i'm perfect

Just the way I am.

That's right. You heard me. Everything about me is perfect, at this moment, always, all ways.

Perfect.

This was the end meditation in a yoga class after we were all stretched and relaxed. In the Savasana pose, I believe it was called. When the instructor first suggested this perfect idea, I nearly jumped out of my freshly yoga-tized skin.

What the hell kinda self talk is that, perfect?

But then I figured, I'm here. Might as well give it a wing. And, surprise surprise. I actually got there. To this foreign internal world of feeling at peace with my body, believing for a few blissful moments that yes, I am perfect. Just the way I am. In this body, in this skin, with this slightly graying head on these mildly rounded shoulders. I am perfect. I, who have been striving in one way (dieting) or another (dieting), nearly all of my life to become .... well, not perfect, but rather to maybe like myself the way I am. To like the way I feel inside my head instead of fighting unflattering views of my essential me-ness.

So after it was all said and done, perfect felt pretty damned good. A magically relaxing carpet ride it was. Peace. Acceptance. Feeling at one with myself.

After class, I headed home and vowed I would sign up for that instructor's class again (I didn't) or at least visit planet perfect on my own again (I haven't). In fact, I lost the instructor's name and she is no longer teaching at the same location. But I know perfect is there, I know the way and I'll get back there.

Update: The above is a recycled post, written about three years ago. I thought of this post the other day after talking to a yoga-devotee in my neighborhood. She was inviting me to attend Sunday morning classes with her. After talking a bit, we figured out that the instructor where she attends is none other than my perfect instructor. So rather than relying on my imperfect history of finding perfect, I'm going to find her. And that perfect me.

as we walk in the woods of winter

At some point on our slow weekends there's a good chance you'll find Sam and I walking in the woods adjacent to our backyard. We're really lucky to have a mini-greenbelt behind us, protected by local environmental laws.

Here's a look at some of my favorite sights along our trail.

Nandina berries give such a bright splash of red

against their dark green leaves.

Some people cut it down. A nuisance plant that sprouts up

everywhere. But I love to see it growing in my backyard.

A grand, old oak.

A dry creek bed common in our area. The limestone bedrock immediately beneath the soil means very little rainwater soaks into the ground. I'm determined, one of these rainy days, to put on a raincoat and umbrella and see this gully gushing with rain.

An abandoned deer blind.

My guess is they they saw more of the bottom of their beer bottles than deer sightings.

But that's really the point of hunting trips, isn't it?

Pretty sure their flavor of choice was Miller High Life.

Red tipped pencil cactus.

Look but don't touch.

Pencil cactus close up.

An old lantern of sorts.

Who put that there, we always wonder?

The beer drinkers deer hunters?

Behind it we've seen evidence of what might have been a house or cabin.

Chile pequin (puh-keen) all exposed and nekkid of it's leaves.

Sam's dad used to fill a small jar with chile pequins and vinegar to make a hot sauce.

Something like this.

Bluebonnet seedlings.

They won't present their deep blue and white splendor until March or April.

Once in a very blue moon they give us a red bonnet.

I'm not sure what this is. It grows in widespread clusters and looks like

a native baby's breath, only more golden in color. I love the texture this time of year.

Like a carpet of soft and inviting tumble weed.

A few prickly pear cactus bulbs left for the picking.

And eventually, the drinking.

Tall live oak trees circled by a coven of cedar trees. I'm not sure why they grow this way. Sam says it's because the birds sit in the tree and their, uh, droppings leave seeds behind. I prefer to think they are seeking shelter from the storm.

My own personal grapevine courrier.

What might he be saying to himself, do you think?:

(A) What's she taking a picture of now?

(B) She wonders why she can't lose any weight?

(C) Look at this crazy bitch.

All three?

you know... that sensational haiku wednesday?

This week's Haiku theme at Jenn's You Know... That Blog?

Resolutions.

steps on the treadmill

or elliptical for me

burning calories

I usually try to avoid new year's resolutions. The January invitation to February guilt. But this year, in the very back recess of my brain, I heard a whispering.

Get back to the gym.

So far I'm two weeks into success.

More stepping. Less couch dwelling.

Good. Good.

empty lip balm appreciation day

I'm one of those people who needs to join Lip Balm Anonymous. I keep a tube of lip balm (or three) in my car, a tube (or two) in my purse, a tube in my desk, a tube in my jeans pocket, and an ever-changing number of tubes in my kitchen medicine cabinet depending on how many of my kids nab one as they leave for school.

The tube in car door well is nearly empty. Or empty to the point where I can no longer swipe my lips across the top and get comfortably balmed. Instead I have to use the tip of my pinky finger to dip, swipe and wipe. This isn't a very satisfying experience but it beats scraping my lips across the top of the plastic rim to the point of chafing my already chapped lips.

You might think an empty tube of lip balm is something to feel sad about. Or bereft, depending on the state of your chapped lips. But not for me.

I am thrilled.

Damn close to deliriously happy.

Why?

Because it means

Same goes for an empty container of

This past summer I emptied one. I'm pretty sure it was the first bottle of sunscreen I managed to hang onto the entire summer and not lose it to someone else's beach bag.

Here are a few more things I haven't emptied but look forward to celebrating when I do:

Because it dries up to a petrified crust after the fourth use.

Because I mainly keep this around for my Louisiana native friends.

And,

Because when I change purses, I always manage to leave a few loose pennies, a wadded up tissue, a stick of gum that's dried-stuck to it's foil wrapper, and a stray tube of

This post is dedicated to the real Aunt Bee in my life. Love you Aunt Bee!

I had this same thought

but it took Steve Martin to come up with the song.

man up, glenn beck and cry some real tears now

If you were one of the seventeen million people who attended The Rally to Restore Sanity like I did, which is to say, in spirit, you will appreciate this re-cap in pictures:

If you haven't seen enough, you can see more pictures here.

Update: I originally spelled Glenn with only one "n." Which made me think, isn't spelling Glenn with two "n's" kind of gay?

some mornings are sheer poetry

Belinda Del Pesco

Watercolor: Saturday Morning Sleep-in

I don't think of myself as someone who likes poetry. I don't usually seek poems. I've been known to run from them on occasion. At a fast gallop.

I might have taken a book of poetry out of the library once or twice, Erica Jong comes to mind. But I don't think I've ever read more than a few lines before I put the book down and then forgot where I put it and then it was time to take it back to the library.

I do, however, love to listen to The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. I catch it some mornings when I'm getting dressed for work. Often hoping the timing of the blow drying of my hair will not coincide with Garrison's reading of his selected poem of the day.

Below is one such poem I managed to catch.

This poem has stuck with me. Some mornings it is consoling. Some mornings it saves my marriage, maybe.

After a Noisy Night

by Laure-Anne Bosselaar

The man I love enters the kitchen

with a groan, he just

woke up, his hair a Rorschach test.

A minty kiss, a hand

on my neck, coffee, two percent milk,

microwave. He collapses

on a chair, stunned with sleep,

yawns, groans again, complains

about his dry sinuses and crusted nose.

I want to tell him how

much he slept, how well,

the cacophony of his snoring

pumping in long wheezes

and throttles—the debacle

of rhythm—hours erratic

with staccato of pants and puffs,

crescendi of gulps, chokes,

pectoral sputters and spits.

But the microwave goes ding!

A short little ding! – sharp

as a guillotine—loud enough to stop

my words from killing the moment.

And during the few seconds

it takes the man I love

to open the microwave, stir,

sip and sit there staring

at his mug, I remember the vows

I made to my pillows, to fate

and God: I'll stop eating licorice,

become a blonde, a lumberjack,

a Catholic, anything,

but bring a man to me:

so I go to him: Sorry, honey,

sorry you had such a rough night,

hold his gray head against my heart

and kiss him, kiss him.

"After a Noisy Night" by Laure-Anne Bosselaar, from The Hour Between Dog and Wolf. © BOA Editions, Ltd., 1997. Reprinted with permission (on the Writer's Almanac but not here on CoffeeYogurt)

best summer read - my nomination

It's awfully early to say this is the best damn light read of the summer. Especially since some parents, teachers, and kids are not even out for the summer (Hi, Sis!) So I won't say it.

I'll just nominate this novel and say I'll hold my real vote at the end of summer (wink, wink).

It qualifies as a light read because there are no longer-than-your-driveway sentences, it's not thicker or heavier than your Websters New Collegiate Dictionary, and it's written in a three-paragraph-per-section style, i.e., you can pick up the book soon after sitting your feeling-fat, matronly self down at Barton Springs Pool, surrounded by the hundreds of young, single, hip, tattooed, hard-bodied University of Texas coeds, and immediately jump right back into the story, without being distracted once.

I loved this book because Julia is such the anti-heroine. She reminds me of an all grown up and married with a kid version of Bridget Jones. And I lurrved Bridget Jones.

Julia's conversations with herself are such a contrast to the out loud conversations I have with the moms I run into.

You know the type, the I only buy organic, gluten-free, lactose-free, corn syrup-free type and the Gotta run, my son has a soccer tournament in Dallas and my daughter has a soccer tournament in Houston, busy day!! type and the I'm so tired I stayed up reading the entire Harry Potter series to my identically dressed, identically hair-styled triplets type.

The type where I walk away, thinking, My kids are soooo screwed.

But not true with Julia. This is a mom who writes honestly about her parenting foibles. Who shares her dissatisfactions within her marriage (read, mediocre to forgettable sex) . Who does all the wrong things, thinks all the most irreverent thoughts, hopes for all the most immoral endings.

And I loved her. Lots of cynical, gutteral sniggering in my beach chair.

My one complaint - I wish it were the size of my Websters New Collegiate Dictionary.

If you like self-loathing, sardonically witty, modern-parenting-trend-bucking moms who still have a naughty sex life, at least in their minds, and occasionally in real life, you might love Julia too.

strong women, talking babies and bum phucks

Woman and Child is back. Yay!

And posting about good, strong women who age out of the nicey-nice, takey-care of everybody but me, phase. And the good, strong men who love us.

And posting a nod to the "totally brilliant humour coming out of the U.S." in the form of talking babies in advertising.

Since this is one of the few commercials I will do a mad-grab for the remote, risking a herniated disc and a twisted intestine in order to de-mute so as to catch the latest baby with 'tude, I thought I would post this E*Trade clip for all to enjoy.

It's so much funnier in it's full-wide version rather than this chopped off one but it's your choice.

I don't know about your motives for gawking at tawking, wisecracking babies, but think I will look at this clip whenever I need a break from the agonizing coverage of the BP Gulf disaster.

Hang in there Louisiana, my mother's motherland. Katrina did not break your spirit and neither will this.

And BP? Stands for Bum-Phucks.

You can show your support by participating in Deb on the Rock's Love the Gulf Blog Carnival.

forever young

I am slowly recovering from a Fab50 reunion with six of my closest girlfriends from high school, all graduates during the late 70's.

When I mentioned this visit to people, I was met with incredulous looks.

High school? You're still friends with girls from high school?

I do realize that for some people their best-friends-for-life were met in college. For others, as the psychology department head told we incoming graduate students, this would be the place where sacred, lifelong friendships would form.

But for me? It's always been my high school buds. No question about it.

I was really lucky that way. I moved to a new area the summer before my 8th grade year. A few weeks before school started, two nervous, 13-year-old girls knocked on my front door to meet me. The mother of one of the girls made them introduce themselves, I was to find out later. It was probably more our of nosiness about the new family in town than genuine concern for my wellbeing. But whatever the reason, these two girls became my friends and introduced me to a larger group of girls who became some of the best girlfriends I could ask for.

I've met many friends since then who have become very good friends. Excellent friends. Cherished friends. We relate in a way my high school friends and I don't, or can't, or won't ever relate.

But there's something singularly special about hometown friends. All the shared experiences, a shared larger network of friends and towns people, memories of some of life's most difficult heartaches.

Over this past weekend, here we all were, gathered in my home, the first time a few of them had even been to Texas. All of us 49 or 50 years old. (Come think of it, only ONE of us was actually 50. Poor woman. The rest of us will remain forever 49).

But here's the remarkable thing. As I looked at my friends sitting around my living room, or on my back porch with the sunlight fading, or on a river bank cooling our feet in the spring fed water, I was taking them all in.

I saw not their crow's feet, nor their varying shades of color enhanced hair hiding the gray, nor their extra-padded midlines.

What I saw were laughing teenagers. A seventeen year old running beside me during a field hockey game. A young woman chugging down her first beer and wincing at the god-awful-taste-of-it. A girlfriend crying over a boyfriend betrayal, the first of many.

Over the past recent years, when I have met someone new, someone my own age, I would see a middle-aged woman.

But my childhood friends? The years drop away in an instant. Disappear. Gone. In each other's company, for just a weekend, we are ageless, timeless, forever young.

do not disturb

Seriously

excellent

reading

in

progress.

For weeks now, I have been patiently pacing the floors waiting for my local library to deliver my hold request.

And Thursday?

Deliverance.

So now, after numerous distractions (volleyball game, two-night visit from mother-in-law, school carnival pick ups, sleepover drop offs) I am, to use a phrase I know the East Texas author would approve of, happy as a pig in sh*t.

If you are looking for a fascinating, disturbing, engaging, and inspiring memoir, or series of memoirs, which in my mind's eye is evah so much bettah, I invite you to read my absolute

favorite series by Mary Karr.

Begin with Liar's Club. Natch.

It's about her Texas childhood. Daddy working the oil fields. Momma working the bipolar. Both working the bottle.

In her words, "A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it."

Follow Liar's Club with Cherry. Karr's adolescent years. Where she unwittingly follows in her mother's footsteps. Isn't it always the way? We're running away from our parents but running right smack into them at the same time.

And finally (oh hopefully not) the sequel to the sequel, Lit.

When I read Karr's memoirs, I feel as if she is sitting by my side, talking to me. An intimate conversation where I'm thrilled I've found a new friend who will tell-it-like-it-is. No sugar coating. No holes barred. Emotional, gutsy soul barings. The stuff typically reserved for the confines of a shrink office.

The way Karr describes her confused, distressed, approach-avoidance feelings regarding her mother is deep, from-the-core, inside turning out.

And her marriage to the wealthy, waspy New Englander. The same. The subtle twists and turns that can steer a married couple right into the ditch. And the way the hurts stick with us, "the shreiking fight or the out-of-character insult endures forever, while the daily sweetness dissolves like sugar in water."

But mostly it's her insights about herself. ""For me, everything's too much and nothing's enough." Yep. Especially when I'm reading her books.

All this to say I may be even less present in the blogosphere than my poor attendance record of late.

But I know you understand.