(no subject)

[theatokos]

Not very articulate today. I am TOTALLY procrastinating working on some staffing reports. Argh, staffing. Bane of my existence these days.

My weekend yoga retreat was wonderful. Only 12 of us, 13 if you count lil' Bennett-in-the-belly, and many people were quite kind to him! One lady (hot, so hot. Do I ever miss the ladies sometimes!) even knitted him a beautiful green hat one night! The yoga was great. I feel better than I've felt in months - my hips feel normal, I'm not waddling. Just amazing. It was also great to hear birds and bugs. I saw toads and hawks, and heard wild pigs and horses. AND, I saw the biggest butterfly I've ever seen! It was horribly incredible. Body the size of both my thumbs together plus some and wings the size of my hand. I really miss nature.


Up until a month ago I was still going upside down. It felt lovely. But I needed help getting up and down. Staying up was fine. Lately, my gut tells me to stay away from inversions, so I am. I also did my last supported backbend this weekend. It felt good, but I believe I am done now. Lunges also are not feeling good anymore. Uttanasana also no longer feels good on the belly. I stopped doing all stomach lying poses after the 5th month, but have done a modified cobra but will be phasing that out.

What continues to feel amazing are:
*lots of tadasana focusing on the inner and outer spirals and good shoulder alignment, with and without arms overhead stretching - good posture and well aligned tail bone has saved me a lot of lower back pain!
*arms together pointed overhead and leaning side to side - I have done this through out my pregnancy and it's been a life saver for stretching the side muscles and helping with round ligament pain
*cat/cow
*Warrior II
*trikonasa (with prop) - feels wonderful on the sides of my body
*parsvakonasa (with prop) - ditto
*downward facing dog - this is a "resting" pose in Anusara and I love it, but I realized this weekend that I will probably phase this out in another 3-4 weeks
*squats and baddhakonasa - these are suggested by child birth teachers anyway for helping with the birthing process

Hopefully this will be of some use to other pregnant lady friends and to my lady friends who might get pregnant sometime in future.


But, I had to come home. What did I do? I immediately went to the movies with Adam and alizarin71, and concurrently with hrafntinna. We saw Iron Man. So fun! Totally not a feminist movie, but what the hell. Robert Downey Jr was everything I'd hoped he be, by which I mean fabulous. Gwyneth Paltrow played her part well and I loved the chemistry between her and RD Jr. My only criticism was that after wonderfully detailed and engrossing first and second acts, the third act felt like the director all of a sudden realized he was running long and had a Holy Shit! moment, cutting out stuff and speeding things along to the rather anticlimactic Fight Scene. I would have happily hung around for another 20 minutes for a more cohesive third act. But still. Good fun. Recommended for a good summer flick.

Okay, that's it for now.

Comments

Cut Scene

[chiv.livejournal.com]

The Iron Monger was a little disappointing but I tend to find that all climactic fight scenes these days are.
I was stoked they managed to get R.D.Jr to play the part, with his background he was bang on perfect. I don't think I've seen a better representation of a comic book character.

The cut scene after the credits had the audience cheering and bouncing in their seats, there was a Sci-fi con in the next building if any explanation is needed, but the promise of an Avengers film with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury could be amazing, so long as they at least keep R.D.Jr for Stark. I'll reserve judgement for Norton's Bruce Banner and whoever they find to play Thor and Cap.

Re: Cut Scene

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

We didn't stay til the end of the credits!! I am SO disappointed. Normally we do.... but I HAD to race to the potty. Stupid bladder.

I read (on wikipedia, so who knows how accurate this is) that RD Jr will play Stark in the Avengers film and they might make an Iron Man trilogy! Whee!

Re: Cut Scene

[chiv.livejournal.com]

I'm less excited about a trilogy after seeing both the X-Men and Spider-Man nose dive in terms of quality: The sequels were, in my opinion, better than the first parts but the third parts were utter rubbish. Something to do with the number of villains being inversely proportional to the quality of the film. So long as they don't make the same mistake with Iron Man,it should be okay.
So The Mandarin for the second film and maybe Titanium Man and the Crimson Dynamo for the third.

[eelsalad.livejournal.com]

I loved loved loved Iron Man, glad you dug it too! I agree that it's not feminist, but Pepper is certainly a lot closer to feminist than most comic-book ladies. :) Paltrow did a great job with her.

I reacted very differently to the pacing - found the first act (especially Tony in captivity) a bit slow but loved the rest. Wish we could have had Iron Man kicking butt a bit more, even. The sequence with him taking out the weapons depot rocked my socks, and I wanted more.

Potential TMI aside: RDJ in this movie is threatening to turn my fascination with peculiar medical stuff into a downright fetish. Hot guy with gnarly mechano-medical implant = hawt. Even if the science of it is totally stupid.

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't mind the slower pacing of the first act! It intrigued me. I thought "Hm... paced like a drama, how interesting!" Plus, I felt Stark's character had more background and depth, thus I cared more. I agree about the ass kicking. Definitely could've used more - hence my disappointment with the third act. The Big Fight Scene was a bit of a mashed up let down.

As for Pepper, she was enjoyable, but "a lot closer to feminist than most comic-book ladies" ain't saying much and there is nothing in the role on which to latch the word feminist. But even I can put aside my feminist lens for some good clean fun. Sometimes.

[eelsalad.livejournal.com]

I see what you're saying about the pacing. I think that the initial sequence with action and gunfire and explosions put me in action-movie-headspace, so what I was mostly thinking was, "yeah, Tony rules, I get it, can we please have him be Iron Man now?"

I liked the last fight, myself. It wasn't as fun a ride as ominipotent-Iron-Man-Battles-The-Terrorists-And-Saves-The-Civilians, but it worked for me. But then, I'm pretty forgiving of good or nearly-good action movies because I see so many bad ones. :)

In re: Pepper, I don't think an argument can be made that she's a feminist character, obviously. I will say, though, that after a diet of comic-book women dressed ludicrously and unable to do much of anything competently, Pepper is a breath of fresh air for me. She's a gal who dresses businesslike 90% of the time, doesn't cancel personal engagements for her boss, and gets to safety when danger looms instead of being captured to be used as a pawn.

Again, though, I'm probably being overly forgiving. :)

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Yes, I would definitely say overly forgiving! I mean, look at how low your standards for a woman film character are!! Why should we settle for such a tiny "favor"? Because that's exactly what it was - throw the girls a moldy bone.

... And I liked Pepper too, but PUHLEEZE. Those three inch stillettos she was running in getting away from the baddie at end? Right. She could barely walk. Give me a fucking break.