Can we talk about how strange a yoga class in London is? Stretch out
your kidneys, she kept saying. Elongate your kidneys. Her British
accent easing me from one pose to another…but…kidneys? Really? I
don’t even know where my kidneys are. Honestly, I know they’re
somewhere in my torso region but to the point where I could isolate
them into a stretch. It was really strange.
And it got me thinking about other body parts that in my opinion have nothing to do with yoga. Like my esophagus. And my appendix. And, well, my stomach. Was it grumbling? Or was I distracted? By the time we got out and started wandering around Primrose Hill, the gray sky somehow bright and exciting like I wouldn’t mind if it started raining, by that time my stomach definitely was growling. I’m still not sure what my kidneys were doing but I was hungry. And it had to be breakfast
Last week I went on a cruise with my family. One night, before dinner I ordered a "Maker's and soda" from the Indonesian bartender.
Leaving Maine in the long, dark days of Winter and heading west to Calistoga, California's mud baths is a a tempting break this time of year. Calistoga is a precious, tiny town at the top of Napa valley that hasn't changed in the least in the last 20 years that I have been going to "take the mud". I must confess I am a spa junkie and this place is pretty wonderful – a town of spas all with different mud blends, super restaurants within driving distance, nice weather with dreamy morning fog and wineries every 100 feet. What is not to like?
On our recent trip to Chicago, my husband and I found ourselves fairly
secluded from the outside world as we cared for my aging father-in-law
while my mother-in-law got a much needed vacation. With only one day to
ourselves – thanks to the brief appearance of his brothers – we decided
to meet up with some friends on the shore of Lake Michigan, in
Michigan. It would have been easier to hook-up on the Chi-town side of
the water (they only live 20 minutes away from my in-laws), but since they were off
boating there, we like to road-trip and I had never been to Michigan,
we tentatively agreed to meet in a small town on the lake called New
Buffalo.
Every other year for the past 10 years my husband and I make the long and arduous trip from Los Angeles to Bangor, Maine for a week’s vacation at his family’s camp on Lake Pushaw. There’s nothing like relaxing on the dock with a nice glass of wine and listening to the Red Sox games on the radio. Usually we have to stop in New Hampshire or Massachusetts to get anything remotely drinkable because, in past years, the wines found in the grocery store were for emergency use only.