THINGS I NOW KNOW:

• It takes 1 hr 45 mins to get from the valley towns Dublin/Pleasanton to SFO on BART.
• I cannot use self-service check-in for the domestic leg of my trip.
• I actually can make it through a huge check-in lineup and Security bottleneck, and frantically bolt to my gate--only to find out that my flight's been delayed for 45 minutes.
• I can actually find Terminal 3 at LAX, despite setting off in the wrong direction.
• That huge line of annoyed travellers that I walked past to get to Terminal 3 couldn't possibly have anything to do with me (those poor saps! I think)--oh yeah, except that it is actually the queue for my next Security check.
• Slip-on shoes make Security one iota less annoying.
• Once through Security, I can run pretty damned fast to an airline gate when I have to, but again it turns out that I don't have to, as my LAX-Calgary connection is of course an hour overdue.
• I should probably give up automatically assuming that my luggage has been lost when I don't see it among the first five suitcases on the baggage carousel. I shouldn't be surprised when nearly an hour passes before it schloops down the slide, though.
• These days I can find humour in most anything, but I'm having trouble laughing over the fact that the reason I cut my visit to beloved cousin Les short by two days--that so very, very important client meeting on Monday that I cannot possibly miss--has been rescheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Freddy Uncle Charlie Katie.

 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 9:48 AM | Link
 

Out of office for next two days, CHECK. Outraged coworkers and Creative Director, check. Moved return flight two days forward, check and dammit. Reciting travel mantra...printtickets-findpassport-dropoffdogs-packtoothbrush...check.
 
Surprise, surprise, little Corporate Group Moderator! That was interesting. I played the part of a group moderator for a very important client workshop today. Objective: explore client's brand, however you interpret that. I'm still not sure why I was asked to take part. I was worried that the client would be bored and annoyed, or worse, that I would be bored. Yet there I was, interested and energized. Ready to punch it up with another colleague who interrupted me at one point.
 
This very important client is the reason I'm coming back two days early, by the way. I'll try not to mention this more than a few times in our next workshop.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 5:00 PM | Link
 

In a whirlwind, nay, whirlWAIL at work, and trying very hard to get away for a couple of days, terrible timing naturally, certain trog-coworkers very unsupportive, mind you, dog-sitter arranged--

but still. I am still. Silent and serene with profound joy. All Dad's surgical samples came back clean. Way to go, Mad Dad.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 4:22 PM | Link
 

Starts with "Blah," ends with "blah-blah." I am on my 15th or 16th page of this lyrical, meaningful English:

"Facilitates goal accomplishment through procedural or process suggestions"
"Targets learning needs and actively participates in learning activities"

...and by Gawd if there aren't another 35 pages of this to chew on. I sometimes think Nancy Mitford was right when she wrote that Americans (in this case, North Americans) "struggle to express themselves in a language they've never properly learned." So that's why you write "facilitates goal accomplishment through suggestion" instead of "has good ideas," and "targets learning needs" instead of "wants to learn."
 
But it could be worse. I haven't come across "walk the talk" so far, tanks Gott.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 10:34 AM | Link
 

Hand it over, lovies. My old colleague and friend, Diane Campbell, thought that birthday presents should be given to mothers, not children. "They're the ones who did all the work, raising the kids," she said. I have to say there's a great deal of sense in that. I would like to extend that to another situation, this silly Valentine's Day. The people in L*O*V*E* aren't the ones who need the chocolate. In fact, the lovies should be giving gifts of chocolate to the unattached. Spreading the love, as it were. But did I get showered with Callebaut chocs this morning? Hell no. Love, so self-absorbed.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 10:51 AM | Link
 

Rack up another point: Mad Melvin sails through another operation last Friday, and is again sent home as soon as all the IV lines are pulled out. He wrote me the goodish news that the one melanoma lesion found (and immediately snipped out) had only breached the surface skin, thus lessening the chance of metastasis. Being Dad, he also apologized for yapping about his health once again. So here we go with some more waiting, which Dad is characteristically doing by not keeping still--he's out walking, surfing the Net, trying not to bump his incision, etc. My older brother is going out to see him soon, which is something I'd also offered to do. But I know that Dad can relax more around Lawrence than around me, so this makes more sense.
 
The Return of El Condo Muy Frio. So during Calgary's rather beautiful snowbound snap, the furnace and boiler of El Condo Non Grande staged a wildcat strike. El Condo's supposed to have in-floor heating, but when I saw my breath in the living room on Friday night I thought, yep, this blows. I called the plumber who'd recently fixed the zone switches in the temperamental furnace. Sure, he'll come by Saturday, except not this Saturday, oh, did he forget to mention that when you called? Enough. I call the plumber/furnace guy I should have called first. He sends out a repairman yesterday morning. This repairman is one-eyed and very businesslike and thorough. The whole troubleshoot, replacement parts pickup and actual repair take 8 hours. Furnace motherboard, diaphragm pump, hot water heater, valve, fuse...ka-ching, ka-ching. Result: can no longer see breath in condo. Or numbers in bank account.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 12:00 PM | Link
 

Bye-bye, Canada Food Guide. Hello, peanut butter daisies! It's that time of year again. Our beloved dental client has sent the 3-foot wide, heart-shaped box of chocolates. So much for the last week and change of eating salads and three pieces of fruit per day. So much for the gentle lecturing from the nutritionist. Peanut butter daisies, a.k.a. Janesmack, have arrived.
 
And thank you, La Vin: I want everything on the gnr8.biz site. And I think the inflatable meeting room would look quite nice at Karo.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 5:09 PM | Link
 

Now for My Next Pose: Laughing-Ass-Off Female:

Yogabeans.com, "Your Internet Source for Plastic Action Figures Demonstrating Ashtanga Yoga."

The Sun Salutations, or Suryanamaskar A & B [they can be found in the "Previous Posts"] are also remarkably clear demonstrations of each step. So far I haven't found the damnable Boat Poses, though.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 10:26 AM | Link
 

The anally retentive probably have strong transverse abdominal muscles. My favourite course of the weekend yoga workshop was all about the fundamentals of core conditioning--and no, saying "fundamental" and "core" in this case isn't redundant. All my life I've been exhorted to suck in my gut when standing, but now I have been taught a better way. Concentrate on contracting those transverse abdominals, and the tum will follow. For the laity: bumhole squinching makes the lower gut grow stronger. Also it helps in balancing in such positions as the Half Moon, a.k.a. Jane Assumes the Pose of Sideways Open Book Before Flattening Classmate by Accident. Could it really be that simple? At first, yes. Simple concentrating and squinching (without clenching those gluteal muscles), and you can actually feel the transverse abs tighten. This still allows you to breathe deeply, something you can't do during the gut-sucking thing. Well, now I know.
 
I managed to follow along fairly competently during my workshops, for the most part. The last class of the day included a segment on the Boat and Half-Boat poses, my nightmares, so while all my other classmates transformed themselves into upper-case "Ws," their hands clasping feet at the end of fully straight, vertical legs, I tried to keep balanced on the bum bones while lifting my toes off the floor. Two of my classmates, I'm sure, are escapees from some Chinese acrobat troupe. Either that, or they come from a long line of people with Spandex for bones.
 
But it was a great weekend workshop, yoga greenie though I be.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 12:09 PM | Link
 

To break the streak of Mad Dad updates, I will resort to the middle-aged unmarried gig and talk about my dogs. Or rather the ridiculous Piper. I came home to find, on the kitchen floor, a bag of pears. Five out of six were covered in toothmarks. Because it apparently wasn't enough for Piper that the first pear didn't taste as good as she'd hoped. So it's a good thing I'm not squeamish about dog spit, and am content to pare away the toothmarked bits of pear and eat the remainder. But as I've asked my dog-owning friends, what kind of self-respecting carnivore attacks fruit?
 
Oh, I know it was Piper. She fawned over me excessively as I was entering the condo, the sure sign of some horror awaiting me upstairs.
 
Having said that about Mad Dad updates, I will now give you one, viz., that Dad is going in next Friday to get the questionable bit of his entrails snipped out. So long, atypical melanocytic hyperplasia, don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya.
 
When you see that sun, SALUTE, dammit! So I signed up for a daylong yoga workshop, taking place tomorrow at the YWCA. Then I found out that it's a workshop where I'm likely to be the only non-instructor present. In other words, the only one whose plank position is more like a hammock position. Perhaps I will serve some use to the other attendees as the instructor yells, "See Jane here? This is how not to do the pose."
 
Sorry, Immortal Bard. As I've mentioned before, I'm working on two scenes from "Romeo and Juliet" with a younger actor, Lisa, who's relatively new to Shakespeare. She's going to make a really good, sassy and energetic Juliet, but first we have to get over the obstacle of her not being able to read some of the words. Like "unwieldy," which has become "unwieldly," "unwildly," and "unwidely" at times. As for me, well, at first I was going to portray the Nurse as my mother's worldly wise friend, Selma, who is of Lebanese Jewish extraction. She has a way of shrugging that makes words unnecessary. But the Nurse is more of an earthy peasant than wise, so I was losing some of the raunchiness that makes her character a good foil for Juliet. Here's hoping we can schedule a decent amount of rehearsal time this week. Because right now the Shakespeare scenes in class are almost all examples of actors struggling to deliver words, rather than live them. Except for me, of course, embodiment of Bardly perfection, i'-friggin'-faith.
 
Posted by Hane2SO4 at 12:13 PM | Link