Day 3

Yesterday I went shopping for more Yoga attire. Having only one pair of Yoga pants and two shirts was not enough cushion for me to be comfortable making it to a Yoga class Monday through Friday. I knew there would inevitably be the excuse: "My Yoga pants aren't washed. Darn! I can't go today." So to avoid this temptation, I set out to buy enough "extras' to get me through a few days without having to worry about wash.

I hate washing clothes, not many people do. But I loathe it. I don't mind so much loading the washing machine and then putting the clothes into the dryer. It is the next step I detest: folding. Unfortunately, our laundry room is in an unfinished basement which is also home to my son's pool table. I say unfortunately because it is a wonderful example of multi-functionality.While on the rare occasion it is a pool table, most days it becomes a commercial size dumping ground for clothes which have been washed (yeah), have been dried (yeah, yeah), but await the final step: folding.

That won't happen this month- at least not with my Yoga clothes. No, sir! They will go from washing machine, to dryer, and straight to being worn.

Since the clothing hurdle has been jumped, now I need to tackle the hair issue. I noticed the first class that many of the women and all of the men had short hair. Those with long hair simply pulled it back into a ponytail. Okay, I'll just use a handy dandy ponytail and problem solved. Right? Well, yes and no. Yes, if you have long straight hair. No, if you have any type of bangs or layering at all. I also noticed the first class that the owner of the gym wore a small scarf bandana. I will keep this in mind for future classes.

I don't look good in scarves or hats. So I don't own many. Even in winter I would rather wear ear muffs than a hat or scarf. I recently came across a picture of myself with ear muffs in the shape of a dog's head. No one looks good with two dog's faces sticking out on the sides of their head. I don't own the dog ear muffs anymore for which I am sure my children are grateful. However, some days I don't care what I look like. It's too cold to care.

The first time I remember being too cold to care about what I wore was when I visited New York city. I was ten. My uncle lived in the city and my mom and I stayed with him for five whole days in the early part of December (year omitted for the vanity of the writer). I grew up in Florida, so whatever the temperature actually was I believed it to be hovering at zero. I wore a turtleneck, a wool skirt with long boots, a scarf tied around my neck and partially covering my face with my wool hat pulled down passed my eyebrows. Only my nose was exposed to the elements. We entered a restaurant that my uncle promised served, "The best French onion soup ever". Of course that was before the Soup Man.

We were seated in a comfortable booth.  Eventually I warmed up enough to take off my coat and my gloves. I remember looking around at the carved wood beams and the waiters dressed in tuxedo jackets with long tails- fancy was putting it mildly. We were seated long enough for me to thaw out and I removed my scarf and hat. The waiter swiftly came over to our table. "I appologize," he said, "but I wasn't going to approach the table while your face was covered."

It seems as if Belgium feels the same way today.

I'm grateful I have the choice to cover my sweaty head- or not. No matter what, at least no one has to worry about seeing the dog ear muffs. What could I have been thinking?