San Antonio to Irving
The day began by going back to Synergy Studio and co-teaching a Nia FreeDance class with Todd. Adelle had put the playlist together for us and we alternated leading every other song. Adelle had gone to Portland, so Todd was hosting me.
We had an awesome class. Both of us were practicing allowing lots of silence between our cues, as it gives the students more of an opportunity to be self-guided and self-aware. I made a commitment to only giving three or fewer cues for each song, and it worked great.
As always, before loading River into the car, I allow him sufficient decompression time from being so good, quiet and still in the crate during class. We made a few rounds around the parking lot of The Pearl. On one of our laps I saw this very strange plant that I cannot identify, but looks like some sort of space alien pod.
I stopped for gas on the way out of town and, despite some concern expressed by a local person, I had no trouble finding a station that was operational.
For the record, the problem I was reporting with the ache in my testes was .... literally... handled. And now its all better. I'm kind of embarrassed that I ever even brought it up. So you got a deep glimpse into my intimate personal life and some of the problems unique to 'life on the road'.
On the subject of my health, I discovered a distressing wound on my leg. In the pit of my right knee, it was itchy and when I scratched it, felt tender. So I had to twist and bend and contort to actually get a good look at it, but it was really horrible when I finally did see it. The wound was about as big as a dime. On the perimeter was dry, crusty and dark skin. At the very center was a carbuncle with some black specks in it. And between those two was very raw, red, moist skin.
It required the skills of a circus performer to see it closely, but I thought maybe I could take a picture of it and examine it that way. Here is my best attempt.
Of course, right away I thought "skin cancer". I'm no stranger to the ways it manifests on my body, and this one looked hauntingly similar to the one on my neck. But I also wondered if maybe it was just a reaction to the synthetic material of the shiny pants I'd been wearing for Nia classes. Sometimes, I don't have the opportunity to change out of them right away, and now I began to think that whatever chemicals the pants are made of could be combining with my sweat and the heat of wearing the pants for an hour or two after exercising and causing some sort of rash reaction on my skin.
At this point, there was nothing I could really do about it. I could only commit to keeping an eye on it and to having it checked out by a dermatologist when I get back to Seattle.
The drive was uneventful. I stopped in a small non-descript town where I noticed a big grassy park. I let River run around for a while. He did his morning business and then plopped down to pant. It was pretty hot, and the air quality was poor and hazy, so it wasn't a good day for running, and he knew that.
I pulled into the Dallas area and recognized the Motel 6 in Irving as one I'd been to several times before. My strongest memory of this place was several years ago, when I was driving into Dallas and teaching class that evening. I had allowed just enough time to check-in and shower and change and get to the studio. But there was a raging rainstorm going on. The streets were flooded and my wipers were unable to move fast enough to give me a clear view out of the windshield.
I pulled into the motel and they informed me that the storm had taken the power out so that they could not check me in. Period. I had to scramble to find a new place to sleep that night. I made one attempt by checking the Motel 6 app and found one with a vacancy, but couldn't find it. The directions took me to a business park but I saw no sign of any motel.
Time was of the essence as I was scheduled to teach class, so I just drove directly to the studio without checking in anywhere. I put the word out of facebook to help me find a place to stay and went in to teach. When I got out of class, I checked again and found that I was indeed finally able to check into the original location, so all turned out well. It was a great lesson for me, though, in not panicking, and going with the flow. Things tend to work out, and its in our minds where most of life's biggest dramas occur.
But, as I said, nothing quite that interesting happened today. I drove up, checked in and chilled for the night. They have a laundry facility, so I was able to do a load before going to sleep.
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