Walter has every tool you can imagine in his garage workshop.  We pulled out the forge to play with some metal.  I love the smell of hot metal.  There are a couple different types of forges.  This one burns coal.  It’s like a frying pan with holes in the bottom.  Underneath it, a fan blows that makes the fire burn hotter.    You put your metal in the frying pan buried in the coal.  When the metal turns white hot, you pull it out and bang the hell out of it for about 30 seconds.  Then, you stick it back in the fire until it turns white hot again and repeat the process.  So I practiced with a nice iron rod.  (Side note: There could be a lot of innuendo in this description.)  We twisted, flattened and curled it.  Honestly, it looked pretty pathetic.  I’m not a natural.  But after that, we made two dinner triangles (bells).  Simple, but it provided a little sense of accomplishment and they actually turned out pretty cool.

Today, I took the Peter Pan Bus from Wilmington, DE to New York.  Don’t ask me why they call it the Peter Pan Bus; it’s just a version of a Greyhound bus.  I’m visiting my friend Deanna that used to live in Kansas City.  It’s Friday afternoon and I’m waiting in the Club Applebee’s bar for her to get off work.    I kid you not- the bartenders and waitresses are wearing black half shirts and bras and they are singing along to the loudest R &B playing in the bar.  One of the girls had the best pushup bra I had ever seen.  The bra and the effect were quite nice.   Better go - I’m ordering a Bacardi and diet coke and doing a little “popping” here in a minute…