Going pretty good. I am now 8-1/2 weeks out of the operation, and have almost full flexion in my elbow without discomfort. Still kind of tender if I put stress on it, so I am continuing to lay low a bit on the yoga side. Giving myself credit for small milestones, like washing my hair. When the brace first came off (2 weeks ago) I could get my right hand about a foot from my head, the next day it was but inches away, then I could tickle my scalp but could not apply pressure. Then soon I could wash the top of my head, but couldn’t reach the back of my neck. Now, however, it is all systems go with hair washing!

Ramona and Grace

The last few days have been rather momentous due to changes in my living situation. After living solo for the past 3-1/2 years I now have a couple of housemates. My yoga muse, Ramona Magnolia Tamulinas, and her new puppy, Grace, are now firmly ensconced in my spare bedroom. Ramona is in the process of opening a new yoga studio, Flow LBC, that will fill the yoga void that currently exists in the Wrigley neighborhood. Her energies have been rather scattered for the last year or so when she was working as a nanny and living in Glendale with only sporadic forays into Long Beach; the Long Beach yoga community is looking forward to seeing much more of her from this point on, and it is great to have her back in town. Great for me to have my own live-in yoga teacher!

It is a bit of an adjustment for me, and it was nice to see the bustle of activity yesterday, with a couple of women in the house and a couple of big firsts for my occupancy!  Ramona put my oven to use for the very first time. It is a is a nice old gas oven, but I have just been using a toaster oven. Even better, Ramona’s daughter Sadie did a very thorough house-cleaning, another first! I am not big on house-cleaning, but in my defense I also have a very strong “clean as you go” approach, so while the dust may build up, and stuff tends to clutter, I do manage to maintain an acceptable level of neatness. Sadie, by the way, is very good at it; she cleans like a demon, is merciless at attacking clutter, and came up with some nice improvements for storage.

Here is a reflection back on my living history…

1950 – 1973 lived in a couple of apartments in Chicago, and then a house in Franklin Park with parents and 1, 2, 3, …, 8 siblings, finally (I am the oldest of nine). Went off to college in 1968 and had roommates in the dorm for two years, lived with three other guys in a house off-campus for one year, and then lived in a trailer outside of town with two other guys. Family sometimes had a dog, but never more than one, I think.

1973 – 1977 I was married. We lived in married student housing in Macomb, IL, for one year, then rented a house in town the next. My wife quickly acquired three cats, and never once maintained a litter box. The cats came with us to our apartment in Holt, MI, and then into a nice little two bedroom, two bath townhouse with a full basement in cooperative housing in Lansing. The cats stayed with my wife when she decided that this graduate school thing was taking  way too long and bailed.

1977 – 1981 I was in West LA, and slept on the floor in my friend Lana’s rent-controlled apartment. Her brother Ramon had the couch. Lana had one fat cat, and she took good care of it. Not the most luxurious of accommodations, but at $9o/month quite affordable.

1980 I was lured by the promise of a couch to sleep on to move to Santa Monica and moved in with Victoria and her teenage daughter Tiffany. Tiffany was on the kid’s acrobatic gymnastics team that  we had at the time, and Victoria was in the IBEW and trying to make a living in a very heavily male-dominated studio electrician field. No pets.

1980 – 1982 Victoria, Tiffany, and me moved into another house in Santa Monica populated by Audrey and her pre-teen daughter, Rachael. I had a space under the eaves of the house. Definitely rustic accommodations, but had room for a bed, my first bed since leaving Michigan! Shortly after we moved in a young ballet teacher, Jacqueline, moved in as well. I don’t recall any pets. Audrey was a kind of a life coach, with a neurolinguistic programming practice that she ran out of the house. She did well enough at it that she was able to buy a house in Pacific Palisades.

1982 – 1992 I moved to a house on Rose Avenue in Venice, right across from the Penmar Golf Course. The first year there was my friend Gene, his old and smelly dog Rusty, and two other guys. The next year the other guys left and Gene’s girlfriend Davida moved in. They eventually married, and in 1988 their daughter Frazier joined the fray. In addition to the fart-bomb that was Rusty there was at least one, and perhaps two, cats in the  mix; the litter box was unfortunately 1) situated right outside the door to my bathroom, and 2) not tended to as often as I might desire. There were some challenges here as Gene did all of the cooking for his family, but was the antithesis of me when it came to cleaning up, so there were generally piles of dirty dishes in the sink.

1992 – 2002 I moved into a house in the Hollwood Hills. It was on Mulholland Drive right at the  intersection of Laurel Canyon Blvd. It was like being in an eagle’s nest, and could swoop down in minutes to music events both on the Hollywood and Valley sides. The main residents were Buddy and Mayumi. Buddy is a friend from graduate school at UCLA (which I was just finishing up when I moved in) and his Japanese wife Mayumi. When I first moved in they had two very young boys, Niki and Spike, and then along came Bucky. There was also a rotating cast of other residents, among them Bruce Ray White, Buddy’s siblings Jon Dog and Vicki, the entire Brause family (Scott and Mariko and their kids Maria, Kensuke and Sosuke), girlfriends of Jon Dog (Shayne and a crazy black girl), boyfriends of Vicky (Chris, who she is married to now), and the entire Tony T family (Tony and Kyoko with first daughter Tammy, and then son Joey who was born while they were in residence). It was a pretty cool place to live and much fun was had by all! Then they had to go and sell the house…

2002 – 2007 My first foray into actually living alone. I bought a house in California Heights in Long Beach, worked real hard (had two full-time jobs for that entire span). No pets, no roommates, although I did have a rental in the back with my tenant Andrea.

2007 – 2010 Met Elsa, fell in love, and went all in. Sold my very affordable house (3.1 miles from work) in Long Beach (at a great profit) and bought a much bigger house (2800 sq ft) in Placentia (30 miles from work) to accommodate her needs. In addition to Elsa there was her son Dat and their dog Lu.

2010 – 2013 In late 2010 Elsa was gone (but still on the deed to the house), and I was on my own. My niece Kelsey and her fiancée Jason lived with me for the last year. Finally had to hire a lawyer to get Elsa to settle on the house, and sold it for a big loss.

2013 – 2016 Moved back to a rental house in Long Beach in March, 2013, and lived alone until this week.