Amy and I prevailed against The Yoga Curse this past Saturday -- with the help of yams69 and his family -- and I finally took my first yoga class. I had way more fun at it than I ever expected and I can hardly wait for the next one. :)

Amy and I have been trying to start yoga classes. In the span of 8 days, we made 3 attempts:

Attempt 1: Major traffic snarl on the freeway. The 15 mile drive took me 1 hour 20 minutes and I missed most of the class. To sweeten the annoyance, I'd accidentally left my cell phone at the office so I couldn't call Amy to tell her I was stuck in traffic and she couldn't reach me to find out where the %$^@$# I was.

Attempt 2: I arrived WAY early at Amy's and we decided to watch an episode of Babylon 5 until it was time to go. About 15 minutes before we were going to leave, my parked car was rear-ended. Amy rushes out, shouting "Stay!" at the dog, and pulls the door behind her without closing it entirely. Amy has a dog and cats and I'm a long-term pet owner, so I rush out the door but take a second to pull the door firmly closed behind me. A dented car is sad but a dented pet is unforgivable.

Turns out Amy meant for *me* to stay because her front door has an old-fashioned version of a lock that engages when you close the door; a kind of I've never seen before. We were locked out without cell phones, money, keys, or credit cards. Poor Amy didn't even have a jacket and it was blustery cold. Instead of going to yoga, we waited at the corner store for her husband to come home from work.

It all turned out ok - my car wasn't visibly damaged, nobody froze, and we got an amusing story. Amy was so concerned about my car, which I appreciated, that she didn't take the time to disengage the lock and I was so concerned about her pets, which she appreciated, that I carefully closed the door.

Attempt 3: Dead car battery. Amy, her husband, and I met yams69, his wife, and their adorable kidlet for breakfast before making a valiant third attempt to go to a yoga class. I've driven a car for 23 years and Saturday was the first time ever that I've drained a car battery because I left my headlights on. But of course. I had wimpy jumper cables but they did the trick, once we'd pushed the car into place the second time. yams69 stayed to jump start us -- thank you! -- and we finally made it to yoga! Yay for us!

It was worth the tribulations in getting there but I'm hoping we've banished the Yoga Curse and can just enjoy the classes without the hurdles from now on.