I landed a solid 8 second, free standing, unassisted handstand today. Rolling up from navasana and forward on top palms, kicking legs high and BOOM! It stuck and I was like “WAIT! Does anyone see this right now? DOES ANYONE SEE THIS AWESOME HANDSTAND HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?” And as I held it in all it’s glory my yoga teach spotted me and said, “Now drop into chaturanga, Lori” and I did just that. Quietly and gracefully and it was so the highlight of my day.

I am totally immersed in my yoga these days. Loving teaching, doing another training, working my practice. It’s what keeps me sane. It’s what makes my world go round these days. It’s lovely, if but a bit nerdy.

One year ago I was making an epic journey from Hong Kong to Myanmar launching a three month journey around Asia. Tonight I am sitting on a couch in northeast Portland watching Almost Famous waiting for the weekend. 

Life is funny. It has its ups and its downs. Its adventures and its lulls. Its moments to remember and its moments to relax.

One year. Wonder where life’ll take me in March 2014.

Friday was March 1st. Start of a new month. A little bit of change came to our office on Friday and as a way to start fresh and new, I decided to burn some sage. Burning sage is meant to cleanse the space you are in. I tend to burn sage whenever there is a negative vibe and it always resets and freshens things up. So, as an expert in this practice, I took my sage, lit one end of it and circled from office to office letting the smoke ironically clear the air.

We work in a formal office building. Share a floor with a couple government agencies. Your aren’t supposed to burn candles as a fire hazard and I am sure incense and sage are out of the question too, but once a month, I don’t see much harm.

So, as I am going through the rooms, I realize we are expecting a client to arrive soon. So I start to quicken my pace and as I do, the spark on my sage ignites a little fuller and soon starts burning more and smoking like crazy. I start giggling as I tell Rachael our clients are going to wonder what kind of hippie operation they’ve landed in as I run to the sink to put it out.

“Lori! It’s still smoking in my office!” Rachael yells to me. I come to tell her I’ve just put it out and see an ash had flicked off my sage and onto her chair and was currently smoldering through! I snubbed that out as we fall into a fit of tears as the smoke has engulfed our offices and we are expecting clients yet we have no capacity to open windows for fresh air.

I turn to the front doors of our offices to open them and let some of the scent out and I see a nicely dressed uniformed gentleman standing there with a clipboard. He smiles at me, I say hello, and he extends his hand and says, “Hello, ma’am. I’m the Fire Marshall. Here to make monthly inspections.”

I die.

He comes in and doesn’t say much about the sagey smell. Meanwhile, Rachael is strategically placing pillows over her freshly burned chair and the Fire Marshall makes his rounds.

See, sage does work. He didn’t say a word and we passed our surprise inspections.

Good juju for everyone.

Uncle Peter has encouraged me to blog. I feel like my life here in Portland is a bit bland as compared to living abroad, but I do suppose I have some antics to share that might give you a giggle here or there.

I am currently working for a matchmaking company. You know- A dating company that matches people together the old fashion way. I am my clients’ good friend that has a lot of GREAT friends to set them up with. This provides a plethora of stories about love, connections, conversations and more. All anonymous of course!

Plus, I still do stupid stuff all on my own, so I’ll share that with you too. Anyway, I’ll try to get this rolling again.

I am so turning into a Portland hipster! Today I went by BUS to the LIBRARY then out with my YOGI friends to stop and get a PIERCING and a cup of STUMPTOWN COFFEE then off to the ART MUSEUM before refueling at a FOOD CART and finishing the day with some YOGA. And I did all of this in the RAIN.

I called my sister today to catch up and tell her I was coming home for Christmas since I’m not able to make it home for Thanksgiving.

I told her I fly in the evening of December 21st.

“Oh, we aren’t going to be here then,” she told me sadly.

“What?” I protested! “You said you’d be around for Christmas this year since you are going away for Thanksgiving!”

“Nope. We aren’t going to be here.”

“WHERE will you be then?” I asked frustrated at her response.

“Well, technically, none of us will be here. That’s the end of the world.”

Thanks for putting a little holiday cheer into my day, Sweet Kiki.

Anna and I have a slight infestation problem. We’ve got ants. They are everywhere. But not in huge hoards like you usually find them. Just one randomly crawling around. And by randomly, I mean it. I found one on my bedspread. I found another in the basin of the tub. Another on the RIM OF THE TOILET. I was watching tv and found one crawling on my hand. We once saw them crawl up through a knot in the wood floor in our living room. Anna finds them in her bed. On my banana bread. And, once she even saw one crawl up and out of her computer’s keyboard.

It’s weird, right? There’s nothing we can really do about it since they don’t congregate in one spot. And there is only one of them at a time. Although Anna and I both think they are just preparing to up and take our house on their back and relocate to Panama. Or at least, that’s what we are hoping for.

I have had a couple requests to blog more. So to the two of you who actually still read this, I dedicate this to you!

Uh, life in Portland is good. It started raining. I haven’t taken my camera out in weeks. Although I should as the colors here right now are amazing. I suppose I have taken a lot of pictures though as it is required for my new job at the dating company I am now working for. I photograph our client’s in and around the Pearl District. Beautiful backgrounds, beautiful scenery, beautiful people. It has been fun. As for the job itself…Oh, that is a handful of other posts I’ll share with you in the near future.

So it’s a bit ironic I am working at a dating place since I was recently ‘let go’ by this stupid boy I was seeing. It started to feel ‘too much like a relationship’ for him so he called me the day before my birthday and let me know that he wanted to cut me out of his life.

I’m not bitter.

Obviously.

But, life is good. Working is good. Portland is good. Roomie is good. Blah blah blah.

(I’m in a mood. But at least you got a blog!)

I moved to the gypsy neighborhood of Prague and lived crime free for a year.

I lived in Seoul where I could openly leave my purse on a bar and come back to it after dancing for hours, everything in tact.

I traveled for 3 months around SE Asia as a single woman, walking alone down streets, hopping on backs of bikes, exploring unknown territories and came out of it unscathed.

I have been in Portland for 1.5 months and rode my bike all over this town and on the THIRD day of my job at the COUNTY building, someone.steals.my.bike.

Aarrrggg!

I walked 40 blocks home looking for it.

I didn’t find it.