Saturday, March 5, 2011

Ohhhhhmmmmmm.....PFFT!

Last Thursday I sat with a business book, wasting away the morning, when Mamma Bestie called. Our calls are few and far between since the little guy came into her life, and our visits are much more scarce. Who can blame us though? She's got a bundle of cuteness that limits her social life and I've got a travel schedule that rivals the President. Nonetheless, over the last year we've grown apart and it breaks my heart. So when MB mentions that she's about to do some yoga, hears that I've always wanted to learn, and invites me up to do it with her, I jump at the chance. I was already in my gym clothes and running through a litany of excuses why I wasn't going to go to the gym and this? This sounded fun. I could get in my cardio and have some much needed time with my bestie! Score!

She casually mentions that it's from a DVD that's part of this P90X workout routine... Sounds easy. Hey, I work out. I've got good cardiovascular control. I'm awesome. (At least I thought I was.)

P90X is mean, rude, and I want to officially kick its ass now. This routine was 90 minutes in total, but it took us four hours to get through it, what with all the hyperventilating I was doing. She said we were doing yoga, but she so lied. This was a "tie me up in a pretzel and hold that position while doing a flying leap" yoga. This was yoga that military intelligence uses to get you to spill the beans on all your national secrets! You think water boarding is torture? Let's see you do Warrior Three.

So the first 45 minutes was the crazy, "block this insanity from your memory bank" sort of yoga. But the last 45 minutes had me doing positions that were...well, only appropriate in the bedroom. (RE: The Frog) Some of them had me tied up in a pretzel so much that one flex had me moaning. (Evidently I moaned a little too well at one point.) And of course, when you get two friends together sweating (I was hyperventilating), breathing through the pain ("Just breathe", the instructor said. "Bite me." That's what I said.), and a bit punchy from all the stress of life, sooner or later one wrong moan will bring one of you to the point of giggles. And then more moans (with more gusto) ensue.

Giggles with your bestie are better than any other stress relief I know. We couldn't get through many of the other poses without some sort of laughter. But that wasn't the best part. I'm sure some of you out there have tried yoga a time or two. And those of you that have, know that yoga tends to bring you release other than that of the stress variety. How can I put this delicately? It, um, well... it....

It makes you fart, okay? Giant, wafty, big bullfrog croaking farts!

So there we were, doing some sort of "only appropriate if we were strippers or porn stars" yoga positions when I hear a tiny sound from my dear friend. And ladies, if you've ever been around her after she's eaten Baja Fresh and had the opportunity to hear (and smell) her burps, you'd know why my yoga mat suddenly ended up a few more feet to the right.

I'm no angel in this department. Did I ever tell you the story about our trip down the hill from Lake Tahoe after she and Murray The Monkey (her hubby, who used to impersonate a chimpanzee to make Princess giggle til she couldn't breathe, even though he fully denies ever doing it til this very day) got married? Well, we had Baja just before we left, and somewhere around the halfway mark, it upset both our stomachs. The Incredible Miss J (MB's other bestie who is a hoot and a half) was in the back seat with Princess, who was sound asleep. Baja gave MB the burps. Me, it affected in a location a wee bit south of burp. The first few escapees were silent and odorless, but they were more of a warning than anything. Soon enough they were bad enough to force the windows to be rolled all the way down, and MB used her heinous burps as a mere weapon against my chemical warfare. It was like bringing a knife to a gun fight. And poor Miss J in the back, suffering from our insanity. She deserved a purple heart for that one!

So back to yoga, the moaning, the giggling, and the farting. We'd neared the end of the routine and this meant that we'd achieved the ability to lie still, on our backs, breathing (me, hyperventilating), and just clearing our heads of all the stress. MB and I lie there on our backs, still for about a minute before our thoughts started turning to farts. I smile to myself just as she looks over, sees me smiling, and then she busts out laughing because she knew exactly what I was thinking. That's the brilliant thing about besties - we can be away from each other for a season, but no matter what, we still carry that bond that lets us know exactly what the other is thinking, even if it is about a fart!