After Phillip and I did our Saturday afternoon on the library computers, I went on to The Elliott Bay Book Company, in Pioneer Square. Lisa (my yoga teacher) was talking about, and signing, her first book: Healing Yoga for People Living with Cancer. I have a modest, but ever-growing, collection of signed books.

The OneSpirit catalog has been featuring a book called My Daddy Is A Pretzel. It didn't look like a book I wanted to own, but with such a great title, I wanted to at least have a look at it. So I checked in the Seattle Public Library catalog and found that the library had several copies "on order." So, I became the second person ever to place a hold on My Daddy Is A Pretzel at the Seattle Public Library. The book came in today, and I picked up a crisp, clean, brand new copy on my way home from work. It is a cute book.

I had a major accomplishment in this evening's yoga class. I did the Vasisthasana (Side Plank Pose). This was one of the two asanas that I wasn't able accomplish at all - the other being the Bakasana (Crane Pose). This evening, I did the Vasisthasana, I held it, and I did it twice (once on each side). Plus - each time we did the Side Plank Pose, we moved into what Lisa called the "Side Tree Pose," which was the Side Plank Pose with the upper foot resting on the lower knee. I did that, too.

We worked on inversions, too, this evening. We worked on headstands, which I didn't do very well at, until Lisa brought out the headstand bench. It was about a foot, or a foot and a half, tall, with a metal frame and four feet, two horizontal handles to hold onto, and topped with U-shaped padding like a massage chair. The idea was that the padding supported your shoulders without your head touching the floor. Once I used that, I did a perfect headstand (according to the fellow students around me), and I enjoyed it a lot.

Maybe reading to your child on the bus isn't as uncommon as I had originally thought. I haven't seen the mother & daughter team in ages, but this morning I rode in on the 9 behind a mother reading to her young son.

The sock was not met with enthusiasm. The house was returned to the cage.

Before the arrival of Gladys Night, that ultimately led to the arrival of Squeak, Gladden T Hart slept in a sock. It wasn't the type of sock I wear on my foot, inside my shoe. This sock was more like a vertical sleeping bag, with a stiff ring around the opening that held it open, that hung from the side of the sugar glider cage. When the family grew, the sock was replaced by a roomier finch house.

Then Gladden was alone again, and the house seemed too roomy (that is, more lonely) to us. So we filled the house with one of my old socks (the kind I wore on my foot) and a small stuffed dragon from Ikea.

Now Gladden is experiencing some stiffness in his joints, and he seems, at times, to be having difficulty pushing the lid of the house open when he wants to go to bed. So, tonight, we're experimenting with replacing the house with the old sock.

It's kind of sad, actually.

Last week, or maybe longer ago, I watched Easy Rider on American Movie Classics. It had been a long time since I'd seen that film before then, but I remembered just about all of it. What kind of surprised me was, even in its highly edited version, what a masterpiece it remains. I'm still thinking about it tonight.

As I watched Easy Rider, I thought about the TV series The Long Way Round, and how I was ultimately disappointed by it. The Long Way Round could have been so much more - it could have been something closer to Easy Rider.

I also thought about an article I'd read in The Seattle Times many, many years ago. The article was a list of suggested double movie features to rent - all of them not-quite-so-obvious combinations. The only double feature I remember from the suggestions, however, was Easy Rider and The Grapes of Wrath. Both are road movies and also portraits of America at a specific turning point - the 30's and the 60's. It works for me.

Another good thing about Harborview Medical Center: fresh sushi (with brown rice) from Uwajimaya in the cafeteria.

The internet remains, for me, mainly a research tool. Sure, I use it to buy movie tickets, play Neopets, or reserve a library book, but it becomes the most valuable to me when I run across a word I don't know, a country I'm unfamiliar with, or a question I don't know the answer to.

Here's an example: I was watching CBC News this evening. I like Canadian news, because it includes news of the United States and the world. There was a news story on CBC about the debate over same-sex marriages, and specifically about laws in the works to define a marriage as a union of "a man and a woman." The story talked several times about the debate over the use of the "notwithstanding clause." What is a "notwithstanding clause," I wondered. Phillip didn't know, either. I turned to the internet, specifically my favorite information source: Wikipedia.

I found a very thorough article. I'm still not 100% clear on all its implications and uses (I did read only one article), but I can see why a notwithstanding clause is so controversial. The way I understand it, it allows a law to be enacted even though there may be Charter protections against it by temporarily acknowledging that it overrides specific Charter protections. Therefore, you can legally define a marriage in a certain way, and while the notwithstanding clause is in effect, no judge can declare it unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, I just read an interesting article in the "enero" edition of ¡Piensa en Español! Think Spanish! magazine about el mate, the drink I like so much but don't drink often enough (because coffee is so much more available). "El mate es una infusión muy popular entre los argentinos." But, after reading about all the different, and interesting, ways to drink yerba mate: muy caliente o frío (hot or cold), con azúcar o amargo (with sugar or bitters), con jugo de naranja (with orange juice), o con una cucharadita de café (with a teaspoon of coffee), I may just have to drink more mate.

The Prius checked out just fine yesterday - except for a dented oil pan. The mechanic guesses that we hit "some debris." Neither Phillip nor I remember hitting anything since its last inspection. Phillip guesses that it was our multi-angle entrance/exit of our apartment building's back parking lot. That seems to be the most likely cause, but I am wondering this morning about that bridge across Big Creek after Squeak's funeral.

Fortunately, the oil pan isn't leaking, but the mechanic recommends getting it replaced in the next few months. The service department also reminded me that we have only one more free servicing for the Prius. Our car is no longer new.

On my way in yesterday afternoon, I spotted four 2004 Priuses and one 2003 in the used car lot. That seemed rather odd, considering the six month waiting list for a new Prius.

After I brought the car home, Phillip and I drove over to The Bird and Exotic Clinic, to pick up some more pain killer for Gladden. The poor guy has been grumpy lately.

After picking up the medicine yesterday, we stopped into Hardwicks, on Roosevelt at 42nd, to find some screws for the kitchen cabinet door that had come loose. I'm not a fix-it kind of guy, and I don't visit hardware stores often, but I enjoy going to Hardwicks a lot. It's a local, funky shop that seems to carry everything - I often wonder how they track inventory in all the remote corners of that packed place.