russellrhodesblog

I can probably count on my fingers and toes the number of times I have taken a yoga class. That said, every time I have done one, I feel better. Love how it makes my body and mind feel. So, I decided it was time to go back. I signed up for a Saturday morning beginner class. It’s the one I have always attended. What follows could easily be a Seinfeld or Larry David script…if I was funnier. I’m not that funny. I arrived ready at yoga class ready to go. It’s been a year. My almost sixty-year-old body is stiff. I need it. The place was busy. A lot of people a whole lot younger than me. There was a guy close to my age. Still, younger, though. I also noticed a lot of pregnant women too. A lot. Once my waiver formed was signed, I mean, I’m ripe for injury, I was told my classroom. I settled in with my mat. (Yes, I have one in the back of my Jeep. I usually use it to keep the landscape rocks from Home Depot from dripping onto my interior.) So, as I waited, I saw all those pregnant women line up on the front row. What’s going on here??!! The instructor closed the door and told us, in a very lovely yoga instructor kind of way, that the beginner and prenatal classes would be combined. She also said, in a not-so-lovely-yoga-instructor-kind-of-way, “I swore I would never teach a class like this again.” Okay, here we go. I noticed right away that we stayed in our backs a lot. We never got off our backs. Every few minutes, a pregnant lady got up to go pee. I get it. They’re pregnant. They have to go. A lot. An hour and a half later, we are still on our backs. I’m thinking, “When do we stand?” We never did. I left there feeling very maternal. I left there thinking how tough it must be to carry around that little life inside you and still try to do your own life. I left there wishing someone would have told me when I signed up for that beginner class that it was being combined with a prenatal one. I left there laughing too. I couldn’t wait to tell you this story! Namaste, mama.

The last few weeks around here, we have been focussed on the algae bloom called red tide.  This one has stuck around Southwest Florida longer than usual and it’s killing fish and wildlife.  It’s deadly.  It stinks.  It’s destroying tourism.  It’s bad.  Really bad.  What hasn’t received as much attention is something that is going on across the country off Puget Sound, Washington. The mother orca, named Tahlequa, or J35, and her refusal to let go of her dead calf.  The baby girl was born on July 24, and lived just thirty minutes.  Orcas usually grieve for a day and let go.  Tahlequah has been at it for more than ten days.  She has carried that baby with her for days now.  There is a fascinating piece in the Sunday Review section of The New York Times by Susan Casey  Read it if you can.  I posted a link below.  First of all, it breaks your heart.  This 20-year-old female orca that will not let her dead female calf go.  It’s being called a “tour of grief.”  Then, you start learning about these amazing creatures.  They are smart.  Really smart.  Certainly smarter than I am. Big brained.   Their sense of family is far greater than mine too.  They live in families.  They stay together.  They pass on knowledge to their young.  Then, there is the part of the story that really gets to you.  Our big brains have so screwed up their environment that orcas are struggling to survive.  They have not had a successful birth in three years.  Susan Casey writes about our sadness for this grieving mom.  She also writes about how we should turn our empathy into action to try and save them.  When we think or orcas, we think of killer whales.  I’ll admit, I was once thrilled to see a killer whale jump out of the water and do tricks.  I’m way beyond that now.  Today,  I do have some guilt that I helped that along.  I need to turn that guilt into something productive.

I watch a lot of news. I read a lot of news. Hell, it’s how I make my living…reading the news on TV. Lately though, I’ve noticed something. Much of the news these days has become white noise. You know, that meaningless, constant background noise. At least, that’s how I’m hearing it. It’s like one of those machines you use to help you sleep. Static. Here’s why. Donald Trump. FOX, CNN, MSNBC and others just talk about the latest Trump scandal. He did this in Helsinki. He did that to pay off a former Playboy model. I’m just not listening anymore. It goes in my head and comes straight out the other side. I’m sure some of this is important. A lot of it just doesn’t matter. It is what it is. Enough people voted for him to get him elected. So be it. Does it help to beat it in the ground day in, day out? Look, I know they gotta fill time. We fill six hours every morning. It’s hard. The News Beast just wants more. That said, it’s starting to feel like the boy that cried wolf. You just stop listening or caring. Someday, something will happen that needs our attention. Where will we be? I fear we will have stopped listening.

Goddammit, I love this movie! I’m on a plane. Seen it now three times. It gets better every time. You know why? It’s about extraordinary times when people knew they had to tell the truth. In this case, the truth behind the Vietnam War. Now, it’s easy to say that it was a special time. You know though, the Washington Post, The New York Times or any publication with a great story lives in a special time. For that matter, any paper, TV station or internet publication lives in extraordinary times. I got into the news business because of this story and one other. The Pentagon Papers and Watergate. I’ve spent a career trying to tell the truth. By God, I still got a little gas in this tank. Let’s keep telling it! You with me?

I haven’t been back here in awhile. It’s easy to forget what a great place New York City is. Just the vibe. You walk out of your hotel and feel it. Alive. We came back here to celebrate our marriage. Six years ago, we got married in Central Park. That was before same sex marriage was legal everywhere in the U.S. So nice to come back here and celebrate. The food. The shopping. The theatre. We saw ” Hello Dolly” last night. Bernadette Peters. What a fun show. She was great. The whole thing was great. Simple show with amazing music. We are headed back home today. Back to real life. A few days of NYC is a great way to relax and recharge.

“Wow, wow, wow, fellas. Look at the old girl now, fellas.” And I do mean me!

It kinda says it all. We may never know exactly what was being said at that moment at the G-7, but I think we have a pretty good idea. Just look at the body language between Merkel and Trump. I mean, you can make up your own caption. It could be, “The world is not going to tolerate your trade policy, Mr. President. Or, “Young man, you are going to bed without your supper.” Either way, she’s mad. By all accounts, he’s really done it this time. Pissed off the allies. Insulted Canada. I mean, who insults Justin Trudeau??!! Now, we are off to Singapore and a meeting with Lil’ Kim. After the G-7, we can only go up. It’s gonna be a fun couple of days.

I had said for days that I was going to stay as far away from the Meghan Markle and  Prince Harry wedding as possible.  I mean, it was everywhere and you couldn’t stay away entirely… but my plan was to sleep through it and get the highlights later.  So, what happened?  Well, for one thing, I found my husband watching the Lifetime movie about Meghan and Harry on Friday night.  My first thought about it was how much those actors really looked like them.  After that, I was stuck.  Watched the entire thing.  Still, I wanted to sleep through the wedding and get the highlights.  Well, I woke up.  I woke up!  No alarm, I just woke up.  So, there I was.  Do I try and avoid it or do I watch?  I watched.  Let me tell you this, I’m so glad I did.  It was beautiful.  She was beautiful.  He was beautiful.  What I’m so glad I saw though was Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon.  He knocked it out of the park.  The Royals had no idea what hit ’em!  Now, I grew up Southern Baptist in Paris, Texas.  I’m not one anymore, but I know good preaching when I hear it.  That was some of the best preaching I have ever heard.  “The Power of Love.”  Bishop Curry said, “Love can be sacrificial, and in so doing, become redemptive.  That way of unselfish sacrificial, redemptive love changes lives.”  The choir that followed was the perfect period on an amazing message about love.  “Stand by Me” performed by Karen Gibson and The Kingdom Choir should be a top ten hit.  Why was I so moved by all this?  This beautiful, perfect day in Windsor?  Maybe it was what had happened the day before in Santa Fe, Texas.  Another school shooting.  Ten killed.  Ten hurt.  Here we are again.  Of the places that should be the safest, an act of horrific violence.  That one student said, “I always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here too,” is heartbreaking.  We have to plan for these things now.  We have to know when to hide, to run or to fight.  I cannot believe we are still debating what to do about guns.  We have to do something.  Anything.  Just do it.  Don’t let this happen again.  I’m tired of having to read these stories out loud on TV.  I’ll do it again tomorrow.  The aftermath.  The outrage. Soon summer will be here.  School will be out and we can not worry about it again until fall.  I hope it’s different this time.  I hope these kids, like those in Parkland, will help change things.  Maybe the summer can be used to do that.  I guess this is why I was so into the Royal wedding.  It was a break from it all.  I have to say though I was worried the entire time that rode in that carriage.  It’s how we live now, I guess.  Fear of something awful happening, but hoping it will all turn out okay.  I titled this post “Opposite Ends.”  For me, the news on Friday and Saturday were opposite ends of the spectrum.  The one thing that Bishop Curry said stuck with me.  On the power of love, “Think and imagine a world where love is the way… we actually treat each other, well like we are actually family.”