The Day of the Husband

I’ve been on my own for more than seven weeks now.

Well, not including an extra-long-weekend visit from my dear mom, who surprised me and celebrated her 60th in Boulder at the end of November. We had a birthday dinner (see below) at a place called  The Upstairs, the casual, louder sister eatery above The Kitchen, a fabulous restaurant in Boulder with to-die-for brussel sprouts and a yummy, crisp-not-sweet rosé.

Today, though, my personal retreat comes to a close when my husband arrives at 5 o’clock. Solitude, shattered!

It’s a good thing. The yoga training month, followed by several weeks devoted solely to writing, yoga practice and dare I say it, reflection (*derisive laugh at herself*) has been transformative, creative, productive and loads of other things that end in -ive.

But I’ve missed my guy, frankly. And although this getaway has confirmed that I like being alone and like my own company, I’m sick of myself. And sick of Skype, with its frozen images, sound delays and “connection lost” messages, as well as the lovely speculative/accusatory/frustrated/baffled “whose-wifi-is-to-blame” conversations upon reconnection.

Technology is fabulous. But technology is no substitute for the real thing. Which did I mention arrives at 5 o’clock?

The Year of the Yoga

Chinese astrologists call this “The Year of the Ox.”

I call it THE YEAR OF THE YOGA.

The Year of the Yoga began exactly one year ago today. On Monday Dec. 15, 2008, I was in London, England, embarking on my first proper yoga course: a week-long intensive with David Swenson. What a character he is. David proved to be a fabulous teacher and great storyteller. An explosive start to the Year of the Yoga.

Because I am obsessed, and because I had both the energy and the time that week in London, I would go to see Hamish Hendry at his studio for an early morning mysore practice (2nd series) BEFORE David’s daily workshop sessions.

I love Hamish’s studio. It is TINY. Fits maybe 18? at a time – snugly. They have little stamp marks on the floor for each mat, in order to maximize space. There’s a waiting area, and when someone finishes, Hamish calls out, in his English accent “One more!” to let the next person know to come in. More on Hamish later.

Catherine Munro

In January, I began Yogaworks training at Shanti Yoga in Edmonton with the fabulous Catherine Munro (pictured above). She is a pragmatic, down-to-earth and funny woman, just the sort of person every aspiring yoga teacher should learn from. It made for an intense six months of training (three-day weekends, every other weekend for the first two months, then once a month), plus exams, essays, reading, etc. But it was so worth it.

Catherine Munro adjusting me in Supta Padangustasana

At the same time, I started teaching once a week at True Yoga, which is run by a lovely woman named Melissa Wasserfall. Not only has she taught me so much about the practice, she had more confidence in my ability to teach than me, throwing me in front of a class when I still thought “NO WAY I could do this.” Turns out that, with some practice, I could (ish).

In June, two weeks after my Yogaworks training (finally) ended, my husband and I travelled to Maui for a holiday. Jonathan (pictured below, hiking in the Haleakala Volcano) is one of the most generous people I’ve ever met and our trip to Hawaii demonstrates this. Because you see, while Maui was a holiday, one of the main reasons we decided to go there was so I could see Nancy Gilgoff. And while I was enjoying delicious mysore-style yoga practices at Nancy’s barn-like studio near Makawao every morning, Jonathan had to do ALL his long runs alone on north Maui roads – and that’s a royal pain in the ass. We were staying in a rented suite along the Hana Highway, in a rather remote area, so Jon had two running route options, both dangerous, both hilly, both dull as all hell: 1. the shoulder of the highway, or 2. the narrow, windy secondary roads, which are deadly because they have no shoulders AND people speed like crazy on them. Every day, during my yoga practice, I worried about him on his runs while I luxuriated in a fabulous studio with a fabulous teacher and fabulous assistant teachers. His sacrifice, his big-heartedness, meant the world to me and to my practice.

Jonathan hiking in Haleakala Volcano

Liz at Baldwin Beach, Maui (that's a real lei!)

All in all Maui was blissful. Two weeks reading novels on the beach (in the shade, I might add!), eating fresh pineapple, hiking in a dormant volcano, stargazing, and practising daily with Nancy, a mysterious, gentle soul of a woman (read a BIO). Her assistant Casie (read BIO) is also lovely– and, surprisingly, a full-on cowgal who you’d swear is from Alberta. Casie works with horses, rides in rodeos, wears jeans to teach and drives a big honkin’ trunk with the words “Ridin’ Dirty” in the rearview mirror. Ha!

Then, this fall, a month with Richard Freeman. Which you’ve read about on this blog. It was the icing on the cake. No, no, it was NOT the icing on the cake. I dislike that phrase because I dislike icing. Training with Richard Freeman was waaay better than icing. It was like…a whole EXTRA cake!

My first "yoga groupie" photo: Richard Freeman, his wife, Mary Taylor and me

All in all, the Year of the Yoga has been one HELLUVA GOOD YEAR.

I am so fortunate, 1. that I could afford it, 2. that my husband encouraged and supported me, 3. that my workplace said yes to my time off requests, again and again and again and 4. that my body withstood it all. I haven’t had ONE injury this year. In more than a year, actually. Touch wood, if you believe in that sort of stuff.

Have I got yoga training out of my system? Definitely for a while. (Breathe a sigh of relief, spouse.)

Have I got yoga out of my system? NEVER! *evil laugh*

MINUS 58 !?!

Feeling incredibly lucky — and incredibly guilty — today. It is a balmy +9 C in Boulder and I haven’t even been outside yet to enjoy it.

Edmonton Dec. 13, 2009 (Ed Kaiser, Edmonton Journal)

This image is from Edmonton, the city where I live, where my husband, Jonathan, our two dogs and all other living, breathing creature are trying to stay warm amidst record-breaking cold temperatures. Today it’s the COLDEST DAY DEC. 13th IN EDMONTON’S HISTORY. Right now, in Edmonton, it is currently — wait for it, wait for it….

* * * -58 C with windchill!!! * * *

UNFATHOMABLE.

Read about it at the Edmonton Journal.

Jonathan is a long-distance runner (check out his blog, Alias Basil) and he was forced to go to the track this morning for what must have been a very dull (albeit warm) two-hour session. How many laps was it, sweetie?

Actually, Jon and I have a bit of a history with record temperatures. In 2003, we decided to bike from Oxford, England, where we were living at the time, to London. We set off on our rickety, rusty, gear-challenged bicycles, which couldn’t have been more ill-equipped for the relatively easy 100-km journey (I got FOUR flat tires; Jon got one) and struggled to make it to the halfway point by evening because, as we found out later, it was THE HOTTEST DAY IN THE HISTORY OF BRITAIN. Yup. It’s true. +38.1 C was the record that day. Which, when you factor in the English humidity and a cycling trip, is bruuuuutal.

Read about it on BBC News.

Note that, on Day 1, we inadvertently timed our climb up to the highest elevation point on the journey (around Km 25, see below – thanks to Cycling Routes from Oxford for the diagram) to coincide with the very hottest part of the day. Parched? Just a bit.

I remember us cycling through a small, quaint village that afternoon, boiling, dying of thirst, looking for a place to fill up our water bottles because we had completely run out. No fountains, no shops in sight. I saw an older man in his yard, watering his garden. “Stop Jon!” I shouted. I dropped my bike  in the driveway and begged the stranger for the use of his hose. (His water hose, you sickos.) He was very friendly and invited us into his house to fill up our bottles at the kitchen sink. I don’t remember the town, and I never found out the man’s name, but he saved our thirsty arses that day. Thank you, Sir, whoever you are.

Peppercorns and misfits

I’d quite happily do yoga every day. But rest is a good thing, I tell myself again and again. I resisted the urge to take my mat home after mysore class yesterday afternoon. Because yeah, I could have done a home practice in my apartment today. But there is life outside yoga! Hard to believe, but it’s actually true.

I’ve accomplished a few things in the past 24 hours. First, I finished a draft of a short story about a young woman who hates her name. I baked shortbread (two varieties: orange, and Earl Grey, and damn, they are deeeeelicious). I watched a movie (Kinsey…good),listened to a good chunk of Puccini’s Il Trittico, which was on this afternoon at the Met, and, last but not least, I quilted my second potholder. You like?

I ventured over to the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art this afternoon, as it is free on Saturdays. I wasn’t blown away by the shows, to be perfectly honest, but art is a good thing no matter your reaction. I did love Heather Wilcoxon’s painting called Misfit (below). It’s a big scarlet ball of a person, poofy, like an ornamental onion or a hydrangea, with feet. Made me think about how we treat misfits, or how they might feel, walking among the non-misfits. Very cool, Heather.

Misfit by Heather Wilcoxon (2007)

On my walk to the gallery, I concluded that Boulderites are infatuated with the following things, most of the quaint:

-tree swings
-porch swings
-porches in general
-picket fences
-dogs
-brown paper bags
-station wagons with roof racks
-hybrids
-painted brick houses
-Peppercorn, a local kitchen/bath/home shop. If you go downtown, you’re sure to spot at least one person per block carrying the store’s signature blue and white bag. I haven’t been myself – does that make me a Boulder misfit? I don’t feel like a poofy scarlet ball. (Though after all my shortbread nibbling, I do feel like a bit of a ball.) Bet Peppercorn’s potholders don’t hold a candle to my quilted masterpiece! Ha!

Hey, everyone’s entitled to an infatuation or two. For some, it’s Peppercorn and porch swings. For others, it’s writing and yoga.

Richard Freeman adjustment videos

Couple of videos I’ve been meaning to post from Richard Freeman’s teacher intensive in November.

In the first video, Richard demonstrates how to adjust a student who is already comfortable with Sirsasana (headstand) using two long sticks. It’s a great assist, assuming your studio has long sticks available. My favourite quote, from a student: “If she does fall, would you drop the poles?”

In the second video, Richard demonstrates how to adjust in Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (bridge posture), for both the willing and the resistant. Favourite quote, from Richard: “I’ll show you what to do if they don’t co-operate.”

Attention shovellers

Let it be known that, although yoga is an indoor activity, YOGIS HAVE TO SHOVEL, TOO. We are thermally sensitive creatures who shiver at the very mention of a cold draft. But we brave the wintry elements and dig ourselves out. Why? To get to the yoga studio, that’s why!

I also wanted to alert you to the possible perils and shenanigans of NOT shovelling, in addition to oddly happy endings. I found this Oscar-winning animation on the NFB website (which, by the way, has an incredible database of free films you can watch online). Special Delivery, a witty, sweet 1978 masterpiece by John Weldon and Eunice Macaulay, begins with Alice ordering her husband Ralph to shovel the walk on his day off while she is at judo class. Ralph ignores her. Stuff happens. Given the online Christmas shopping madness at the moment, you may want to consider shovelling and de-icing your front step out of respect for your mail carrier. Or…not, depending on your marital situation. Just watch the film.

(Note, the video quality is better on the NFB website – click the Special Delivery link above for this. I couldn’t embed it into WordPress so I had to use Youtube.)

A few of my favourite things

I’ve developed numerous favourite things while living in Boulder, a.k.a. Boho-lder, land of flowy hippie skirts, world music, Buddhists, ski racks, yogis, mountain lions, piercings, tats, ‘interesting’ home additions, gluten-free-nut-free-soy-free-dairy-free everything, hardcore winter cyclists, hardcore altitude runners, hardcore Big Lebowski fans, harcore Halloween enthusiants (including nude pumpkin runners), puff jackets, puff vests, puff jeans, puff underpants, puff bikinis, puff flowy hippie skirts, puff yogis, puff ski racks, puff world music, puff Buddhists, puff mountain lions and pretty much anything else that’s puffable.

None of my favourite things are puffy, just to be clear. Here they are, in no particular order:

Favourite thing #1: Skype
-a bit obvious, but true. Thanks to Skype I’ve been able to hang out with my husband, Jonathan (a.k.a. Basil), and our two whippets, Poppy and Felix, pretty much every day since I arrived in Colorado. FREE! This has made it less hard to be apart from my ‘family’ for so long. Just today I watched the puppies playing in the deep Edmonton snow. Man I miss those three.

Favourite thing #2: Tom’s toothpaste, **fennel flavour
- to die for. I hope it’s available in Canada because I will never brush with spearmint again. Sorry, Colgate.

Favourite thing #3: The lemon and grape house on Mapleton
-have no idea who lives here, I think it’s renters. I’m obsessed with the sweetness of this house…it looks edible – lemon and grape. I walk by it every day on my way to yoga and it makes me happy. Simple pleasures.

Favourite thing #4: Nancy’s Yogurt – plain and **NOT fat-free
-definitely the best plain yogurt I’ve eaten in the USA (other favourites from around the globe include Yeo Valley, Liberté and Bles Wold – but I’ll write about yogurt another time). Thank you Nancy, whoever you are.

Favourite thing #5: Ceiling tiles at the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse
-so so gorgeous! This teahouse was a gift to the city of Boulder from Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Serves a mean rooibos. My mother, who surprised me with a visit last week for her 60th birthday, wanted to know what Boulder gave Tajikistan in return. I do not know. Do you?

Favourite thing #6: U.S. one-dollar bills
-mainly because you feel richer with a fat wad of paper money in your wallet, even if it only adds up to a measly seven bucks and you’re still on the limited unpaid-leave-of-absence budget you’d hoped was only a dream. Dollar bills spell prosperity. Coins spell…bus fare. Also, it’s much more exciting when you find a $1 bill, as I did today (see photo). Finding a “loonie” is a non-event.

Favourite thing #6: Richard Freeman’s right eyebrow
-it’s quite a performer, that eyebrow! I’m in eyebrow withdrawal now because RF’s teacher intensive ended on Nov. 24 and RF has been on holidays since last weekend (which means I won’t get to take any more classes from him this year). There are many other great teachers at the Yoga Workshop…but none have such a crazy hyper eyebrow! Boo.

Favourite thing #7: My tropical Christmas tree
-my landlady has a palm in the apartment and I’ve re-purposed it as a Tannenbaum. It doesn’t smell like pine, but it’s just as green and festive and, unlike YOU evergreen fools, I’m not having to constantly sweep up needles. It will look lovely once it’s lit up (which reminds me, sweetie, could you bring a set of lights when you come on Dec. 18? either the white ones or the peppers, I don’t mind).

Favourite thing #7a: Hammond’s CHOCOLATE-FILLED candy canes
-BRILLIANT! GENIUS! SCRUMDIDDLEEICIOUS! Everything, in my humble opinion, should be chocolate-filled (as well as puffy). Thank you Hammond, whoever you are.

That’s it, for now, though I’m already working on a sequel. Thanks to all my favourite things for making my stay in Boulder so pleasant.

David, David, David…

I love this video of David Swenson flying through second series whilst telling a tall tale so very much. What a nut! (Thanks to Katie for the tip…)

An open letter to my least favourite yoga posture

Dear Setu Bandhasana,

A distressing mix of aggravation and perplexity compels me to pen this letter. My motivation in writing is to express my frustration with you and my failure to understand your purpose. I can only hope – and I do not believe it overly optimistic on my part – that opening the lines of communication with you might eventually result in some sort of amicable truce.

With no intention of offending, let me speak candidly. You are my nemesis. Your repeated attempts to spoil my ashtanga practice upset and offend me. Each time I get onto my mat, you torment and vex me with your gruelling neck arch, hoisted hips and preposterous foot positioning. I’ve zero interest in the horizontal Charlie Chaplin, do you hear? ZERO.

Apparently your name translates as ‘bridge posture.’ Well, aren’t bridges meant to enable passage, to help us cross over – presumably to somewhere good? Shouldn’t you lead me over the troubled waters, instead of straight into them?

Please forgive me when I confess I’ve spoken ill of you. I’ve cursed your name under my Ujjayi breath. I’ve even secretly wished the ashtanga masters would vote against you, and kick your sorry asana out for good.

You’re right: it’s immature and unfair. Why you, and not Utkatasana, or Garbha Pindasana? The source of my prejudice remains a mystery. Please do not blame yourself. It is my fault, and my fault alone. Shame and self-reproach overwhelm me as I list these disrespectful acts. But I must be truthful. Our future depends on it.

To your credit, my teacher is bonkers for you. She calls you her favourite, says you’re the cherry on top of her practice. But try as I might, I’ve yet to see what’s made her so googly-eyed. I dread you. Avoid you. Neglect you. When Tim Miller once said in a workshop we could have one bathroom pose, you immediately sprung to mind.

Other yogis who sing your praises and practise you effortlessly take humble satisfaction in the bald spot you wear into their hairlines. I find this bizarre. Bald spot, a point of pride? Gosh, I can hardly wait.

Oh dear. Please pardon my sarcastic tone.

And apparently you’re some kind of Wonder Pose. Demanding, but vital to the practice. David Swenson says you “complete the ‘filling’ of the Ashtanga ‘sandwich.’” You must feel pretty special, you…sandwich filling completer. You…yoga teacher’s pet.

Oops. There goes my temper again.

Sometimes, when I’m in a feisty mood, I’ll wrestle with you. Bring it on, Setu Bandhasana! Show me what you’ve got! Usually you win, and I sulk through the finishing sequence.

More often, though, I skip straight over you in favour of backbends. Yo Urdhva Dhanusarana! What’s shakin’? What’s that you say about Setu Bandhasana? Oh, she couldn’t make it to practice today.

Here’s the thing, Setu – do you mind if I call you Setu? (Setu Bandhasana sounds so…formal, and while our relationship may be rocky, I’m sure you’d agree we’ve established a certain intimacy over the years) – I realize, deep down, you must have some inherent worth. You’re here, in my practice, for a reason. You’re a total pain in the asana – the thorn in my yogi side – but like a pesky mosquito, you have a place in this world.

And therefore, my sandwich filler friend, I won’t write you off entirely. I can’t promise I’ll ever fawn over you like my teacher does – I don’t even like cherries – but I’ll stop making you my bathroom pose. I’ll stop bypassing you. I’ll stop swearing at you. The philosophical side of me knows we must embrace all postures on the yoga journey, especially the ones we can’t stand, for they have so much to teach us about the self.

Someday I’ll traverse you, oh yoga bridge, oh wonder pose, oh horizontal bald-spot Charlie Chaplin, and marvel at where you’ve led me. Someday.

For now, I beg you, Setu, be patient with me. I promise I’ll be patient, too.

Yours in yoga,
Elizabeth Withey
* * *

(Postscript: This letter was written in November 2008. Since then, Elizabeth and Setu Bandhasana have undergone intense mediation and are now getting along swimmingly.)

It’s o-FISH-al

I’m officially fishless.

McKenzie the crayfish and Bob the betta are gone. Their owners came home from Honolulu last night and reclaimed them. My fish-sitting duties are over.

The apartment feels empty without Bob and McKenzie. It really does. Sigh.

I will miss Bob’s flirtatious personality and his fat orange fish lips. We really bonded in the last week.

I’m not sure I will miss the stinky shrimp smell of McKenzie’s tank, or her nocturnal scrabblings about on the rocks, since this often woke me up at night. But I’ll still miss McKenzie. She is kindhearted, decent crustacean who, despite her disability, always looks on the bright side of life.

There is hope, though! The fish owners are going away at Christmas. Which means I MAY get to sit Bob and McKenzie again later this month. Ho ho HO!

Good gravy!

Pssst: the slogan/theme for Edmonton’s 2010 Fringe festival is “It’s All Gravy.”

Relevance to a yoga blog? Erm…a lot of people who go to the Fringe also do yoga. OK, so that was a stretch.

As to the significance or origins of this slogan, I haven’t the foggiest. I’m not a gravy fan myself.

A banana a day…

…doesn’t necessarily keep the “banana” away.

Let’s compare these two photos. One is of me doing Pincha Mayurasana, aka forearm balance, in October. The other is of an overripe piece of fruit that has since been devoured. Can you tell which is which? Both reeeeeeeeek of BANANA!

“We’ve talked before about the banana,” Richard Freeman said to me last weekend after I did Pincha in a mysore class. Sigh. Yes, Richard, we have. And I’m sure we’ll talk about it again.

Here’s what I’ve learned: you have to be careful with Pincha because it’s so easy to arch/sink into/crunch/compromise the lumbar spine, instead of using the forearm and shoulder strength to keep the body straight, as you would in headstand. Then Pincha becomes BANANASANA.

I found a few Pincha pix online that I think will give you an idea of just how gorgeous, or banana-rific, this posture can be. Click the links view:

IMAGE ONE – this Pincha is a banana-less work of art. Wow. Celebrate the virtuous, celebrate the virtuous…

IMAGE TWO – definitely some banana flavour here.

IMAGE THREE – Wowzers. This isn’t Pincha. This is BANANA BREAD! But then I guess one needs to be a banana to…check their e-mail from their mat?! Weirdness. Weirdness. And more weirdness.

Though I’m still working on this posture, my “Bananasana” has improved since I got to Boulder. I have already learned not to look so far ahead, because although this helps you ‘catch’ your legs in the pose, it also encourages the lower back to slump/scoop. Now, once I’m up, I try straighten out my neck and draw the top of my head down so I’m actually looking at the floor, or even behind me. It’s hugely helpful in reducing the arched back and softening the front ribs in to the body.

All in all, Pincha is a lovely pose with fabulous benefits….improved circulation, digestive aid, stress reliever, shoulder/arm strengthener. But it’s also a total pain to ‘get.’ It could take some time. It could take a lifetime. Several lifetimes. I spent AGES unsuccessfully trying to prevent the classic “elbows-splay-then-collapse-on-face” or “kick-legs-too-enthusiastically-and-do-back-flip” scenarios. Pincha was in my bad books for many many moons. But we’ve since reached a truce and are verging on a beautiful friendship.

Here’s a video of a woman demonstrating the pose…not the best video quality but her Pincha is gorgeous…and banana-free!

Grief. Relief.

Wow. Today was the last day of Richard’s teacher intensive. It’s over. It’s done. Did I say wow already? I’ll say it again. Wow. Because it feels so surreal.

I am experiencing a mix of grief and relief.

Grief because four weeks flew by and I feel like I just got here. We spend so much time looking forward to things that are over in what seems an instant. Grief because I was so absorbed in the yoga and the learning that I didn’t make the effort to connect with nearly as many of the intriguing souls on this course as I should have, and now they’re slipping away back to wherever it is they call home. Grief because a tiny part of the old me died during this huge learning (or should I say unlearning??) experience, only to be replaced by something new, and hopefully, ever-so-slightly improved.

But yoga teaches us not to get attached. It teaches us to let go. Everything is impermanent — the postures, the feelings, the situations, the pain, the joy, the body we live in…dear God, I’ve only been in Boulder a month, and I’m already sounding like a Buddhist.

I feel relief, too. Yup I do. Relief because my brain is so freakin’ saturated it has started to leak out my left ear (every morning, I wake up with a soaking-wet pillow, which results in a lot of leaky-brain laundry). Relief because my hamstrings ache from all those warrior poses. Relief because I need a break from this intense intensive environment to process all the metaphors, history, literature, adjustments, philosophies, Sanskrit pronunciations, emotional thunderstorms, postures, lightbulb moments, realizations, questions, awakenings, intellectual earthquakes, heartaches, answers, memories, jokes, chants, anatomical insights and personal connections this course has provided.

I take comfort in the words of Carmina, a wise, fascinating woman on the course: “We have time.” Maybe nothing is permanent, maybe we have to let go. But yes, Carmina, we have time. Hay tiempo.

Anyhoo……………….I made this little video as a farewell tribute to our course, which was a fabulous adventure. The video is deliberately unprofessional (I just filmed my computer screen). I wanted it to have a ‘yoga journey’ aesthetic…. a little blurry, imperfect, rough around the edges. But with good intentions. Homemade. Personal. From the heart.

You: Enough with the cheese already.
Me: Sorry ’bout that.

NB. I’ve also paid homage to the many “Freemanisms” (classic Richard Freeman words/verbal cues/metaphors) we enjoyed during the course. You may ‘get’ them; you may think ‘what the…?’ Well, what can I say. If you ever take a class with Richard, you’re bound to hear one, if not many, of these phrases.

We be chantin’ mon

On this proverbial day of rest, I thought you might enjoy listening to the chanting we do daily in Richard Freeman’s teacher training. It’s about half an hour long, so maybe just have it playing in the background while you do the dishes or make breakfast or something. Or chant along!

The first chant is the invocation that is said at the beginning of an Ashtanga practice (it’s from Shankaracharya’s Yoga Taravali, and basically Pattabhi Jois just chose it because he liked it). It’s not Vedic. The second one is the invocation for the Katha Upanishad. Then there are a few other Vedic chants, as well as a couple non-Vedic chants from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

My favourite line (based solely on how it sounds) is in the third chant: “sham-na indro bree-has-pah-tee-hee.” Groovy, baby.

**NB!!! You have to fast-forward to about 1min40 before it starts (I don’t have any audio-editing software on this computer). And if you don’t feel like listening to the whole thing, that’s cool – but fast-forward to about 1 minute before the end, as it gets funny.

WANTED: one shrimp

Meet McKenzie the crayfish.

McKenzie had a rough start in life. She was born with one claw and grew up in the circus, a.k.a. a Grade 4 classroom in Boulder.

McKenzie is the sole survivor of the school project. No doubt her crustacean-y pals perished of boredom, overhandling, lack of privacy, overfeeding, underfeeding, PTGTD (post-traumatic glass-tapping disorder) or well-intentioned flushings.

For the next week, while McKenzie’s owners vacation in Hawaii, this little creature will be my charge.

My duty for the week? Feed McKenzie ONE shrimp. (Apparently she is a light eater.)

Which begs the question: when one doesn’t eat shellfish or keep it in her freezer, WHERE/HOW does a crayfish-sitter acquire ONE shrimp? Anyone? My husband suggested Craigslist.

I’ve only had McKenzie for two hours, and already I’m worried about her. She looks depressed. And she has reason to be:

1. She is friendless.
2. Her only place to enjoy some “alone time” is the underside of half a plastic cup. Furthermore, the cup is see-through so not really very private at all.
3. Her weekly diet consists of three iceberg lettuce leaves and a dead thawed shrimp. Wouldn’t you be depressed?
4. She’s a one-clawed school-project reject.
5. When her owner dropped her off, he told me that McKenzie is “really boring” and also said “if she croaks, it’s a good thing.” I’m SURE she overhead these cutting words.

Poor thing. Send good vibes to McKenzie. I shall make it my mission this week to lift her low exoskeletal spirits.