Those !@*& Worthless Piss Ants

Today’s blog is brought to you by the Pharaoh Ant, aka the sugar ant—or piss ants as my uncle used to call them. Specifically the ones roaming my kitchen cabinets this morning. I can't help but remember my uncle's joke where the kid is sitting on the sidewalk, using the lord’s name in vain and swearing at the uselessness of piss ants as he methodically squishes them one by one under his thumb. Along comes a priest (of course) and lectures the boy on how nothing in God’s good earth is useless. The kid’s answer is far from politically correct so I won’t share it here. Suffice to say that it’s that punch line that filters through my head whenever I get pharaoh ants in my house. This morning’s object of their teensy, little affection was the honey I keep tucked up in my spice cabinet, delicious on my morning oatmeal.

Now, I love our multi-legged friends as much as the next person. I even saved a cockroach the other day. Saved a cockroach! ME! I kid you not! He was outside scurrying along the sidewalk on some mission of utmost cockroach importance. My husband went to step on it but I stopped him . . . I mean -- what’s one more cockroach in a city where they outnumber us a gazillion to one? The key, though, is that the cockroach was outside, right where it belonged. Unlike those piss ants, crawling in and out of my spice cabinet, lusting after my honey. MY honey! I got stingy with those ants, thinking hey . . . get your own honey, this is mine! But then I realized . . . that’s sort of what they were doing.

Anyway, here’s my breakfast . . . the same one I have most mornings. Some fruit and steel-cut oatmeal drizzled in honey. And sometimes seasoned with teensy little piss ant bodies. 

Yoga and toes, Yoga and toes--they go together like toga and clothes

Well, okay, I don’t have a clue what that was all about. It's just that lately I’ve been getting the biggest darned kick out of myself and the things I say! Like the other day when I couldn’t stop laughing at how funny the word ‘DIRT’ sounded and how funny I sounded saying it! 

But dirt is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about yoga. 

And toes. 

I know, I know . . . yoga is not about the concentration on one’s tarsals at inopportune moments. Yoga is about connecting mind, body and spirit. It’s about re-learning the fine art of breathing. About losing yourself in the flow of the practice. It’s about building muscle memory, about toning the body, about calming the monkey mind and exploring a path toward inner peace. It’s about focusing on one thing at a time—one breath, one thought, one pose. It’s about centering.

It’s not—definitely not—about toes. Or at least not exclusively.

So then why is it that I’m often distracted by the condition of my own toes? I’ll be forward folded into Utanasana and find myself thinking, Dang! How’d that middle toe get so darned crooked? Is that the one I broke kicking a rooster back when I was in middle school? Yeah, it must be that one.

Or, I’ll be in Down Dog, another toe-staring pose and think, Wow do I ever need a pedicure! 

Or, in Clam pose thinking, Hey, I didn’t know I had a freckle on the end of that middle toe!

Sometimes, while I’m teaching, I’ll vocalize my concerns. Mainly to see if anyone else is thinking the same thing I am. “Is it just me or does this pose over extend the toes?” Sometimes I’ll get a nod of agreement. A grunt or two. Maybe a giggle. But more often than not, it's just stone silence and I end up thinking, “yep… just me.”

Barbara, my friend and yoga mentor, asked me once whether my toes were changing as a result of yoga. So naturally (and since Barb and I are always barefooted when we’re together) I looked downward, toward the objects of our discussion. Sure enough, the darned things did seem different! They’d spread a little further apart as a result of their extensive use. And I can't help but wonder whether it was her comment that made me focus more attention on them. I keep wondering how much longer, more crooked, less groomed they’ll become over time. I keep wondering why on earth I’m even paying so much attention to them!

So, tell me, is there any more useless thing to call one’s attention to than toes? Have I just wasted two minutes of your life by asking you to read about my fixation on the things? Two minutes that you’ll never get back! If so, I’m sorry. But you have to think of me! Obsessed to the point where I’m actually writing about the darned things. 

I suppose this is where I say how much I really need to get a life. Okay, fine . . . you say it.  

Excuse: n. a plea offered in extenuation of a fault or for release from an obligation

I haven’t blogged in a while. You’d think I’d have time. I mean . . .  I don't work outside the home. I’m kind of a lousy housekeeper so there’s not a lot of time spent in that useless, never-ending endeavor, I don’t lounge in front of the soaps in the afternoon—in fact the T.V. is never on during the day. The meals I cook are healthy yet simple so there’s not a lot of planning or prep time.  So yeah . . . you’d think I’d have tons of time to post a blog or two from time to time.  

Oh, but wait . . . I have one of these: a Senior Varsity Football Playing Boy Scout. Yep . . . I've got an SVFPBS. And because I have an SVFPBS, I’ve spent my potential blogging hours in different ways. Like running kolache /doughnut interference for a bunch of sweaty Boy Scouts as they sawed, hammered and screwed boards into frames. See, Ronnie’s Eagle Project was to build three cages for the Texas Wildlife Rehabilitation Coalition. 

Which was a pretty cool project! And while the boys worked, I made sure they were fed and hydrated, found myself schlepping filtered water in and out of the house because basically, I refuse to buy a bunch of plastic bottles . . . they’re the bane of  our current existence. I was also responsible for spraying the boys with the concoction of their choosing,

“Bug spray anyone?”

“How about sunblock?”

Next it was a whole day of installation. I was designated historian, out there in the 100 degree temps taking pictures while the boys delivered and installed the cages they’d built. Each cage took a little over an hour to assemble in the yards of the selected rehabbers.  The pictures will be installed too… into the Scout Scrapbook I’ve been working on . . . as soon as I find time for that!  

I turned my attention away from scouts on Monday and attended a Project Prom meeting, signing up for a couple of fund-raising teams. If you’ve never heard of Project Prom here’s a little bit about it: it was invented by some brilliant parent a long time ago who realized that kids have a tendency to go out after prom and work on perfecting their partying techniques. Teenagers being what they are, this sometimes means drinking. And sometimes driving. And sometimes this night of celebration can turn tragic instead. So Project Prom provides a safe place for them to hang out after prom. The kids get bussed to a large lock-in where they have all night to play all sorts of games, win stuff and have a bunch of fun before being bussed home, tired, happy and best of all, safe. Project Prom is a ton of work and cost a lot of money but . . . hey, we’re saving teenagers! Definitely a worthy cause!

Later in the week, I donned my creative thinking cap and created a JPG file from a picture of Ronnie when he was just a baby, all diapered up and reaching for a football. I added some verbiage to it, cut it to the right size and then grayscaled it for an ad that will display in the program for local varsity games.  

Concurrently, I was rushing to the dollar and craft stores for stuff to use to decorate the Varsity locker room before the first game. I bought a bunch of crepe paper and football themed party stuff. And I spent a bit of time making about 90 cute little magnets for the boy’s lockers.  

Then, on Wednesday night, some of us moms and dads sneaked into the locker room and gussied it up a bit.  First thing we did was to hang about a gazillion of those little scented trees because, well . . . ewwww! I learned that we actually are supposed to do this for every game! Great.

Thursday night we were at the first game of the season which didn’t end until after 10:00. (Our guys kicked butt by the way). It was out for a quick dinner till 11:00 or so, then home, exhausted and having to get up at 5:30.

So that’s my excuse for not blogging . . . it’s all because of my SVFPBS. Even though I’m actually blogging about the fact that he’s the reason I’m not blogging. Hmm . . . sort of nullifies the whole excuse thing, doesn't it? Guess I'll have to come up with something else.