Today I received a pretty decent compliment. A guy came in to take my 6:30am class at the Upper East Side studio and outright, told me that he would have to leave early. This happens from time to time especially during early classes because people have to get to work. There was the usual does of Upper East Side drama during the class: one girl left early because she thought she was going to vomit and another guy, who has only been doing this for a month, thought that he was perfect and did not wish to receive any corrections. But the ultimate compliment was when Ralph, the guy who told me that he had to leave early, stayed for the entire class and told me afterward that he decided to stay because the class was so good. He sacrificed getting to work on time to see how the class ended. It must have been a real nail-biter.
So that’s what’s been going on in the yoga world for me: lots of sweat, lots of drama, but still…lots of fun. Last month, after teaching my two early classes, another teacher came into the studio and told me that there was a homeless man who had set up camp in the vestibule. So that teacher, the manager of the studio, and myself went down and take remedy the problem. I immediately reverted to the sir-I’m-going-to-have-to-ask-you-to-leave route but the instructor who was teaching the next class instead decided to invite him into class. Yes, that’s correct. After some requisite probing to find out if he was drunk, she invited him to shower, offered him some yoga clothes and allowed him to join us for a free class. As to protect the belonging and the well being of the other clients, she requested that I supervise him in the locker room while he showered and got dressed. After cinching up his pink lost-and-found boutique hospital scrubs (compliments of Bikram Yoga Upper East Side,) he joined us in class in the hot room. Yes, a homeless man somehow found himself in a one hundred and ten degree room with a gaggle of half-dressed soul-searching Upper East Sider’s. The lasting images are truly priceless. The instructor kicked him out after twenty minutes because she deemed him too distracting. To say the least. As the other practitioners were attempting to find some focus and intention in the mirror, the new guy in the back corner was doing postures with his head cranked sideways as to get a better view of the crazy guy in the room who was talking to himself and who had a case of scoliosis which was simply painful to witness. It was honestly a complete wreck. After she kicked him out, I had to accompany him back to the locker room so that he could pile more clothing, from his Duane Reade luggage, on top of the sweaty surgical scrubs which he had now claimed as his own. I escorted him out of the building and attempted to return to class and jump right back into the practice as if nothing had happened. Apparently he’s returned to the studio, several times, to receive another free shower. Big surprise.
Speaking of kicking someone out twenty minutes into class, I had to do the same thing two weeks ago while substituting for an instructor on the Upper West Side. As I was going around the room getting people’s names and surveying for any injuries or medical concerns, one woman informed me that she was six months pregnant. Now taking Bikram while pregnant is a bit controversial but it happens all the time…IF you happen to get pregnant WHILE having a consistent Bikram practice. However, she also informed me that it was her first day. After attempting to dissuade her from taking the class — because it’s not suggested that she start any new type of physical activity while six months pregnant — I caved when she became confrontational. She told me that she knew her body well. See, she was a dancer and she had not stopped dancing throughout the pregnancy. So that made it all OK. I was already running late so I just started class. I didn’t feel like making the situation any more dramatic than it had to be. The in utero baby was all that I could think of while I was trying to teach class. I felt that I was basically responsible for the welfare of this unborn child. At one point I approached her to ask her if she had consulted her physician. She told me that she asked two of her friends about it and that they had thought it would be a great idea. With that, I told her that I was not qualified to teach her the pregnancy series and that she would have to leave the room. With that, I could actually breathe and focus on the people who were actually physically capable of taking class.
I took class alongside Idina Menzel last week which was kind of cool. Another kind-of-cool thing is that I got a raise at Trader Joe’s. It was my regularly scheduled three-month review and I was told that it was phenomenal given that it was my first review. I received a raise of a whole thirty-five cents per hour. Unheard of. And I damn well deserve that thirty-five cents. I guess there’s drama everywhere I turn because TJ’s has been pretty crazy as of late. Remember that huge thunderstorm two weeks ago which left the entire New York subway system out of commission and some Bay Ridge, Brooklyn homes without rooftops? Well, I was lucky enough to evade the hectic sans-subway commute because I had to be at the grocery store by 5am. When I left the house, there was nothing more than a mere drizzle. Fact: when two scheduled trucks arrive at your store in the pouring rain before 6am and your store is too small to have a loading dock and you have to unload all of the inventory onto the street…when all of that happens, you get wet. Very wet. Freezing cold, and soaked to the bone, I spent the next two hours stocking racks upon racks of damp cheese in the refrigerated section. Everything was damp, even my feet. Trader Joe’s provided us with complimentary dry socks but relief was only temporary because our shoes were saturated as well. We thought that we had escaped the rain once we got all of the food sheltered under the roof. But to our surprise, it started raining inside as well. Apparently, there were four inches of water collecting on the floor of the compressor room upstairs. And then the trouble with the subway: because the MTA was completely paralyzed for a few hours, only half of the staff showed up for work that morning. We were miraculously still able to open the doors with a clean, stocked store at 9am on the dot.
I suppose all of that wasn’t quite so bad as the following day when the dairy case was on the brink. I ended up with dry ice burns on my fingertips. In an effort to salvage the hundreds of dollars worth of milk and yogurt, it was my duty to pack the fridge with blocks of dry ice until the fridge repair guy could get in. Dry ice is carbon dioxide that has been frozen at -110 °F. When it comes in contact with your skin, it can be just as severe as a burn from heat. But you know, I hang out all day in a room 110 °F, so I thought I’d give -110 °F a try. I suppose I should consider myself to be lucky. Another TJ’s employee accidentally sliced a tendon in his forearm with his box cutter. My fingers felt numb for a few days but he’s in cast.
I may have been able to save the dairy but the bananas were not quite so lucky. It was almost a month ago that I had to write off and donate 12,000 organic bananas. Yup, that’s $3,480 worth of bananas. The bananas come in cardboard crates which contain plastic bags filled with about one hundred bananas. Apparently the bags have to be “burped” (sliced opened) so that the bananas can breathe. That didn’t happen so the bananas steamed themselves. All I know is that a whole lot of people probably ended up with some delicious banana bread. The regulars at Trader Joe’s are crazy; they’re like family. I got a haircut in July and received more compliments from random strangers at TJ’s than I did from my friends. They all know me; it’s very strange. And they happen to see me a whole lot more frequently than my friends.
Besides taking a tremendously difficult class tonight (but not complaining because I survived it…) the worst thing that’s happened in yoga recently was that someone stole my towel while I was in the shower. I know. I don’t know if it was a mistake caused by a yoga daze or if it was intentional. Either way, I was left standing, dripping, completely bare, asking a fellow student to go find me another towel in the lobby. It probably took him 45 seconds to find me a replacement but it, of course, felt like 45 years. Some people are just naked people; I’m not.