I’m cranky. It’s been five days in a row of 90+ degree weather in Seattle, and before the rest of you in other parts of the country laugh at me, with your copious air conditioning in every house and building, just know that less than 30% of residents in Seattle have air conditioning, thus making the fairly rare heat waves we do get absolutely miserable. We’ve had to plan our meals by cooking in the early morning and eating cold meat in the evening with all of the lights out, it’s hard to sleep, and I feel like I’m wearing a parka I can’t take off, which makes me nuts. It’s too hot to contemplate a proper shower, even a cold one, and keeping cool has become it’s own full-time job. The air quality is terrible and the beating sun is relentless. I hate every second of this misery and would rather have the heat go out in the middle of December than be trapped in this hellish, sticky swamp. I managed to make it to the gym yesterday in the early morning hours, and even with the air conditioning, everyone was slick and sweaty from the insidious humidity. Fortunately, I think after tomorrow it’s supposed to wind down and go back to the normal, proper, mid-seventies Pacific Northwest summer temps. I live here because I love rain and clean, cool air, so every year when the July heat hits, it feels like an outright betrayal.
It’s already too hot to do it today, but I have developed a new habit on Sundays of giving my body a break from the lifting and instead doing a Yoga routine from a very basic YouTube instructional video. Until recently, I haven’t been able to find a Yoga video that I like. No offense to anyone out there who does Yoga, but I find the vast majority of online Yoga instructors to be insufferably smug and annoying, with their unbearably good looks, beautiful white teeth, iron-flat bellies, and gorgeous homes with picture-window views of a mountain waterfall or the ocean. I do not need that kind of aggravation when I’m just trying to not to fall over in Warrior Pose 1. But I found a cool, very simple video with no vexing humans, only animation narrated by a cheeky fella who doesn’t take himself too seriously. The animation is great because it includes handy red arrows that show you exactly how your body should be aligned in each pose. Somehow it feel less judgemental than being instructed by a real person with a ponytail or a man-bun. And the 30-second pose timers tick off with a lovely water-drip sound which is far less anxiety-producing for me than listening to a ticking clock.
I don’t do product reviews very often, but about a year ago, I did wax poetic about my wireless Raycon headphones, which were game-changing for me. Unfortunately, they had to be replaced recently due to a dud battery in one of the earbuds, and this new version has three different audio settings that you can toggle between to optimize your “listening experience.” Sadly, I toggled between all three of the settings multiple times, and was unable to hear any discernible difference at all. I’ve never been super-attuned auditorily and may even be somewhat tone deaf, so this was not a huge surprise. But it was still disappointing. It makes me wonder if I am missing out on some amazing musical experience that the rest of the world is just taking for granted. I’ve always admired those people who are super-sensitive, quivering antennas when it comes to music and who can discern all kinds of subtleties. I’m just kind of a dumb brick when it comes to musical nuances. I mostly listen to podcasts these days anyway, so I suppose it’s no big loss.
Speaking of music, a poet friend and mentor who I haven’t heard from in a while reached out to me recently to send me this absolutely delightful video of Anthony Hopkins playing the piano for his cat. Enjoy!
Love these eclectic posts, Kristen. And the beautiful Russian music played by Hopkins for his feline audience of one is very nice frosting to this cake!