Living

Wally Greeves • August 25, 2015

While the flight was long and Table Mountain was huge, it wasn’t until a South African native waitress clicked through some Zulu expressions that the waves of delightful unfamiliarity washed over me and far-awayness kicked in. The April trip to South Africa with some other writers and tour operators was with Pro Golf Safaris, the most noteworthy golf and safari tour operator in South Africa. Making bogeys taste good is this group’s specialty, and the seemingly endless depths of South African resources available to them in this undertaking made this an enchanting trip and introduction to the country.

Topping the New York Times list of places to go in the world in 2014, Cape Town has something for everyone. Twelve hours after my arrival, I was staring into the wide open mouth of a 17-foot great white shark as it banged itself against the wimpy and bent up cage I was diving in, an experience I will never forget. We saw the wobbly little penguins by the hundreds at Boulder’s Beach, which was (there is no other way to describe this) totally cute. Reaching the top of Cape Point, I was laughingly disabused of the notion that I would see a jagged and watery line where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet.

The Cape Town waterfront offers multitudes of excursions involving helicopters, whales, wine and other activities — the most famous probably being the trips to Nelson Mandela’s former prison on Robben Island. Fresh eateries and local markets are around every corner, and we consumed local biltong by the pound the whole trip. Biltong is a 400-year-old South African snack similar to beef jerky, but chewier and prepared differently, featuring every type of game meat conceivable. Not having yet picked up a golf club or gotten over jet lag, I was already wowed by South Africa.

The most distinctive golf in SA lies along the Eastern Cape and Garden Route between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. De Zalze, a parklands course on a 300-hectare estate boasting substantial vineyard and farming efforts, was a great example of just how much golf and wine scratch each other’s backs in the SA economy. A visit to the picturesque Ernie Els Winery and his nearby Stellenbosch restaurant, The Big Easy, culinarily hammered this point home. Farther down the road and voted #5 in SA, Arabella Golf Course was an absolute treat to play. Nestled amongst the hills of the Palmiet Mountain Range above the Bot River Lagoon, the course was a sanctuary of bird life and beautiful views.

South of Mossel Bay, the caves directly beneath Pinnacle Point Golf Course, are a heritage site, which are believed to be one of the first places that humans used heat to make stone tools. Forty thousand years later, I was hoping to reap karma benefits from using forged irons at the breathtakingly stunning course. Halfway between Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, Pinnacle Point reminded me of an elevated Pebble Beach, and the views from above the blue waters of the Indian Ocean may be the best I have seen in golf.

The Links at Fancourt, designed by Gary Player, was recently voted #34 in the world. The caddied round here was special and portrayed traditional golf in a way conservatives would toast as near perfect. The two other courses at the resort, Montagu and Outeniqua, along with the exemplary dining facilities and accommodations, rate this a destination by itself. We stayed three days, but many retire there and do not leave the premises. The massive grounds are a botanist paradise. We stayed an evening at the Conrad Pezula after that, dined in Flintstonian proportions, and in the morning drove the impressive Pezula Course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

The game drives over the next few days at the Kichaka and Pumba Reserves on the Eastern Cape were amazing. The highlight of my Kichaka experience was a quiet sunset tailgate in the bush, punctuated by the velvet pattering of giraffe pillow fights less than 100 yards away, as they whipped their gangly necks at each other’s torsos. The unexpected baby rhino sightings at Pumba were thrilling, and on the last evening there we stumbled upon a family of white lions and watched the cubs play with each other as we sat in silence. Wildebeests just look weird, and watching them run in circles was interesting. The tendency for startled warthogs to scatter and then immediately return to where they were startled was Darwinistically interesting. Monkeys are always a welcome addition, as long as all of your food is within reach. Nighttime hippopotamus noises were new to me, once you figured out they didn’t come from someone in your own crowd.

I like to think of myself as a contrarian, a non-cruise-ship guy, someone who makes their own plans and comes out ahead. But I was overwhelmingly thankful and appreciative for Pro Golf Safaris by the end of this trip. It’s too hard to be in the know this far from South Africa, and good operators have a finger on the pulse of their specialty areas. Most tour operators get roughly 30-percent discounts on almost everything, especially outfits like this that do a large volume business with the places you want to go. The skill that results in good times and cultural education for me now seems to be in communicating with folks like this about exactly what you would like to do, because it’s all available.

This was a lifetime experience, and I will go back. The last conversations with my travel friends all concerned bucket-list amendments and revisions to include repeats and further research. There is golf everywhere, and certainly closer, but what about the penguins and biltong? What about the wines they don’t ship and the plants that don’t grow here? What about the Indian Ocean? What about Zulu? Knowing the answers to these questions makes up for the truth: that I will never play on the PGA Tour.

You may contact Pro Golf Safaris at 1-800-701-2185, or go to progolfsafaris.com. [gallery ids="102273,128233,128225,128251,128243,128240" nav="thumbs"]

Stacy Notaras Murphy • August 19, 2015

Dear Stacy,

I am in my early 50s, a father to three sons and husband to a great wife. But I feel like I missed out on the chance to have the right career. I am a contractor, basically because I have never found a place I wanted to spend more than a six-month stint. I truly hate the work I do every day and can’t believe I’m this far into a career that I’ve never liked. I am so disappointed that I didn’t take more risks after college. I just fell into a field that never made me happy or excited about work. Whenever I talk about changing careers to something I might actually like (chef, psychologist, teacher), my wife freaks out because we are about to have our third kid in college. The thought of following my dream, even though I’m not even sure what that dream is, scares me to death, so instead I do nothing. Advice?

– Frozen

Dear Frozen:

Okay, let’s start by saying that, while you didn’t outright blame your wife for holding you back, I worry about how much of this you lay at her feet. Anyone facing three tuition bills would be concerned when her partner says he might become a novice food-truck proprietor. Her anxiety is not unreasonable, but if you label it the reason you can’t move forward, you are doing long-term damage to your marriage. Let’s turn the focus back to your role in all of this.

I work with a lot of college students and I know about the pressures to follow the trajectory set out when you pick a major at age 18. I also know that many people spend lots of time in offices like mine lamenting those youthful decisions, feeling powerless to change course. The conversation almost always leads back to a fear of embarrassment about having to “admit you made a mistake” about what career path to choose.

We have to change this narrative. Most of us have no idea what we really want to be when we are 18, because we have no idea who we are yet. We make decisions based on feedback from others (e.g., “You’re a good arguer? You should be a lawyer!”) rather than on any understanding of what it will really feel like to live that life. And that’s okay, as long as we allow people to change lanes later.

I was “a good writer,” so I became a journalist. Little did I know that phone interviews and solitary writing would feel like punishment to my overly extroverted self. When I changed course and went to grad school at age 28, I was one of the youngest people in my program. The people sitting around me were mostly in their 50s and 60s, taking a chance to find the meaningful work that circumstances or lack of self-knowledge kept them from for the first few decades of their working life. It wasn’t too late for them and it’s not too late for you.

Sallie Lewis •

With foxhunting season on the horizon, thoughts of tacked-up horses and stylish hunting parties, with all dressed in riding coats and hunt caps, come to mind. Soon, the Virginia Hunt Country — with its large, historic estates, elegant horse farms and unspoiled surroundings — will reawaken these images. Rolling hills colored apple green and cornflower blue take on an almost mystical quality in the early morning light, or at dusk when hunting parties traverse through venerable foxhunting grounds associated with private clubs.

Perhaps the most prestigious of these is the Orange County Hunt, founded in 1910. Today, the Orange County Hunt encompasses a patchwork of properties with thousands of acres of easement-protected land. Rare is it then to find an estate coming on the market in such an esteemed place. Enter: Hound Hall.

With 100 acres in the heart of the Orange County Hunt, Hound Hall is a golden coin unearthed from Virginia’s deep-rooted treasure trove. In the early 2000s, a private owner purchased the land and built an English country house for his family. The estate was named Hound Hall after the owner’s daughters attended Foxcroft School. Here, students are either “Foxes” or “Hounds,” the designations of two spirited teams, and when the girls became “Hounds,” a name for the estate was born.

Hound Hall has frontage on two country roads and is situated just down from Boxwood Winery and Hickory Tree Farm. The grounds boast a number of impeccable features, including a state-of-the-art equestrian facility suitable for professional show, polo or racing operations. The 17-stall Belmont racing barn and stable was completely rebuilt, a tribute to the surrounding country. Highlights of the facility include an expansive 7/8-mile sand exercise track that can be used for cross-country schooling or converted for polo. Additionally, there’s a separate two-stall barn with a two-bedroom apartment for trainers.

The house at Hound Hall defies its recent construction. It feels at once historic and modern, a dichotomy that affords both luxury and convenience. Outside, the home, built with a locally quarried stone, is lavishly landscaped. Inside, five en-suite bedrooms allow ample room for family, extended family and guests. Throughout the house, antique, wide-plank oak and pine floors sprawl; the railheads are all period reproductions, stained to replicate the patina of age and wear. Five wood-burning fireplaces add warmth on cold Virginia evenings, and the ironwork in these hearths, along with the fireplace tools, was designed and forged locally.

The owner spared no time or expense to ensure the home’s quality construction, readily working with the craftsmen, artisans and architect on his vision. This effort is evidenced in the paneling, doors, bookcases, cabinets and interior window shutters, all of which are handmade and hand carved from 9,000 square feet of old chestnut boards sourced in Pennsylvania.

In addition to the home and the equestrian facility, Hound Hall has a first-class sporting clays course. Shooting enthusiasts will covet the enclosed automatic, dual-action Promatic thrower and the area for entertaining, all within walking distance of the house. There is also a walk-in Pentagon gun safe on the lower level of the house.

This multi-faceted property, just seven minutes from Middleburg, is both an elegant sporting estate and a comfortable country home. Whoever its future buyer may be, the land — with its unobstructed mountain views, wooded acreage and rolling hills — is sure to offer a sense of peace, embodying the bond between man and nature. And, who knows, Hound Hall’s future owner may just watch the next fox hunt canter through, witness to a token of sporting history that remains alive and well today.

Josef Brandenburg • August 17, 2015

For many, an invitation to a summer BBQ can feel like a choice between having fun and staying fit. Luckily, fun and fit are not mutually exclusive. Here are five ways to keep your hard-earned results without slimming down your social calendar.

1. Skip the sugar water. Juice, soda and sweet tea have more sugar than many desserts. Not only are the calories from sugar especially hard on your metabolism, but the fact that they’re liquid means they won’t make you feel full. Stick to unsweetened tea, soda water with lime or plain water.

2. Beware of the sides. At most BBQs, the side dishes will make or break your meal from a nutrition standpoint. Steer clear of the obvious: chips, mac and cheese, sweet “salads.” Instead, load your first plate with veggies and protein. You’ll soon feel full and you’ll keep feeling great.

3. Don’t show up empty-handed. A simple way to make sure the right side-dish options are on hand, while being a great guest, is to bring them with you. Find out what the host will be serving and see how you can honor your nutrition plan, your taste buds and the menu.

4. Pick your battles. One of the keys to having your cake and eating it too is deciding in advance when you’ll treat yourself and when you won’t. It’s much easier to say “no” to today’s mediocre casserole when you know you’ll be saying “yes” to next week’s amazing bread pudding. And by not waiting to decide, you’ll save your brain some decision fatigue.

5. Empty the tank. A session of strength or interval training (or one of each) before you decide to treat yourself will help your body metabolize the extra carbs. This is because “emptying the tank” of your muscles (glycogen stores) improves the function of hormones such as insulin. These hormones tell your body if it should send your food to your fat cells or somewhere else. You want the later.

A best-selling author and fitness expert, Josef Brandenburg owns True 180 Fitness in Georgetown. Information about his 14-Day Personal Training Experience may be found at true180.fitness.

Sallie Lewis •

Growing up, I never had a solid skincare routine. Simplicity has always been my mantra and I can count on one hand the number of products I use on my face. Starting around the age of 25, however, I noticed a faint web of fine lines and wrinkles setting in around my eyes and across my forehead. Worse still are the creases on my neck. Time has been turning while quietly altering the roadmap of my face. Now, I often wonder what I can be doing that will help my skin stay youthful longer. Enter: META therapy. I have to confess when I first heard about it I cringed. Needles? No thanks. However, after a little research, I became intrigued.

Medical and Esthetical Tissue Activating therapy is the latest technology in anti-aging and skin rejuvenation, stimulating the skin from the inside out to naturally develop collagen while producing elastin. Here’s how it works. Prior to the treatment, the face and neck is cleaned and a concentrated serum called a subjectable is applied, much like a cream would be. Then, a licensed aesthetician uses a small, digitized hand piece outfitted with eighteen tiny polycarbonate plastic needles to make micro-perforations through the skin’s basal cell layer at high speed. Because the head is flexible, it expertly follows unique contours, making precise perforations at a max of .5 mm in depth.

In the process, two things are happening. First, the perforations activate cell activity in the upper dermis, a hard to access area beneath the skin. This is the skin kicking into its natural defense system, and it goes to work producing collagen and elastin to repair itself from the perforations — it’s a 100 percent natural method of skin repair. Second, the applied subjectable and the active ingredients within it go to work, seeping through the perforations to further regenerate the cells beneath the skin’s surface.

“The subjectables reach the living skin cells directly, enabling the active ingredients to stimulate cell regeneration,” says Linda Hardiman, a META therapy specialist at the Georgetown Salon & Spa. Hardiman has a master aesthetician license and is the only aesthetician in D.C. currently performing META therapy. She was born and raised in England, which is where META therapy got its start. In 1994 she moved to Washington and worked at the Watergate Salon, before coming to Georgetown Salon & Spa.
“I was looking for a treatment that I could add to the spa, saw an article about this in a trade magazine and went from there,” she said, adding, “I was drawn to it because it scientifically made sense and many doctors were already doing it.”

There are many roads that people walk to reclaim the fresh, taut appearance of youth, ranging from invasive treatments like needle rollers to non-invasive treatments like chemical peels, and even medical treatments like face lifts. META therapy’s innovative approach to anti-aging makes it beneficial to a wide age range. One of Hardiman’s oldest clients is in her 80s — though the ideal age starts around 30. “Collagen loss has already started by then so, although the visible results may be few at that age, it will have a preventative quality,” she said.

On the morning of my appointment, I was rattled by anxiety. My mind flashed to thoughts of distressed skin and adverse reactions — the worst-case scenario. However, from the moment I walked into the Georgetown Salon & Spa, Hardiman’s passion and expertise soothed my trepidation. She explained to me that the skin serves as our shield, keeping harmful substances from getting in. The problem is that many dead cells live on the skin’s surface, and finding a way to penetrate through to the living cells can be difficult. META therapy makes doing that safe, strategic, and efficient.

The precision hand device looked to me like a glorified electric toothbrush, and it created a vibrating, tingling sensation as it moved. The only area where it felt intense was the forehead, where the skin blankets thinly over the bone. Overall, however, the process was painless.

Following the treatment, a cool restoring mask was used on my face and neck. This contained active ingredients like Tetrapeptide and Hexapeptide, which work through the perforations, soothing the skin while eliminating any redness.
A few days later, nothing drastic had occurred, but I did notice a few subtle changes. There was a slight glow I’d never seen before. My skin felt hydrated and plump, reinvigorated. The results of META therapy include these and others, from faded lines to enhanced circulation and reclaimed elasticity.

Hardiman suggests starting with a course of four weekly treatments, then one every two weeks for a total series of eight. The first treatment is $175, four treatments are $700, and eight treatments are $1,225. The process takes roughly an hour, which includes the treatment, the cooling mask plus a massage. Best yet, no anesthesia is required so you can conveniently return to your daily routine as a fresh, younger you.

Georgetown Salon & Spa is located at 2715 M Street NW. 202-333-8099. georgetownsalonspa.com

Georgetowner •

Men’s fashion is making a comeback, and it shows at New York City Fashion Week: Men’s. After running a few years during a brief stint in the mid-nineties, men’s Fashion Week was back in New York City from July 13 to 16, autonomous and separate from the ubiquitous NYC Fashion Week (now tailored to women’s styles) with more than 30 designers showcasing pieces in venues across Manhattan. Here are some of the hottest looks, ranging from buff beach stud to androgynous chic, from this year’s shows. [gallery ids="102151,133025,133017,133009,133001,133044,132993,133038,132983,133030" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Before we travel to a new place, we stuff our luggage full. We pack the things we know and remember. We pack expectations, a kind of act of the imagination about how things might be, what we’ll see and feel. We pack our own memories.

We went to Cooperstown in upstate New York. We came initially because of opera—the Glimmerglass Festival and its artistic director Francesca Zambello, who also runs the Washington National Opera. We came also because of the church of baseball, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, where baseball’s inventor or grand developer Abner Doubleday lived. It is not the house that Babe Ruth built, but it is where he and hundreds of baseball’s finest are honored pretty much forever.

We discovered, too, that Cooperstown was founded by the father of James Fenimore Cooper, the town’s most famous author and America’s first novelist of any note, best known for “The Last of the Mohicans.”
Armed with this, we noted the presence of the Fenimore Art Museum, alongside the expansive and beautiful Leatherstocking Golf Course, which is part of the more than 100-year-old Otesaga Resort Hotel, and also runs across Lake Street, next to the modestly titled Farmers’ Museum. If you stay on that road and drive all the way around the lake, you will end up where you started: on Main Street in Cooperstown.

So, I came to Cooperstown already armed with some notions and memories. I—as well as my boon companion and partner—grew up in small towns, with similar populations and tropes, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, respectively. I came to Cooperstown as an erstwhile German immigrant who spent the 1950s following the Cleveland Indians in their annual baseball wars with the New York Yankees, part of a youthful love affair with baseball that has never much abated. I thought it cannot get much better than this: baseball, opera, small town and James Fenimore Cooper, whose works I had only experienced in their Classic Illustrated comic book versions or as movies.

We stayed on the outside of the town at a Best Western Plus, where in the morning you could see mist and fog on the hills outside. We made our way into town—you hit Main Street at the town’s only stoplight—and I soon found out that everything I thought I knew was incomplete.

Cooperstown is a real place, not just the Hall of Fame.

If you’re an outdoor person, there are plenty of parks and recreational offerings—boating, biking, hiking, fishing. There are plenty of restaurants, farmers’ markets, distilleries and regional breweries. The influence of Whole Foods is not much in evidence.

Drive into town for the first time, and you’ll see the sign Redneck Barbecue brashly displayed on a roof in big colors.

This co-mingling of informality works its way through the town and the places you’ll see, oh my—even to some degree at elegant, impressive Otesaga Resort Hotel, the flagship of accommodations for the area. Buffet and lunch breakfast are a welcome offerings for travelers as well as guests, where eating by the window seats or outside retains an elegant, peaceful feeling. It makes you want to read a book by Henry James.

This probably comes as no surprise, nor is the excellent quality of the art works in the Fenimore Museum, including special exhibition currently of the works of Maxwell Parrish, as well as an impressive array of Native American art, among others.

You will be surprised by the Farmers’ Museum across the way from Fenimore. It contains a facsimile working village and farm, covering bygone days in American life—from a church, to a barn, a newspaper office, sheds and a blacksmith, barnyard animals shyly watching tourists, women sewing, the kitchens, bedrooms, dining rooms and libraries of both gentry and small town folks. There’s a Brigadoon quality to this. Imagine what would happen if you dropped a mobile electronic device into this serene scene. It might have the effect of a cultural, social nuclear device.

Around the lake a ways, you’ll encounter Hyde Hall, where executive director Jonathan Maney holds forth on one of the oldest residences around —it was built by an Englishman named George Clarke on a 60,000-acre estate with the help of renowned architect Philip Hooker. Ever since 1964, Hyde Hall has been under some sort of renovation to return it to its original grandeur, which in full glory was considerable. As Clarke was British, and after having the original cottage built, he strove for a touch of English landed aristocracy in the grand manner for a grand manor. Today, Maney, who is a historian, a former professor and a great storyteller, tells us that it is used for weddings, concerts, galas, picnics, lectures and exhibitions. Inside the vast home, which started out as a cottage, there are its paintings, prints, copies (of the inventor-artist Samuel Morse’s painting, “Gallery of the Louvre”), sculptures and rooms upon rooms, dark stairways, expansive window views of a courtyard, children’s rooms as well as a wine cellar fully stocked.

On Main Street, Cooperstown, however, it is baseball everywhere, memorabilia shops (like Mickey’s Place) everywhere. A statue of a youthful Shoeless Joe Jackson stands near Doubleday Field. After all that, at the end of Main Street sits the Baseball Hall of Fame itself, which this weekend (July 24 to 27) will induct four new members—Craig Biggio, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz—during four days of nothing but baseball, including the presence and a parade of hundreds of the game’s living legends and hall members.

From the outside, the hall doesn’t look like much. It seems small, until you walk inside and enter what is not so much a hall of fame but a hall of dreams. The three floors are filled with exhibits on teams, on the history of the games, on individuals like Hank Aaron, the Babe and Joe DiMaggio, on ball parks, the Negro Leagues, and most holy of holies, the true hall that contains plaques of every player inducted into the hall. Prominently located are sculptures of Ted Williams and Babe Ruth, where a small player is trying to imitate Ruth’s batting stance.

It’s an impressive place, a kind of church that’s full of reverence, references and irreverence. It’s a place where the playing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” can suddenly bring you close to tears. It’s what happens here that matters, the buzz in every hall, young boys and some girls in baseball uniforms all over the place, the chit chat of the game whizzing through the wandering crowds like a giant murmur. On another floor, a dozen people are gathered around a screening of the Abbott and Costello comedy routine “Who’s on First,” laughing hard. Among the plaques, I find Ernie “Play Two,” the Chicago Cub and greatest player never to play in a World Series. His face shows a smile, and so does a woman looking at him. She’s an unrequited Cubs fan. We look at a plaque for Cubs manager Leo “The Lip” Durocher. She grimaces. “That S.O.B. cost us the pennant,” she says with some rancor.

After a trip to a new place, you return with more than you brought—more stuff, more maps, more books and souvenirs. More memories.

I unpacked memories of printer’s ink, an embarrassed turkey avoiding children at the farm, the two warm women who ran the carousel, the taste of cherry in a draught beer, the smoke on the hills, Papageno meeting Papagana in “The Magic Flute,” Solomon Howard’s eloquent basso voice in the two operas and bass baritone Eric Owens who saw ghosts, jumped on a table and owned Macbeth, a drive along Lake Street at midnight with a mother deer in the headlights, the sight and names of all the baseball players bringing back summer nights in Ohio, Maney describing in detail the process for lighting a Hyde chandelier and talking about his grandmother who had survived the fatal voyage of the R.M.S. Titanic, the rustle of white curtains at the resort moved by a breeze from Lake Otsego.
[gallery ids="102150,133041,133033,133048,133053" nav="thumbs"]

Stacy Notaras Murphy •

Dear Stacy,

Last week my boyfriend (7 months, we are both in our 40s) said he thought it best if we didn’t date anymore. It was his idea, but I was inching toward the same conclusion myself (for different reasons). We mutually agreed to stay friends. Here’s the thing that’s confusing to me: not much has changed since we had that discussion.

He still sends me email and text messages a few times a day. He still calls me every night to discuss things that are happening in our lives. He still wants me to attend a dinner party with his friends next week. I have a business dinner next month at a restaurant that’s a favorite of his and, although I had not invited him (no one is bringing significant others), he volunteered that he’d like to go with me.

I am happy to remain friends with him. But this frequency of communication is something that, for me, is indicative of a romantic relationship. I don’t communicate this much with anyone else in my life, not my closest friends, not my family. I don’t dislike communicating with him and I do want to remain friends, but I feel like this is making it difficult for me to move on. Any suggestions on how I can address this with him without damaging the friendship?

– Confused

Dear Confused:

While anyone reading this would be impressed by your maturity in this situation — I really am! — I think there seems to be a myth of how “mature” people always stay friends with Exes. We fast-track from Ex to Pal, and everyone’s supposed to be okay with it. But the truth is that a breakup is a break. It has to be, otherwise, as you said, we can’t heal and move on. Instead, we linger and we suppose and we what-if ourselves to the point of distraction.

Your Pal’s behavior tells us that you fulfill much of what he needs in his life, but, for whatever reason, he is unable to commit fully. You said you were heading toward ending the relationship yourself. I think you might need to have that breakup convo regardless of what happened last week. Set your own terms, so you don’t wind up feeling used.

You worry about “damaging the friendship,” but the friendship is brand new (and, I am even going to say, not entirely based in reality). It’s unrealistic that you would want to hear about his day every night without enjoying the real intimacy that kind of connection can create. Instead, you get to be the author of what a safe friendship is. But please, give yourself some time away from the dating and the friending; that’s where the perspective and healing happens. I understand there may not be massive wounds around this breakup, but even abrasions need air and time to heal. Then you will feel more confident when you find New Boyfriend and you want to tell Pal all about him.

Stacy Notaras Murphy (www.stacymurphyLPC.com) is a licensed professional counselor and certified Imago Relationship therapist practicing in Georgetown. This column is meant for entertainment only and should not be considered a substitute for professional counseling. Send your confidential question to stacymurphyLPC@gmail.com.

Josef Brandenburg •

This summer, D.C.-area residents have the opportunity to try something new and help raise $10,000 for the Africa Yoga Project. Down Dog Yoga is hosting a guest instructor from Nairobi, Walter Mugwe, and will donate the proceeds from some of its classes and workshops to the organization.

AYP “educates, empowers, elevates and employs youth from Africa using the transformational practice of yoga.” In other words, AYP finds young people in Africa who have a passion for yoga and provides training and jobs for them as yoga instructors.
Mugwe, who has been invited to teach classes at the Yoga Journal Conference, first met AYP co-founder Paige Ellison when he was 17 years old. He says, “Yoga changed my life, and opened up doors that I would never have imagined possible when I was a youth in the slums.” Today he supports himself and his family as an AYP yoga instructor.

Down Dog Yoga is donating the proceeds from its $5 Flow classes at the Clarendon location and all the proceeds from its Neo-Afro Yoga Beat Jam, Down Dog’s most popular and successful workshop. Recently held in Georgetown, the $40 Neo-Afro workshop will be at the Bethesda location on Aug. 8 from 8 to 10 p.m. For details and to register, visit downdogyoga.com.