ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW....

I had Hitler's breakfast today -- coffee and bread -- and so far so good. Actually they call it a German Breakfast (the French Breakfast consists of cafe au lait, croissant and cigarette; the American one is a whole list of food including CornFlakes, eggs, bacon, etc. The German Bakery also has Indian, Fisherman's, Farmer's, Italian and English [ick!] breakfasts). Today we were there for two hours -- nothing like a day off from each other to make the heart grow fonder......Yesterday I saw one of Lino's adjusters consuming coffee and German chocolate cake for breakfast -- scandalous!

The parasite meds make a girl itchy and unable to sleep so I spent most of the night w/ racing thoughts -- none of my tricks, including doing the primary series in my head (and using ujjayi breath), could slow it down -- and it brought on an amazing headache. I was sure I wasn't going to yoga when I got up but then my four course pre-breakfast of orange / pink ayurvedic banana / electrolytes / Advil kicked in and I tried some sun salutations in my room and decided, Why Not? I went, thinking I'd stop after navasana (boat pose / primary series halfway point, sort of). That felt OK so I kept going. Apparently some of my pot belly was lost during my recent "cleansing" because for the first time ever I held my wrist in supta kurmasana (sleeping tortoise pose, in which you are face down, feet behind your head and clasping hands (wrist!) at your back). I continued to feel good after setu bandasana (neck-killing final pose in the primary series -- a backbend in which the feet are like Charlie Chaplin and your forehead is on the floor) so I kept going and surprise! I held my wrist for the first time ever in pashasana (noose pose, in which you squate low and encircle your fat bum / legs w/ your long arms). A few poses later Lino gave me Kapotasana (intense backbend in which the forehead is on the mat moving towards the butt and the hands are on the feet (ha!) and forearms are (supposed to be) on the floor. Before that I had to come up twice from the prior backbend, Laguvajrasana (to prove i could do it) and let me tell you the second time was slow and wobbly indeed. I do know that when I have these (physical) breakthroughs they usually disappear for some time and come back when / if they please.

And now the extremely local news.... The talkative sunburnt lovelorn Kiwi moved into our hotel -- which is so clean and has such a great balcony and is like a girl's dorm (sort of) full of mostly women and their (mostly well-behaved) kids. Each day is a new adventure for said Kiwi -- elephant riding, henna tattoos (his "Ohm" looks like "36"), exotic beaches -- and he is still coming up with some entertaining blanket generalizations about people. His *travel agent* friend came to visit him the other day and I noticed that she wore one toe ring only. "Interesting" I thought, recalling that in India two toe rings (one on each second toe) means you're married (they're usually silver; two gold ones apparently mean you're in the kyshatrya or warrior caste). I learned this in 2002 when I was going around w/ two silver toe-rings and was told, "People think you are married." Not wanting to break the rules / appear as something I'm not, I took them off. This time, to seem less like the western trollop that I am, I kept them on and got a thin silver band for my ring finger (my husband is very, very cheap). But I also knew from reading the Mysore bulletin board
http://pub42.ezboard.com/fyoga84291frm12 that one ring means you are a prostitute (doncha love how everything is out in the open here -- death, life, work). Bindi did some asking around and sho-nuff, the travel agent is an agent-cum-working girl. Sad story - Fi Fie Foe Fum, married an Englishmun.... who cheated on and ditched her. What else can a woman do? She can't divorce the fop and it's not like everyone can be a doctor these days, even in literate Kerala. In any case she seems perfectly delightful (I particularly enjoy the way in which she tows the Kiwi around by his nose). In fact Y is at this very moment deciding whether or not she'll go on a backwaters tour w/ him tomorrow.....arranged by One Ring herself for many many rupees.