Yoga Music -- Rant alert

I love hymns.

I also love yoga, or as they call it at the Y, Gentle Yoga.  It is the best for stretching and feeling better.

But, I skipped Yoga again today.  I skipped for a crummmby reason.  The music.

We have a new instructor and she is very very good.  Except she insists on playing hymns for the session ( at least now instrumentals, earlier by choirs or Christian rockers).

One of the best parts about 45 minutes of yoga is to concentrate on your breathing, on not tipping over and on not being distracted.  

Maybe you can listen to familiar hymns and not be distracted; not remember the quartet at the Lordsburg Methodist Church singing that one at your Father's funeral; or how every rendition of that one reminds you of your Grandmother, or how "Blessed Assurance" immediately calls up a special Sunday service.  Good for you.

I can't.  I know, its a little bitty thing.  But, trying to remember the second or third verse of "Amazing Grace" is not conducive to yoga practice.

All my preceding yoga instructors used ethereal semi-Asian sounding music, fairly low, just so it would not distract.

I need to get a grip on this because I really believe that I feel better after Yoga.  

It did not occur to me ...

that I would be eight months in boomy, bloomy, Tyler, without finding employment.  But it is so.

However, I'm not complaining, just observing and appreciating.  I am very grateful to my Tyler kids, Lane and Kathy, and Currie, for their considerable generosity that helps me stretch the bucks, from reduced rent, to fill-ups and WalMart trips.  Big help.  I'm fairly proud of myself for remembering some old single mom tricks, like pasta casseroles that make pretty good eating even three (or four) days in a row.  I can stay out of stores.  I can watch my credit card debt inch up and not panic.  I can dump a pricey Internal Medicine Clinic and opt for a friendly Family Medicine place.  If you know me you know that getting in the car and heading out is one of my favorite solutions to any problem.  Not so much now.

Here's the upside:

This is Kyndall Grace, the youngest of my eleven grandchildren.

And if I'm gone tomorrow, she will remember me.  We spend some time every week doing something special.  Very often it includes taking pictures and usually of something in nature.

Sometimes its just singing silly songs in the car, or reading her newest book.  KGB, as I call her, is in Kindergarten but she's a reading machine.  She is also a counting machine.  You know, everyone of my grandchildren may have been as bright and funny as she is, but she's the one I am getting to know.  And she knows me.  

That is a gift.

There are many gifts here in greater Tyler, an adorable house on two acres with a bazillion birds, a kid who appreciates my cooking and cleaning, a wonderful new church family that makes my heart sing, (better than listening to me sing!) it is a really beautiful part of Texas, a little chilly, a lot hilly, and covered with sumptious plants and flowers and trees.

When I start to worry about making ends meet I remind myself that the important ends are meeting and there's a lot more to old age than making ends meet.

As Currie is inclined to say, "Thank you Father."

Medical but not Political

I have Shingles, again.

The last time, about 7 years ago, Laura and I were driving back from Baton Rouge.  Internal pain galore, nothing external.  So when I went to the emergency room in Brenham, I suggested internal diagnoses; kidney stones, gall bladder attack, etc.  I should have kept my ideas to myself.  I spent the next two weeks seeing surgeons, nuclear x=ray machines, and other doctors.  One did ask what those spots on my midsection were and I said "spider bite, I guess" ... because I was just guessing.  Finally a nurse friend said, "have you considered Shingles?"  I had no, zip, zero knowledge of Shingles and so I had not.  I went to my Family Practice clinic and asked the nurse to look at my "rash" and see what she thought.  She instantly thought "Shingles" but it was too late for any radical medicine and I did survive.

I had wonderful medical care in Navasota.  Dr. Selva is probably the finest internist I've ever met.  And Shingles did not present during those five years.

Tyler, new clinic, very nice and the Doctor's kids go to All Saints.  However, it seems to be a place for the retired rich, those with "supplementals" ... I don't have supplementals.  Every visit so far has resulted in the need for more tests, more tests and more tests.  Every exit has seen me write a check only to receive a further bill in the mail.  I was so spoiled in Navasota.

So today, suffering an ugly rash and some other symptoms and not wanting to self diagnose (ever again), I went to Urgent Care in Tyler.  I had forgotten what good care I got from them three years ago when I totaled my car on Christmas morning and had a nasty pair of piercings and swelling on my right hand, the only injury from a near death roll over !!!  It is the best place!  They listen.  You see a doctor within minutes. He knows what he's talking about and is even nice.  Medicare covers it.  I wish they could prescribe my blood pressure medicine and I would never go anywhere else.

So, I have Shingles again.  It seems to be a lighter case.  The prescriptions cost $45.  Glad its not fleas or bedbugs.  The exterminator would have been more!