Persnickety Tutu

I'm setting off for San Francisco tomorrow morning. I'm going up to do another yoga teacher training and will be there for six fabulous days. Yes, another one! The more I know, the more I grow. And I'm all about growing my fine and lovely people. Oh yes...

I'll be studying with Judith Lasater, the women who wrote the bible on Restorative yoga, Relax and Renew. Restorative is my specialty so I figure why not go and play with the big cheese? I'l be at the Yoga Tree Studio in the Castro for five days getting my Restorative groove on. I'll have my nights free so I'll be meeting with the oh so fun Sharon from Slow Travel for some wining and dining on Tuesday night and then Friday night it's a Summer in the City night with Marcia and David and a few other wonderful Slow Travel cats. Fog City Diner, here we come!

This is sort of a training vacation as I'll have mornings and nights free. Just me and the city at my feet. Bloody beautiful...

I'm flying Virgin America for the first time and I've been looking forward to trying them out. I'm staying at The Metro Hotel which is a sweet little neighborhood kind of place with real local flavor. I also got a free week long parking coupon for LAX airport parking in the mail so I'm just driving myself there. No fuss, no muss. It's always a pain in the booty trying to find rides to the airport so I might be onto something here!

Just livin' life...

Just a short note to announce that april 15-22, 2009, I will be holding my first yoga retreat on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala with my friends and fellow teachers, Linda Eifer and Tom Jermain. Yes, I am doing it! And yes, it will be playful and joyful and amazing! We three are such a great team. They have both been my own teachers and I have grown so much with them beside me. Now they are my partners as well. I am humbled that they believe in my vision.

We'll have a website up soon. I just wanted to share the news. And it will be a true vacation retreat where people get a taste of the Guatemalan culture, get to do some yoga, eat great food, savor spa treats and simply relax. It's the retreat I'd want to go on myself.

And yes, we really can make our dreams come true...

In case anything happens to me I ask for these simple things:

1. Please make sure my cats are with me. They make the darkest days a lot lighter and I live and breathe them.

2. If I can't be with my cats then please have someone take care of them and love on them for me. They are an extension of who I am.

3. Find my brother Jim and tell him that I want him with me if things get bad. I trust him to kick ass with the doctors. We were a team with my father's care. I know he'll make the right choices. And my cousin's Harry and Patty will be with me too, as will my best friend Jorge. I know that. I am loved.

Please know that I feel profoundly blessed to know that someone will read this, maybe even you, and will make sure that these things happen.

Why am I writing this now, you ask? No, I'm not sick nor depressed. I'm not scheming to end things. I am writing this because someone I know, someone my age, is very sick. She has been diagnosed with cancer, undergone sudden and ungodly surgeries and is fighting the good fight. The road is long and she has just begun her journey.

Life ain't for sissies.

We are trying to bring her beloved cats home to her in NYC as they are currently very far away. One divine woman is working very hard to make this happen. The cats are in Rome where she was planning on living for a while. This was all very unexpected. Her plight has made me realize how important it is for all of us to have our needs be known.

These are my needs and wishes. I hope you will never have to refer to them, but if you do, I thank you for your love, kindness and friendship.

And to the lovely Diana I say this: your generosity of spirit is beautiful.

Kathy

I am heading back to Guatemala for 17 days next month. I've just booked my ticket, have asked my friend Deet to book me into a room where she lives in Antigua, and may very well have most of my meals included in my rate or be able to cook for myself. I'm going to live like a local this time around. Oh yes.

Now to start looking for a Spanish school/tutor so I can study Spanish on the weekdays and then head out to the lake on the weekends to see friends and play. Damn it feels good to have done this. I've been a bit wackadoo as of late due to the wanderlust not being sated and today I am breathing more freely. I know in one month I will be back in the place that lights me up from within and settles me down to my bones. Fabulous...

Airfares have gone crazy high and those non-stops flights I've always taken that were so cheap - this will be my fourth trip to Guatemala in one year - have now more than doubled to nothing less than $675 and ain't no way I'm blowing that kind of money when with some serious airfare tracking for weeks and a whole lot of patience I found myself a ticket for $319 roundtrip with a stop in Mexico City. Sweet!

In a little over a week I'm off to San Francisco for another yoga teacher training and some time with friends. I'll be blogging about it so more on that later.

I love my life...

In honor of this Independence Day I would like to take a moment to celebrate Ingrid Betancourt's release as a hostage in Columbia and her safe return to France. She is a reminder to me of how fragile our freedom can be and how beautiful it is to be able to walk this earth as free and loved individuals. After being held captive for years she is still able to have a brightness to her, a playfulness and an ability to express real gratitude and joy with a beautiful smile all the while emanating a lightness of being.

I am humbled by her strength and open-heartedness.

Happy Independence Day. May we all take pause and remember how incredibly lucky we are to be free...

If you haven't heard, CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan, who has been covering the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan, is all over the news for allegedly having liaisons with two men whilst on location. Now, I personally applaud her for taking to heart the old slogan: MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR. I think it's bloody brilliant that she can not only be hot, funny and sharp as a tack, but that she can manage to get her groove on during the worst of circumstances. I happen to think this is a beautiful thing. And she is one hell of a straight shooter who swears like a truck driver.

My kind of woman.

I'm on team Lara. Damn straight I am.

This is so worth watching.

Well, as the previous post indicates, I've been feeling a tad out of sorts lately. I usually travel during the Summer and thus far I'm fairly booked up until late July. Come August I'm on the road!

I had plans to meet a friend for dinner down in Santa Monica last night and it occurred to me that I wasn't really loving the idea of drinking wine and driving. So, I had a traveler's moment: why not book a room down there by the beach for the night and make a mini-break of it? With gas prices heading towards the moon and airline ticket prices soaring right up there with them, why not travel locally? Hot diggity damn, what a grand idea!

Now rooms down in Santa Monica are EXPENSIVE. I called around and the cheapest thing I could find was about $170 a night....crikey! So, I got my sweet little self on Better Bidding (what an invaluable site) to check out the hotels on the Priceline list in that area. I found three 3 star hotels that looked doable and knew when I bid I'd get one of them. I won a room on Priceline at The Holiday Inn at Santa Monica Pier for $110 plus tax. I called the hotel to find out the cheapest rate they had and it was $220 plus. I got my room for half price! Happy little me.

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