YOU SAY SIH-KAY-DUH, I SAY SIH-KAH-DA.....

What is the first thing you do you do after meeting three deadlines and teaching 18 classes in 7 days -- four of which were taught on Sunday?

You go home, take a shower, pick up some mochi ice cream and head over to MariKay's annual Memorial Day get-together.

The exquisite party was already in full swing and spilling into the alley, where some folks were playing that annoying beanbag game. But Henry the Punk made a place for me at the yoga table in the backyard. He was joined later by some Europrof friends. Some of my college radio friends who were in town for the weekend (one also a professor, although lacking the requisite snazzy jacket) also joined us. The food was incredible, the temperature hovered near 72 degrees, the moon was out, and there were at least 20 types of homemade dessert to choose from -- including many pies.

The topic of the impending cicada invasion came up time and again. They come out of the ground every 17 years and infest the trees and make loud locustlike sounds as part of their mating ritual. After some time they breed and die. The larvae eventually hatch and burrow underground, where they hibernate for 17 years before they re-emerge. They've been spotted in the suburbs, but have yet to penetrate city limits.

Or, as National Geographic puts it:

Billions of black, shrimp-size bugs with transparent wings and beady red eyes are beginning to carpet trees, buildings, poles, and just about anything else vertical in a wide region of the U.S. The invasion zone stretches from the eastern seaboard west through Indiana and south to Tennessee.

Uh, make that ILLINOIS, not Indiana.

The last time the cicadas came I was working on a live-action movie with my old boss, J P Somersaulter. We did a lot of oudoor shoots, but had to stop and wait for the cicadas to take a break from making their mating call before we could roll film. Between them and the airplanes overhead it was a bit of a nightmare finding windows of silence. Plus it was incredibly hot that summer.

At the party everyone had an opinion about the cicadas -- even the Germanprof, who thought that Pinocchio had a friend who was a sih-CAH-duh (after some time we figured out that he was referring to Jiminy Cricket).

No matter how many times we said "sih-CAY-duhs," though, he kept calling them "sih-CAH-duhs."

Eventually we called the whole thing off....


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The other thing you do after 18 classes in 7 days is...... teach two more classes.

And after 20 classes in 8 days what to you do?

-Ride your bike to the super yoga megastore to visit your friend and try on EVERY SINGLE PAIR OF SHORTS THEY HAVE. And learn that you're a 6, not an 8.

-Purchase an outstanding veggie sandwich and giant pickle at Potbelly (holding the onions, mayo and hot peppers of course)

-Purchase organic yogurt at Jewel

-Eat

-Bathe

-Clip nails. Finally.

-Nap

-Clean the house. Finally.

-Organize the recycling.

-Make salad and prep watermelon and pineapple for later consumption.

-Consider returning phone calls, then realize you're too tired/crabby and discard the idea.

-Eat again

-Pay bills while watching Four Jills and a Jeep.

-Use yogurt to make a frozen mango lassi

-Crack open the Ram Dass book "Be Here Now"

-Go to bed early for Tuesday Mysore practice.

-Wake up every hour on the hour

-Get up at 6:30 and ride bike 5 miles to practice anyway

-Sweat bullets and beg for help with dropbacks

-Search for Bhagavan Das

-Track down a 24 hour Indian restaurant and learn it's been closed by the health department.

-Waste time before lunch by looking over the offerings at H&M

-Overgraze the buffet at Gaylord India, where you run into Miss Y

-Ride the 5 miles home

-Work

-Bathe

-Nap

-Consider returning phone calls but realize you're still too tired/crabby and disard the idea

-Tweak story about the Dalai Lama

-Return one phone call and regret things said

-Dress

-Go with college radio friends to Mysore Woodland

-Eat thali and babble about the American sense of entitlement and high divorce rate and inability to pick up after themselves. Attribute American self-centeredness and lack of a sense of duty to the misinterpetation of the "pursuit of happiness" provision of the Constitution.

-Receive curious looks

-Regret that you opened your mouth at all.