Vegetable personalities

So D and I are going to see The Da Vinci Code tonight. It got bad reviews, but D read the book and loved it, and bought the tickets in advance. If it's really bad, I can just leave. Right?

Yesterday was, um, a day to remember. I taught 2 classes in Brooklyn. I've only taught there on the weekends before, and there's always been the same subway mess - take the 2 from 34th to 14th, wait for another train, and the second train runs local all the way to Brooklyn. For that, you have to allow 90 minutes. So I allowed 90 minutes last night...but there was a reverse glitch: the 2 train ran normally, express from Manhattan to Brooklyn, no need to switch trains. So I got there FIFTY MINUTES early.

I decided to loiter in Prospect Park and found a little mommy-baby section (there are many, many nesters in Park Slope) and sat down on a bench. It started raining. So I fled, along with a nanny pushing a stroller. I took shelter under a gazebo near the entrance to the park. There was a guy in the gazebo who offered me a piece of his tangerine. I said no, thank you; and then an old, overweight, leathery woman got into the gazebo. He didn't offer her any tangerine. I thought, someday young men will no longer offer me tangerines. It doesn't matter, I suppose.

Then a homeless guy came in and started haranguing the tangerine guy. "I got a drink here, iss just like Red Bull. You wanna buy it? You wanna?" Tangerine Guy smiled politely and shook his head. "You sure? You sure?" the homeless guy pressed on. I decided the time was ripe to leave and I left the gazebo. I was soaked within moments. I headed toward the center, noticing that the rain had washed the Band-Aid off my toe (I had a little cut there). Deciding not to worry about it, but wondering how much worse the day could get, I rushed to the center.

At the center, I couldn't get the stereo to work. (At this center, you usually just plug your iPod into the stereo, set it to TV/DVD, and then you're good to go.) Neither could the woman at the front desk. So I taught the first class music-less, but it seemed to go well. There were 2 girls who hadn't gone to the center before, and after class they bought class cards so they could come back. So that was nice.

Between classes, I figured, "What the heck," and tried turning the volume WAY up (we're talking like, twelve revolutions of the dial. I didn't want to try it before for fear of blasting out the class.) Guess what? That was the whole problem. So I had music for the second class.

I asked the second class (an advanced class) if anyone had any injuries. One woman explained, "I get numb if I'm in a pose too long." So I made a mental note to keep the class moving along, which you have to do anyway in an advanced class.

Then another woman came in about 10 minutes later, after class had started. It became apparent to me that she should not have been there. Put it this way - she was more basic than anyone in the basic class I had just taught, yet she took an advanced class. I felt really bad for her. She didn't know downward dog, child's pose or Warrior II. I spent some time by her side coaching her through the basics, but I had to get back to the rest of the class. Everyone else was keeping up fine and there were about 12 other people. Then she told me she was feeling nauseous, and I told her to do child's pose. She looked at me blankly and I showed her how to get into it.

Finally she left, saying apologetically, "I don't feel so great." I felt awful about it, although I don't think there was anything else I could have done. I demonstrated pretty much all the poses, and she just looked at me, confused. (Again, no one else was having a problem.) Once I nodded at her when I was in downward dog and THEN she copied me. But otherwise, she just sat with one knee down on the mat, with the other leg stretched behind her, and looked confused. I don't know what pose she was trying to do.

Maybe I should have taken her aside and suggested a basic class. Maybe I'll try that in the future.