There was a substitute teacher in yoga class this evening. I seem to have had bad luck with substitute yoga instructors, but this evening was an enjoyable exception. The instructor's name is Kim. She told us that she normally teaches yoga to elementary school aged children. Judging by her initial nervousness, I'm guessing that she hadn't been teaching adults very long. Or, maybe it was because she was teaching in an unfamiliar studio. Or, maybe she wasn't used to teaching a strictly Anusara Yoga class. (She mentioned that she'd "taken a few detours lately.") But once class got underway, Kim seemed to find her courage, the volume of her voice got louder, and class was a blast.

Kim pushed us pretty hard, but when enough students started dropping out of asanas, she'd pause and tell us things, like the most difficult thing about teaching yoga to children is getting them to hold the pose. She'd tell us the names of asanas in Sanskrit and in English - or whichever of the two she knew, admitting that she didn't know all the names. If she didn't know either name, she make up a name. (We did something called "The Spiderman Pose.")

I hope that none of this comes across as a negative comment on Lisa or on her teaching style. I don't mean that at all.

We did an assisted half-handstand in class. (Like a handstand, except that your body is in an inverted L shape, with your feet on the wall.) This has always been a difficult pose for me. Kim explained to the class that the traditional method of approaching this asana is to start from your hands and knees, go into Downward Facing Dog, and then walk your feet up the wall. (This is exactly how Lisa taught us.) Kim had her own method - she instructed us to skip the Downward Facing Dog, and start walking your feet up from the kneeling position. It forces you shoulder muscles to become rigid and therefore stronger, she explained. Using her method, I did the half-handstand with ease, and had no trouble holding it.

I did feel a little sorry for Kim at the very end of class, though. She rang the chime that ended savasana, and the class began rising from the floor. Kim, however,had her eyes closed. As all of the students sat waiting patiently on their mats, Kim instructed us to gradually roll to one side, extend our arms if we needed to stretch, and then use our forearms to slowly life ourselves into a seated position. I don't think she'd ever caught on that the class was way ahead of her.

It's a morning for terrific questions.

As I'm checking in a patient, the patient picks up an income survey from our stack of surveys at the front desk, and starts to read it. I asked the patient: "Have you filled out one of those surveys yet?" The patient responds: "What survey?" I answer: "The one in your hands."

A patient arrives for his appointment 45 minutes late. After checking with the triage nurse, I tell the patient that he's going to have to reschedule his appointment to another day. The patient asks: "Can I just wait and see if someone doesn't show up?" I told him he could do that. The patient then asks: "Can you find out how long that's going to be?"

I called in sick from work today. Actually, I called in sick before I get sick. I woke up feeling slightly feverish and fatigued. I spent the day web surfing, napping, and reading - more or less in that order.

I started reading The Rule of Four today. Phillip retrieved it from the "free stuff" collection in our apartment building. He read it, and recommended it to me. I'm about 60 or 70 pages into it, and I'm enjoying it so far. When I'm done with, it'll go either to the free book collection at work, or back to the "free stuff" pile.

I got an email from my parents today. They'd recently read Kurt Vonnegut's latest book A Man Without A Country and, knowing that I'm a fan of Vonnegut, recommended it to me. I checked at the Seattle Public Library web site tonight, and they do have the book. Of course, being the latest Vonnegut book, there were 187 holds on it. I added my hold to the list - I'm now at position 188 out of 188. While I was there, I checked on my other two library holds. For the DVD of Eraserhead, I'm now at position 9 of 100. (Almost there!) And for the DVD of The Sound of Music, I'm at 34 of 90.

I was reading Muslim WakeUp! this afternoon, and found this excellent February 4 Media editorial titled What Would Prophet Muhammad Have Done?. It's worth reading, for Muslims and non-Muslims.

Man, I had a lot of weird and disturbing dreams last night. I remember one, and part of another. There were dreams that I know I had but I can't remember what happened in them.

There was a dream where I was sitting in a loft with someone else. I was sitting on the arm of a couch, and the other person was sitting on the half-wall at the edge of the loft. I don't remember anything at all about the other person. One of us was talking about the beings that had left the room, taking all of the magic out of the room with them. Then one of us had the idea that some of the magic might have been absorbed into the fabric of the couch, and all we had to do is figure out how to extract it.

There was another dream in which I was driving into downtown Seattle, from the south, with some other person. We were shocked to see that one of the downtown skyscrapers was on fire. Next, I was at some viewpoint looking across at several of Seattle's skyscrapers which were either burning or had burned. Several skyscrapers looked as if they had been blown up. Then I saw the shape of an airplane torn into the side of a skyscraper, and I realized that Seattle had been the target of a massive terrorist attack. All around me, people where walking around in a daze. I decided that I needed some sympathy, so I pretended as if I had gone into shock and couldn't speak. I fell to the ground, and several people came to my aid. Somebody sent someone else to go get me a doctor. When they did that, I realized that I had taken it too far, and I felt guilty about fooling all these people who were so concerned for me. So I pretended to get better, and I started speaking again. End of dream.

We went geocaching with Emily and her boyfriend Eric on Saturday afternoon. Emily has a Geocaching account, but had used it only once. Eric had never been geocaching before. We looked for five caches in the Ballard area, and found all five. Afterwards, we decided to go to the Chinese buffet that Phillip and I enjoy so much, only to discover that the place had closed. Emily suggested a little restaurant she knows in the University District, so we regrouped there for a late lunch.

I had a great afternoon. I like Emily a lot. Neither Phillip nor I had met Eric before Saturday. He seemed like a nice guy, rather quiet - even quieter than me - which could make him a great match for Emily. After we said goodbye at the restaurant, it occurred to me that Emily had never written down the names of any of the caches we found today. I wonder if she's going to log them.

Saturday morning, before Phillip woke up, before we went geocaching in Ballard, I solved another, earlier, jigsaw puzzle cache like the one I did on the UW campus last Thursday night. It was hidden by the same geocacher. As I started to download the jigsaw puzzle, we received an email notice that a new puzzle cache had been published. It involved solving a logic puzzle. (The cache owner called it an "Einstein puzzle" - I'd never heard that term before.) Logic puzzles are my favorite type of puzzle - or, at least, one of my favorites. I printed out the logic puzzle, set it aside, and assembled the jigsaw puzzle. The coordinates for the jigsaw puzzle cache put it in the northeast area of Seattle. Then I started working on the logic puzzle.

Phillip got up and helped me on the logic puzzle until it was time to go to Ballard to meet Emily and Eric. After we got home, Phillip took a nap and I finished the logic puzzle. It was supposed to be a hard puzzle, but I found it challenging, but not too difficult. The coordinates it provided put it on the UW campus. I was proud of having solved it on the day it was published. I emailed the cache owner, and confirmed that I had solved the puzzle correctly. At eight o'clock last night, I woke Phillip up and asked him if he wanted to go find the logic puzzle cache. I was glad he said he wanted to - it was too late for a "First To Find" (at least two of the Tiresome Usual Suspects had beaten us to it), but there was some satisfaction to be had in being among those finding it on the first day. Phillip suggested that we look for two other geocaches, as well.

The first cache we looked for was next to the University Village shopping mall. We couldn't find it. Then we looked for the logic puzzle cache and couldn't find it. Those two DNFs in a row - especially the logic puzzle cache - bothered me more than it should have. After a five-for-five afternoon, we were coming up empty on finds. We knew where the third cache was, however. Phillip had tried to find it on his own during lunch earlier this week, and discovered that it was in a very public place and he didn't feel comfortable looking for it during the daytime. We went right to it last night, and logged our one find out of three.

Phillip emailed the owner of the logic puzzle cache for help when we got home last night. We learned this morning that the cache was in one of the spots we had looked - we just hadn't searched hard enough. That didn't help my state of mind.

When Phillip got up this morning, he suggested more geocaching, and I agreed. We started with a puzzle cache I had solved a couple of weeks ago. The solution put it in Volunteer Park. We'd looked for it the night Phillip was awarded for his charity work, but decided it was a cache we needed to find in the light, and we never got back to it until this morning. We got to the coordinates and found that several of the trees in the area had been removed (wind damage?). We're afraid that the cache may be missing. (We emailed the cache owner when we got home.)

Next, we started toward the logic puzzle cache, and, on an impulse, decided to check on "I Can See The Dawghouse From Here." We discovered that the Parks Department had temporarily closed the access to the cache area (precaution because of the rain?). (When we got home, we temporarily disabled the cache.)

We found the logic puzzle cache this morning, despite the abundance of people getting out of the nearby churches. Then we continued on and found the jigsaw puzzle cache, and then found one more nearby cache as well. It wasn't until we got home and logged our three finds that it occurred to me that all three caches had been hidden by the same geocacher, and that it was the same person who hid the two caches I found Thursday night, and that had hidden one of the five we found with Emily and Eric.

Neither of us had planned on this being such a geocaching weekend.

I had planned on taking down the sugar glider cage this weekend, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

I fell asleep on the couch this afternoon, and Phillip suggested that I go take a nap. I followed his advice and fell asleep right away. I had a terrible dream, but not quite a nightmare. I had been given the job of going into people's houses and throwing away all of the photographs that had of themselves. I didn't feel right about it, at first - Isn't it wrong to destroy other people's possessions? Then my employers explained that the home owners had asked for their photos to be destroyed, because they didn't like the way they looked.

I woke up when Phillip came to bed for his nap. It was a little after six o'clock, and I realized that I had forgotten to go to yoga class. I couldn't go Friday night, because of Scott's retirement party, and I couldn't make it up Saturday afternoon, so I'd intended to go this evening. I felt very depressed, and I still do. I started writing this blog entry right away, but it hasn't helped. I think it's something other than missing yoga class, other that terrible dream, other than the sugar glider cage, and other than the DNFs. Maybe it's a combination of all those things, but I don't think so.

As I started this blog entry, we got an email that "White Noise" is still having problems. We drove past it this morning, and Phillip told me that it's the cache he'd the most proud of. He's still asleep right now.