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“The Americans have a lousy government. So therefore, their economy is lousy even though they have significant oil revenues.”

Oh, wait, did he say “Iranians?”

One of the many perks of my fancy new software company job is free yoga classes, of which I partook for the first time yesterday, feeling a bit nervous and scruffy, as I’m not naturally flexible and hadn’t tried to do yoga in years.

Then the instructor pulled out a camera. She said she’d told everyone before that she’d be photographing the class that day, but for some reason the person who talked me into attending did not pass that information along. I groaned.

Said the instructor in her very best, soothing, yoga-teacher tones: “Now remember…” I took a deep cleansing breath and tried to calm down. Then she continued, “This camera has a delete button.”

I lay down on the mat and laughed for about five minutes. It probably aligned all of my chakras or whatever. Hyena pose. I don’t know.

It turned out that I could do some of the poses. I remembered what I learned years ago. (Thanks, Fred!) And other times I fell over repeatedly, and that was fine too. This camera has a delete button.

I felt great all day today.

My coworker recently brought in a dark chocolate pound cake that was so good it was ridiculous. I’ve had chocolate pound cake before, but none that was as chocolately and delectable as this one.

She got the recipe from Cream Puffs in Venice, although she said that when she makes it again she might use a different glaze. I thought the glaze was delicious, too, although I think it probably wasn’t originally meant as a pound cake glaze.

Anyway, now I have the recipe for an amazing cake, and a link to a good baking blog I’d never read before (which I hope doesn’t mind that I borrowed this picture).

Here are a few photos from my recent family trip to the mountains in Highland County, Virginia. Click the pictures to make them bigger.

Sunbeam on Echo Mountain

Afield

Deer in the Woods

Mountain Stream

Not for all the tea in China
Not if I could sing like a bird
Not for all North Carolina
Not for all my little words

In honor of the Beijing Olympics, I’ve been listening to Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.

Thoughts on the opening ceremonies: soooo many people! Though that, of course, does represent China well. I did miss some of the wit of the Sydney opening ceremonies, which I loved.

Mostly I’m just looking forward to watching lots of swimming.

This is not my joke, my era, or my actual feeling, but somehow, thematically, I feel the need to say this here: Wong sucks.

more cat pictures

These LOLmurz r helpin me simultaneously shout out to George, Hari, and the year 1997.

Trust me, there are 7 or so people in the world who know exactly why I had to post this.

Somehow James Blunt’s infernally catchy hit is much better when it’s about geometry. From a Sesame Street episode that reran on the 4th of July. I’d seen this already on the Internet, but it’s worth posting again.

On Saturday I went exploring and ended up in some wetlands in Oxnard, California, where I saw these amazing jewel-like plants. If you click on the pictures, you can get a closer view. Part of the plant looks like ornaments made of glass beads. It felt like that, too, hard and smooth as glass against my fingertip, and yet clearly a living, growing thing. It also had white flowers.

I found another sparkling patch of what I suppose is a more mature version of the same thing. If you click the picture to enlarge, you can see that the entire plant looks like it has been sprinkled with diamond dust. It isn’t sand. The plant was growing in the dirt, and I touched it and the sparkles were clearly attached. I haven’t yet found out what this plant is called, but wanted to share these pictures of these living jewels.

I saw them at the wetlands at what is apparently called Ormond Beach. As soon as I got near the marsh, a Great Blue Heron flew back and forth over me. I also saw kingfishers swooping down and plucking food from the water. Also people flying kites and fishing.

There is also an abandoned factory right next to the wetlands and beach. Apparently it is an old metal recycling plant that dumped its waste into the wetlands and ocean until the environmental regulations were changed, and then until lawsuits shut it down. It seems there is a movement to restore the wetlands and make the area into a nicer park.

Then I went to Port Hueneme and walked a path along the port to the lighthouse. I also visited friends in Woodland Hills and did a lot of shopping.

When I started working on the west side of Los Angeles two and a half years ago, I found that it would take forever to commute by public transit, which I had done when I worked downtown. I started driving, but it was nerve-wracking to share the road with all the monster SUVs that were popular then.

Then the Prius became chic, and I started to see more and more of those. It was nice to see environmentalism become popular. I bought a Yaris and was very happy.

As gas prices have risen, I’ve seen more and more small, fuel efficient cars, and hardly any gas-guzzling behemoths on the roads. Indeed, recent news reports confirm that my observations represent trends.

SUV sales are way down, and auto companies are starting to change their offerings based on demand. Train riding is up. We’ve now reached the levels of European prices. You know what they have in Europe? Small cars and lots of trains.

I realize that the high fuel prices are undermining the economy in some ways. Gas prices lead to higher food prices. People are spending so much now on food and fuel that they don’t have money to spend on anything else, and so everything else is down. The high fuel prices are affecting the companies for which some of my friends work, and they are expecting layoffs and salary cuts. It’s ugly.

Still, in some ways I think fuel prices should stay this high. Low-cost fuel is not a basic right. It has always cost us a lot in some ways. Having to reconfigure our lives and livelihoods around high fuel costs could be a good thing in the long run.

I’m looking forward to being able to take the train to my new job.

Photo by kangster.