Forgetful

I have been very forgetful over the last week. Last week I forgot my yoga bag and had to tromp back up the stairs to get it. Three days in a row I forgot my cell phone. It is a miracle that I realized these things before I left for work.
Multiple times I have gone commando after yoga because I forgot to pack underwear. Today I forgot to pack a T shirt for yoga. I was wearing a long sleeve, very fitted, button-down shirt. There was no way I could do yoga in that super-restrictive shirt. I was a little bummed out, but then I remembered I had some extra T shirts in my car. I went back out to my car and got Ross's T shirt. Save! I realized I need to pack more than just shirts. I should pack socks (just in case I forget them for trapeze or step in a puddle), underwear, T shirts, and maybe shorts or something. Oh, and maybe a cardigan--I'm always cold.
Yoga was great. I'm hoping to go again on Sunday night. We did some great stretches for the back of the legs (including standing split), which is good because I think my next trapeze trick might be set split. We'll see Saturday.

Trapeze Grips and Wrist Wraps

I thought I should get some hand grips to protect my hands because I will be doing trapeze every week.  I was hesitant to order a pair online because of my big hands. Most gymnastics grips are made of leather. I remembered that I had a leather skirt in my donation pile and thought I'd take a stab at cutting out a pair.  First I cut a pattern out of card stock, then I cut the leather. They fit and they work--so, it has been a success.

I ordered some MMA hand wraps. They are super long, so I cut them. One pair is long enough to make 3 pairs. I bought plain white ones, and blue camo ones. I was wearing the blue camo ones for this weeks catch.

 The leather skirt that I got at the nearly new sale that no longer fits.

 Palm side of the grips.

 Back side of the grips.

Grips with wrist wrap. The grips only have long straps--no velco, so the wrist wrap secures them.

Year of the Zoo:The National Zoo

After trapeze yesterday we took the Metro to visit the National Zoo. We didn't see everything because it was hot and I didn't want to stand in line to get into some of the exhibit buildings. Ross's favorite was Pandora, the octopus. My favorite was the lionesses, who were very active and playful.

Finally, a Catch (of Set Straddle Whip)

I finally managed to catch the set straddle whip trick on Saturday. Ross was kind enough to film it and take some rapid-fire photos. I worked on my take-off, and I need to remember to point my toes--that's not something we do in yoga.

We didn't have a warm-up this time, but we did have an orientation for all the exercises we should do between turns on the trapeze. I think I can only physically do 7 of the exercises on the list and we had to pick 6 to do. The most fun was being able to climb the silks. I climbed up twice. I'm not quite sure what it was, but my but-tocks are so freaking sore!!!

Nature is So Cool

I found this mostly-dead dragonfly on my way into work this morning. I've taken a ton of photos of it. The pictures don't capture the full depth of strange blue eyes.

I'm So Proud of My Mom!

My mom has gone through a lifestyle change and has been eating more protein and doing more exercise since last October. I saw her at Thanksgiving and she'd lost a few pounds, but nothing drastic. When she came to visit earlier this month she was completely different. I've never seen her this tiny! Same great Mom in a new and improved package! I'm so proud of my mom for sticking with her new lifestyle.

For reference you can check out our Family Photo from last July.

Year of the Zoo: Philadelphia Zoo

Yesterday we tagged along with the Lusters to the oldest zoo in the United States: The Philadelphia Zoo. Again, the big cats were my favorite. 

 Two anacondas knotted together under water and around a bunny

 Black-footed cats.

 Jaguars fighting before getting it on.

 His tail is so poofy!

The tigers put on quite the show with roaring and fighting.

Almost Catch of Set Straddle Whip

This morning I left the house at 6:35! I normally roll out of bed at 6:45--at the earliest! I headed down to DC for my first IFW (Intensive Flying Workshop) class. I am super stoked that my team of teachers is Donovan, Meghan, and Marissa.
Turns out I was doing a cheater version of the set straddle whip. Meghan and Donovan straightened me out and I was able to do it correctly. Watching Ross's video from last week---I see that he was doing it correctly. The most exciting thing I did today was the one-handed take off. Meghan showed me what to do on the ground, and on my first turn I went for it. I think I'm okay at it. I'm not sure if it was the take off or what, but my right shoulder is hurting.
Oh, oh. They made me run! Warm up included jogging laps around the inside of the building. They said that next week they will have a workout routine that we can work on between turns.
I didn't catch this week. It was so close! As you can see in the video--our fingertips touched. Hopefully I can make it next week. Donovan said that over IFW I can work on the set tricks and hopefully work up to set planche. I want to have a great trick for the show!

Mom Flies!

We went to trapeze lessons again last Sunday. I'm just now posting because my laptop was on the fritz. Thanks Ross, for rescuing my photos and videos.

My mom was super brave and agreed to fly. She was worried that she wouldn't be able to hold on, but in reality, she had much more trouble letting go!

Ross and I learned a new trick--the set straddle whip. Neither one of us was able to complete a catch. Check out the videos.

Facebook Holdout

I have no desire to be on or use facebook. If I want to talk to someone I'll email them or call them. I have no desire to find random people from my past. And I sure as hell don't want some girl who was a bitch to me in Jr. High asking me to friend her. Well, the Trapeze School emailed me saying that students use facebook to communicate. Really? Is that the only way I'll be able to find out about what's going on in my classes and find someone to swap classes with if necessary? I'm miffed. I want to have fun, be part of the group, participate in any weekly themes, and be able to help somebody out with a class swap. I just don't want to have to join facebook to do it.

Aha! Maybe Bailey can join and keep me updated about trapeze class! Hmmmm.

Oh My God, It's Summer?

I was just looking at my calendar and realized that today is the Summer Solstice. Crap. I had big plans for Spring. I only got 2/5 things on my list done: We went to the drive in, and we went on a couple of excursions. For the Summer I'd like to:

1. Complete at least 1 sewing project--specifically a pair of brown wrap around pants that I was planning to make last Summer.

2. Do my trapeze exercises at least 3 times per week. I made up a list of exercises, now I just have to do them!

3. Write to Ethan twice per month. I bought a super-cool plantable card at Longwood gardens. I will send that to him this weekend. The card has seeds embedded in the paper and will grow wildflowers if you plant and water it.

4. Visit at least 2 more zoos. We didn't make it to the National Zoo this week. I wasn't feeling well. The plan is to visit the Philly zoo this weekend, and possibly the DC zoo next. I'd like to visit the Bronx zoo this Summer, but it will be hard to get out of town with Trapeze classes every weekend through August. Maybe we can go as soon as classes are over. And I suppose we can visit the Baltimore zoo at some point.

I think that's all I can handle this Summer!

**oops. I just realized I was looking at next week, but let's be honest. I'm not going to get anything else on my Spring list done before the actual Solstice.

Longwood Gardens in June

My parents are visiting and we went to Longwood Gardens on Friday. Ross wasn't feeling well enough to go with us (I know exactly how he feels because he passed his disease on to me.)  The last time my parents visited the gardens was in the Spring--so the Conservatory was awesome, but the grounds were a little barren. This time they got to see everything green and lots of things in full bloom.

These glass fixtures light up at night. There are all sorts of lights set up on the grounds for a special exhibit that Ross and I will have to check out soon.

We saw lots of critters at Longwood, but the most exciting thing we saw was this fox.

Real Women (Can) Drive Stick + Super Excitement

I'm driving Ross's car today. Remembering how to drive stick shift is like riding a bike. It comes back fairly quickly. As I've said before, I feel very strongly that everyone should learn to drive stick shift. I think only 8% of cars sold in the US now are manual transmission, but we have a lot of older cars on the road that are the old fashioned stick-shift. I mean, what happens if we are in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse and you come across an old truck, but you can't get away from the brain-hungry zombies because you can't drive stick?

Despite my strong feelings on the matter I have never taught anyone to drive stick. Tiffany wasn't interested at all. Oh well.

I'm super excited because today I see my mom. For the first time since Thanksgiving. I'm picking my parents up at the airport this afternoon (why I'm driving Ross's car), and I just can't wait to see my incredible shrinking mom. She's lost some weight since I last saw her, but I haven't seen any photos, so I have no idea what to expect. I'll take a photo and post it soon!

The Joys of Travel

Our flights to California went off without a hitch, in fact I think we landed early in both DFW and SNA. Our flight back was a different story. We had a layover in DFW that was extended due to weather in the Washington, DC area. The 2:30 flight to DC was cancelled, and the 4:30 and 5:30 flights were delayed for hours. Our 7:30 flight was only delayed 50 minutes. Before we boarded we were warned that we might be diverted to Dulles because the runways at Reagan were closed or something.

I sat on the plane, bored, uncomfortable (I ate way to much in California and my digestive system was suffering for it), and a little annoyed. The pilot came on over the PA system and announced that Reagan was keeping the  runway open until midnight, so we would be able to land there. Yay! Well, 100 feet from the runway (per the pilot) we were waived off. I noticed we were doing a fly over and was very confused. It was probably 11:55. At 12:02 (am) the pilot informed us that the tower had waved us off because there was still a plane on the runway (translation: near miss) and they had closed the runway and diverted us to Dulles.

Diverted? Oh, Ross and I were mad. I had figured we'd be home by about 1 am, but now we had no idea what time we'd get home. You see, our car was at Reagan, so we would have to get a cab over there and then drive home.

We landed at about 12:25 and then sat on the runway. There wasn't much crew left, so we had to wait in line for a terminal. Well, we ended up in a remote area, so we had to wait for a people mover to take us to the main terminal. The people on our flight did not know how to cram in together. Seriously, they thought they were as crammed as they could get, but I've seen subways much tighter than that.

Ross had voluntarily checked his back (for free at the gate) so we had to wait for it at baggage claim. But again, they didn't have much crew at 1am, so we waited quite a while. At some point an AA rep came out and said that he would be handing out taxi cab vouchers to Reagan airport and we had to pack in 4 to a cab. Once Ross got his bag we found another couple to share a cab with. They were quite nice. The thing is we ended up standing in line for a cab until 2:30 am. (We had to top off our trip with more waiting in line.)  I was so tired, I couldn't be cranky anymore. It was bad, but the line extended way far behind us--at least another hour, if not two. I thought about taking a photo, but I was really tired, and didn't really want to remember standing in line for so long.

The ride to Reagan was a lot shorter than I thought it was going to be. We got to our car, and started the long drive home. I unfortunately sent us on a roundabout way and I'm 99.9% sure that Ross got hit by a speed camera. Oops. We arrived home at 4:30 am! I hadn't slept at all on the plane. I called my boss and let her know I'd be in by noon. I'm still recovering from that mess. Ross is beyond pissed with the tower at Reagan. At least we got home safely....

Waiting in Lines

We ended up waiting in a lot of lines in California. We did not enjoy that.
1. We waited in line for half an hour before the all-you-can-eat restaurant, Makino, opened.
2. Since we got into the restaurant the same time as everyone else we had to wait in line inside to go through the sushi part of the buffet line. We were not impressed.
3. We waited at least 30 minutes for a table in a small Taiwanese restaurant. Again, not impressed.
4. During the wait for the small Taiwanese place we walked over to Wholesome Choice, an international food store where we saw people waiting in line for up to 40 minutes for Persian Sangak bread. Really? People in California seem to like waiting in lines.
5. We had to wait in line to take the sloooow hover tram up to Getty Center. Not bad, but just another line to wait in. I really didn't want to wait in line for the ride down, so despite my desperately sore feet we walked down the hill.
6. We also waited in line for 30 minutes for boba at Half and Half Tea House. Now, I'll admit that the boba was pretty good, but a 30 minute wait? Our friends actually said to never go to a place unless there is a line out the door. Talk about hype. Reminds me of when Sprinkles opened in Dallas. You stand in line forever for a cupcake so it has to be good, right? Most of their cupcakes were oily and never worth a wait.
7. We also saw a huge line (out the door) at 85C Bakery. I was looking in the window and a guy walked up and said "It's just bread, right?" I nodded. He obviously didn't want to stand in line, but his mother was caught up in the hype and insisting.
8. Memorial day we were pretty much spared lines. We only waited 2 minutes to be seated for our brunch with Dishi and Josh in Oceanside (best pancakes ever!) And we managed to talk Robert and Tiffany out of waiting in line to ride the big orange balloon at Great Park in Irvine. We were tired....no more lines!
9. We waited in line for a taxi for 1.5 hours? I think I'll do another post for that one....

More Photos from Cali

Getty Center

Last Sunday we went to the Getty Center in L.A. It was a neat place with museums inside and gardens, fountains, and sculpture outside. We saw some very nice sculptures in the museums and some famous paintings, including Van Gogh's Irises--which was neat to see in person, but wasn't my favorite painting in their collection. The gardens were really awesome--as were the views from the Center.