I am still here. And I am still thinking.

So Mommy went and did the teacher training, which she finished, and then she did a little more and opened a studio and did some more and then a little more just to make sure she knew what she knew and them did another one.  She started saying WHOA a lot for some reason.  When she's not doing the trainings, she has to go do the teachings, because people come to her to learn the yoga and I will be honest with you, I am a little bit sick of hearing about it.  She needs to think about something else from time to time, like camping, and cooking hot dogs over a fire, and maybe even just camping on the deck and grilling some nice hamburgers or some tasty chicken.  Lately she has been taking some rest and looking at things, and writing, and so I thought it might be a good time for me to begin writing again too.  Perhaps you'll find some wisdom in what I say.

First, I would like to introduce you to the song I have chosen as my theme song.  You can play this as you read, if you like:

Mommy told me the other day that she is in a place of learning to ask people for help.  I don't know how that means she is in a place when she is just sitting with me, but I am willing to humor her way of speaking, and I try not to shake my head when she says she has had to learn to do that.  I ask her to help me all the time.  It's only natural.  When my blanket falls off the bed, I go to her, and if she is asleep I stand upon her and see to it that she wakes and gets my blanket off the floor.  I cannot drag it up onto the bed by myself, and I cannot sleep without it, so I ask for help.  When my food dish is less than 2/3 full, again, I ask for help. If it is time for my constitutional or my sunbath, I ask for help.  She understands, and gives the help.  And I help her!  When the good pizza comes to the door that I'm not supposed to tell you she orders as much as she does, I herd her down the hall by nipping at her knees to make sure she walks in a straight line to the kitchen counter, as that is the most efficient way.  I do lots of little things like that.  It is natural to help and ask for help.  So I think she should just be natural about this.  

If I saw you had dropped a hot dog, I would pick it up for you and take care of it.  I would eat it so you wouldn't have to clean it up or worry about throwing it away and have the weight of being wasteful on your conscience.  That is helping.  Humans clean up after dogs, so we clean up after them.  Go ahead and drop something on the floor, like a piece of chicken, or steak.  Yes, try steak.  Call your dog, and drop a steak (rare - rare is good).  See that?  He just helped you.  When I try to take up the whole bed at night, I am only making sure that nothing gets near my mommy.  And when I wrap my whole body around her head on her pillow, I am only trying to make sure she stays warm, because her face and ears don't have any hair and she might take a chill.  So I am helping.  See how utterly natural it is?  

And all you have to do is ask.  Or not.  Sometimes, like when I wrap myself around mommy's head, I can just see she needs the help so I give it.  And people have that, too, I think.  People are, for the most part, intelligent.  

And that is what I have been noticing and thinking about lately.  I'm going to go kick it like Bruce Lee and listen to my song some more.  Do create an enjoyable evening for yourself, and dance some.  

I must be truthful.

It is with me that I have to be honest with you all about something. Last night, I acted like I was so excited about going to practice yoga with Mommy, and kept trying to find a comfortable spot that would take up about half of her yoga mat. She's not very big, so half is enough for her, isn't it? When she was doing her sun salutations, and would need to step or jump back into plank from a standing forward fold, her foot would always hit me. And I would jump off the mat and run around it. Once she was standing, I would go back to the same spot, and once she jumped back, I would jump off the mat and run around it again. She laughed, and said we were having a little game.

Then it was time for her to play dead, "savasana", she calls it. I mean, really, can't we be simple and just say play dead? Anyway, I sat over her, rolled over on her, put my head down by hers, sat on her stomach, nudged her with my nose, talked to her, and paced back and forth beside her mat in the stompy way that I do that makes my tags jingle. Finally, I sat down again, and drooled on her forehead. She had been laughing until then, but she got up and asked me if I needed to go potty. I didn't.

So here is what I need to be truthful about, because that is an important thing. In yoga talk, this is called "satya". (And see? I know that!) I am so mad I cannot see straight about her going to the yoga teacher training without me and leaving me here with Daddy, and I did all of that just to bother her. I am thinking I might do it again. This morning when she went to practice, I did not even bother to move to go with her, and I wish I had so I could have interfered a little more.

Lordy, I am mad. I don't want to talk about this anymore.

Enjoy your day, and be truthful. Oh, and dance some.

I am practicing not reacting.

Mommy is going to be a yoga teacher, she said. She was accepted to the teacher training, and she told me that from December until May, she'll be gone a few days each month. I do not get to go.

Personally, I don't understand why not. I bring so much to Mommy's yoga practice and meditations, sometimes she has to come up with these things she calls modifications so I can be on her mat with her. Sometimes I get under her so she won't bop her forehead on the floor if she falls out of something, and I always make sure she's okay. I can meditate. I have never chewed on one of those cork blocks she uses sometimes, and she even gave me my own yoga mat when she got a new one. I am fully potty trained and know my manners. So I don't know why I can't go.

She has told me that she needs someone to watch over the house to make sure Daddy doesn't burn it down or put holes in the walls, but she could call Grandmama for that. She said she will be in the car for a few hours on the way there and back, but I love rides, so that one's not passing muster either. So while Mommy gets to go and stand on her head and be further enlightened and all that, I get to sit here. With Daddy. And my kitten, of course, but - still.

So I am simply not going to react. I am going to accept until my ears smoke, but I am not going to react to this. Daddy can't cook like Mommy. He doesn't know where to put my morning treat on the floor by my dish for me to find it when I come back in from my morning constitutional. He doesn't understand that the placement of my blanket is very important. He and I have our fun little games, but my place is with my mommy and that means I want to go to the yoga teacher training with her. But I am not reacting. I'm not.

I am going to sit and not react while I pretend I get to go.

Enjoy your day and dance some while I just keep right on not reacting,

Mommy goes upside down and down.

I am sorry it has been so long between entries. It isn't for lack of material, oh, no - we've all been very busy here working on our house, and I have been charged with babysitting my kitten so he doesn't knock anything over. But we are all well, mostly, and free of injury for the most part.

Mommy hurt herself good and proper. I know I have told all of you that I usually sit with her during her yoga practices and meditation, and that sometimes the things she does worry me a little bit. Last week Mommy blew my mind. I was sitting with her watching her go through her sun salutations and fussing over jumping back and floating forward and what have you, when she stopped. She looked at me and did this little bouncy hop thing, and asked, "Guess what it's time for, Totsi?" And I laid down, because she had a gleam in her eyes that seemed like she might have gone off an interesting side of the deep end. Sure enough, she had - do you want to know what she did?

She took her yoga mat over the the wall, and turned herself upside down into a handstand. Helped herself back down, and asked me how I had liked THAT? I didn't rightly know. Then she did it again, and said it was so much fun. She didn't stop there, oh, no - she did it again, but down on her forearms, and bent herself in a peculiar way a couple of times. I did not move. I did not dare. Then she stood on her head. I swear it. I didn't really believe her when she told me how much fun she had just had, but she certainly was smiling. She said she had lost her nerve to do those things a little while ago, and had forgotten how much fun it was.

After that, she finished up by playing dead and having her meditation. The next day, she did the same thing, and she kept doing that until the day before yesterday when she stopped in the middle of her contortions and said, "Ouch!" (Actually, since I believe in being truthful, I need to tell you that Mommy plopped down on the floor and said something nasty about her shoulder. "Ouch" was one of the words, though.) Yesterday, instead of her "normal" practice, she had a nice, long, hot bath followed by what she calls a restorative practice and a yoga nidra. I took a nap right there with her.

Last night, Mommy had to get Daddy to take her to the drug store for some Advil and some more deep heating rub. She's been singing the praises of Tiger Balm ever since, literally singing, and even though it does make her smell kind of funny, I'm so glad she's feeling better. She said she is going to wait until Monday to go back into a full practice, and that she will take it easy with all of her upside down handstand things by only doing one per practice for the time being, and that she will be very mindful of not overdoing it and taking the right counterposes. I am glad of this.

My mommy has always said that sometimes her enthusiasm can be her worst enemy, and I think she has learned quite a lesson from this. I'm going to go back to sitting by her now to make sure she doesn't hop up and do anything else foolish before she is able.

Have an enjoyable day, dance some, and turn yourself upside down if you must - but please don't do it so much that you hurt yourself, because you want to be able to dance some and turn upside down tomorrow, too.

We will not be flipping me, thank you.

My mommy does this. She used to just go on about her business and contort herself this way, but lately, she will look right at me and say in a very happy voice, "Okay, Totsi! Time to flip the dog!"

And I don't know why she says that about what she used to call the wild thing if she said anything about it at all, but I do not like what it implies. We will not be flipping me. I will have no desire to be flipped, I will not consent to be flipped, and we will not be flipping me. Why can't she just do it and hush?

We will not be flipping me. If she comes near me, I am going to pee on her yoga mat the way I did when I was a puppy. We'll see who's dog is flipped then.

I will not be flipped.

I sit with Mommy.

Do you remember when I said Mommy does her meditation after she has yoga practice and plays dead? I think that is what I would like to talk to you about today. I have realized that sitting with my mommy while she meditates is actually helping to keep me a little more calm and centered while our home, Casa Didgeridoo, looks like what mommy calls the inside of the shaken and stirred garage of planet chaos.

Not too long ago, my mommy started moving things all around and vacuuming out little corners. I was afraid that we might be about to move, but she told me that we are going to make a cave for Daddy to sit in, so we would be doing some painting. We have furniture all over the place, books stacked up all around, and things sitting on things where they shouldn't be. Even though I knew we weren't going to move, I was still nervous because I don't like change. But look at me! Behind me, you can see some of the things that are sitting everywhere, but just look!

I am calm and content.

And here is my kittysister, Foot Foot, the way she is most of the time.

She is not calm or content. Now, who sits with Mommy during her meditation?

Again, here I am, surrounded by all the stuff Mommy moved for painting:

And here is Foot Foot, not surrounded by all the stuff since she ran away from it, but still not happy. She is on the table, trying to be above it all:

I think if she would take the same few minutes Mommy and I do each morning and evening, she would find herself a whole lot more like this:

Don't you agree?

And I would like all of you to know that I say all of this from a place of concern for my kittysister Foot Foot, and with no judgement towards her.

Today, perhaps you might try to take a few quiet moments to yourself, maybe just ten deep breaths with your eyes closed like Mommy does all the time when she starts to lose patience, and see if it helps. I have even found a handy online meditation timer for you. (I just do things like this. It's the worker dog in me.)

Have an enjoyable day, and dance some.

Mommy plays dead.

This might seem a little backwards, but I've decided my first entry will be about what Mommy does at the end of her yoga practice. After she's bent and twisted herself around in all sorts of interesting ways, she lays flat down on the floor and will not move. And I worry.

She has told me this is okay, that it is what she is supposed to do. It is something called "savasana", she says. And would you like to know what that means? Corpse pose. I swear, I really do think she might be dead when she does it. Every single time, I fear she might actually be dead because she is so very good at this thing.

Routine is very important to me, and I have one I have to go through when she plays dead like this. I go over to her, every time, and I put my snout right by her nose to make sure she is breathing. Once I know she is, and I do have to make very sure on those times she has really worn herself out, I sit beside her and huff to let her know I am there and to see if I think she can hear me. And then I grumble some, and hoo (I am half Husky, so I speak that language), and put my paw on her shoulder while sitting guard. If that still doesn't get her up in what seems like a reasonable amount of time, I lay down on top of her. Sometimes I am very careful about it, and I line myself up the way I did when I was a puppy, laying on my belly with my head on her chest. Most of the time that seems like it is enough. There are other times, though, when I have to flop right down upon her on my side to bring her back. Since Mommy isn't very big at all and I weigh about fifty pounds, I save that for when things seem really and truly desperate.

One time she fell asleep. She had been sick with the flu, and tired herself out a little too much. I realized she was okay when she turned over on her side and stayed. We took a nice nap together right there on the floor for about an hour.

She always gets up, though, just as sure as anything, and I'm certain my efforts have something to do with reviving her. And then Mommy has her meditation. Sometimes I try to sit in her lap for that, but usually I lay on the floor very close to her in case she decides to lay down like she's dead again.

That is a little part of what we do almost every single day. Mommy says me bringing her back to life is as much a part of her practice as savasana, and she always thanks me for that and for keeping the cats away from her. Then we go and have a little snack.

I hope you have enjoyed my first blog entry. Do something good for yourself today, and if you play dead, please get up.