Let’s see… The last couple of days have been pretty low energy output. My knees have been pretty achy after stressing them out a bit too much on Friday, so I have been taking it relatively easy. I went to Ramona’s class on Sunday morning as usual, but she was stranded in Colorado and there was no sub, so I just did some walking in Belmont Shore, picking up my obligatory mushroom and sausage pizza slice at Z Pizza. No yoga, but I did manage to get in about 14 miles of bike riding. Monday was a walking day and I used it to take care of some business, like walking to the post office to pick up my held mail, and accumulated about seven miles, all of it with good form.

Today was a very special day as my friend Renate met me for breakfast at Steelhead Coffee with the twins, Kit and Dot, in tow. They just turned 3 months, and while I have been happily deluged with extremely cute pictures on Facebook, this was only the second time I have gotten to see them live and in person. Kit was out like a light the entire time, but my repertoire of funny faces for babies managed to elicit some smiles from Dot, a treat that is apparently only bestowed rarely.

One of the purposes of this blog is to highlight those individuals who I think exceptional, and one of those is Renate. Renate eschewed the typical path to college–I am not even sure that she even graduated from high school–and instead went into cosmetology. Apparently she handled that quite well as she eventually wound up teaching cosmetology. Then she met Kenny, a rocket scientist (seriously, he works for SpaceX), and they married. Renate went back to school and is on the verge now of graduating from UCLA with a degree in Geospatial Information Systems (GIS). She would have been done by now if not for the fact that she was busy with other matters for much of the past year. Renate is extremely bright, a very hard worker, and has also proven to be an excellent mother; she is also getting ready to apply to graduate programs in that field. Remember, it is never too late to change the course of your life, and I hold Renate as a prime example of what can be accomplished if you set your mind to it.

There was a bit of extra excitement across the street from Steelhead. A car in the parking lot of the liquor store was smoking badly, and a couple of folks wound up running over there with fire extinguishers. Their efforts were for naught, it seems, as shortly afterwards the car reached a stage which I believe is best described as “fully engulfed in flames.” A few minutes after the photo above the firemen arrived and quickly put an end to the fire.

Next stop for me was LA Fitness where I have very much missed the Tuesday morning yoga class taught by JR Johnson. JR is an outstanding teacher, and is a master at using his voice to set and maintain an atmosphere conducive to fostering the mind-body connection. It is not easy to teach in a room the size of that at LA Fitness, but JR manages easily and provides a challenging and invigorating experience that I always look forward to, and today was no exception.