entertaining the troops

Last night at practice we were playing "half-line," meaning that we were running plays with one side of an offense and a defense since our roster is a little thin. I was learning how to read the offense as Safety. I was a little bit removed from some of the main action, and left to my own devices between plays I started doing very odd things like "nataraja-asana" (though I didn't know that's what it is called--I think we called it something else back in the SF State yoga class days). My back was sore so I was trying to do every stretch I could think of that didn't require sitting or lying on the ground in hopes of working it out, including several, like this one, that aren't lower back stretches.

I looked up and had an attentive, incredulous audience who had apparently not witnessed such yogic prowess on the football field before. So 'Anything to amuse the linewomen' is my new mantra.

Remind me sometime to mention that yoga was one of the most useful classes (I dare not say THE most useful for fear of possibly alienating at least one cherished reader) I ever took in college...new uses are yet arising!

As time goes by

I received an 11"x6" postcard this week inviting me to "finish at home" what I "started at BYU!" by obtaining a Bachelor of General Studies with an emphasis in one several areas: American Studies, English and American Literature, Family Life, History, Management, Psychology, or Writing. The postcard has a detour / road sign theme (continued at the website) and the caption at the top of the card reads "Whatever Detours in Life Have Come Your Way, You Can Still Finish Your BYU Degree."

Rather a bold, all-encompassing statement. If I didn't already have a couple degrees from other universities (one school's degree is another school's detour, perhaps), it would be tempting to spend $30 to find out whether this is false advertising.

However, as Greg Kinnear's character stated in "Little Miss Sunshine," sarcasm is the refuge of losers, so I won't trip down that particular path right now. Certainly there are a number of people for whom this postcard will point out a feasible method of finishing their undergraduate degree, and it's a worthwhile thing to have. Last week I attended a conference on the issues faced by working poor families. One of the speakers pointed out that sadly one of the leading causes of poverty is motherhood. Therefore it especially behooves mothers to seize any economic advantage they possibly can, and judging from the images on the postcard and the website, the mom contingent is the prime target audience.

I am just puzzled though, unless this is some brand new continuing ed program and they dug way down into the files to promote it, why is BYU inviting me back at this particular time? I would have been (theoretically) eligible for the program almost ten years ago. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world...er, I mean, God never closes a door without somewhere opening a window...my grandma would have called that "working for the power company" but maybe it is meant to demonstrate the importance of good ventilation. I digress. Back in the day at the Y the closest thing we had to a gin joint was a coffee shop in Orem. We'll always have Orem. I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful work of satirical semi-fiction. No sarcasm though, that's for losers.