A Wonderful Weekend

Let me say that my one-month-mark weekend was just wonderful.

Saturday morning found me teaching two classes. Janna, Ana, and her current boyfriend took my first class. Then Stefan, Mercy, Cheryl, Andrea, and Annemarie took my second class. I was like, "ohmygod, it's raining teachers and staff! yikes!" But on hindsight, having them there gave me support, extra energy, plus they can only give me invaluable feedback for me to become a better teacher, which is great.

Then Saturday night had all of us staff gathered at Mike's and Joani's house in non-yoga wear for a staff party, and wow, everyone just looked gorgeous! Andrea and Ben were kind enough to allow me to tag along in their car. :) What was nice was that there were offers from Mauri, Lynn, and Mike as well. Too sweet! :) They were all very much appreciated. Joani ordered food from Niko Niko's, this American-Greek restaurant along Montrose (a bit farther than the museum), and she was thoughtful enough to order food for vegetarians, too. It was actually pretty good: off the top of my head, there was spinach lasagna, spinakopita, baklava, so yum. Also had one glass of red wine which quite satisfied my alcoholic urge to "get smashed," thank you very much. Tony beckoned me to show me something, only to show me a ROACH; eeeeek! :-s Finally got to meet Mike's mom, JoBeth, who is 94 and has been doing the standing series of Bikram yoga since she was 84(!); Jack's wife, Sharla, who is a veterinarian and rescues doggies, too; Marvin, whom I'd only met previously on facebook; Kate who works at Fountainview (Joani's studio); Kat, the girl who does the website; and lots more, though Lorena, my teacher training batchmate wasn't able to make it as she had her clan over from Mexico. But the highlight of my evening was meeting Mike's and Joani's doggies. OhmyGOD, losing my voice to play and grunt along with them was more than a fair exchange to monkey around with them, cuddle them, rub their bellies, have them lick my face and toes(!), all the while hearing those grunting noises "unh, unh, grunt, snort.." Sooooo cute. I was so happy I almost cried. George, Molly, and Tikka (French bulldogs), Alfie (a rescue dog!) Suki and Leelee (Pekingese, the former actually Mike's mom's dog): I love them all.

Then yesterday, Lynn took me around Houston, first to Hobbit Café on Portsmouth then to the Cochrell (aka Butterfly) Museum and then the Transco Tower, one of the tallest towers in Houston and the Water Wall Fountain, this amazing wall of water that can kinda got me dizzy from its sheer power. Gorgeous, gorgeous. We even went to Wholefoods afterwards for my groceries. Lynn's an absolute gem, having tremendous generosity and a huge, open heart.

Like I told Joyce that night at the party, the people here have been great, the support just breathtakingly and amazingly awesome. I've slowly been getting used to it, but I'm afraid to pinch myself, if this is just a dream. I sincerely hope not. I hope it'll last a long time.

As everyone knows, next project (besides dialog and voice projection!) is to ride a bike, courtesy of Cheryl. We'll see how that turns out...