…Why do you keep picking the fields with overhanging sledgehammers to hop happily through?
… It hurts when they fall and you forgot to wear your special armour again.
Next time, let’s try just a little harder to find the field that only has sunshine above it and no unpredictable sledgehammers…
So yeah, I’ve been away for a very long time. I have managed to catch a cold in the second week of school after, I must point out, I already had a really bad cold and cough in August which I for one feel is very unfair. At the very least though it means I now have a moment to sit down and return to the blogging world. This could be a good thing..maybe… 
At the moment I’m not really sure what I’m going to write about, I just know I have desire to blog today.
Fall is upon us again, it always surprises me how quickly the summer slips through my fingers. I do so enjoy it and always lament it’s depature as the start of school comes racing toward at a seemingly impossible speed. Gradually I get back into routines and lament a little less as I look forward to other things, but I always miss those warm summer days with little to worry about until they come ’round again.
This summer defnitely had its fun moments. I had a few firsts, like Big Time Out. 
The best part of that was watching Delhi to Dublin perform. They have an amazing ability to draw in the whole audience in one giant swell of energy that explodes in a sea of rushing hands, leaping bodies, and a thunderous beat that holds on tight and won’t let go. I loved it. That complete release of energy, just moving with the beat and riding that swell. Amazing. Indigo Eve and I even mangaged to snap a few good photos of the band thanks to the lovely zoom on my camera. If I can get them to load you’ll see them on here.
Now, on the less amazing side of Big Time Out, I counted 7 sightings of a certain older man, in what appeared to be a self-appointed title, calling himself something like ‘The Condom Guy’ and wearing a giant penis on his head. A giant penis?! (you ask incredulously), yes, a giant penis. Two of those sightings involved me being directly asked if I would like a condom. I politely declined, and then politely declined again a short while later when we had the (mis) fortune to run into him a second time. He seemed to really want us to have some condoms and almost looked disapointed when we said no thank you. I guess he was really invested in his personal quest to provide the world of Big Time Out with condoms.
All in all BTO was an experience. The food was pretty good except we went there hoping for mini-donuts and there were no mini-donuts to be had. A sad revelation that was only really assuaged by the fact that we later were able to partake in mini-donuts at the fall fair. The bands were good, with Delhi to Dublin being the best of course. For the most part we waited all evening to see Sam Roberts. Unfortunately, in my zest to see the pre-show belly dancers with candlebras on their heads and other exciting acts, like some circus girls on big hanging ribbons, I forgot to factor in the ‘Sam Roberts stage-rush-frenzy of people’. I also did not fully grasp that, unlike the crowd at Musicfest which seemed to have at least a tiny inkling of personal space in a large throng of people, this crowd had no problem standing 3cm from each other in the hopes they’d get that much closer to Sam Roberts. In all this I also had an experience, one I hope never happens again, which falls under the category of ‘mass molestation’. After enjoying the belly dancers and circus people I noticed that in my revelry of such amazing skill I had failed to pay attention to the people gathering en masse around me and quickly closing in all possible exit points. I thought, ‘well, I’ve been here before in other crowds, I’ll just have to snake my way out later’. Big mistake. I should have leaped through that last rabbit hole in the crowd and not stopped til I got home. 
I didn’t though because I figured I’d waited that long to see Sam Roberts, I might as well stick around for a bit.
So, Sam Roberts comes on, everyone freaks out, by this time I’ve been shoved a number of times and quite possibly had my boob touched another time (not cool I might add ) but I tried to enjoy myself and dance alolng with D and R the best I could. During this I was also trying to keep track of R and D because there were a large number of very tall boys shoving their way through us with little regard for the aftermath they left in their wake. Then, the oddest experience I’ve ever had in a crowd of people occurred. I was doing my best to dance in my whole 3cm by 3cm radius of space when I felt someone bump into me from behind. Not favourible but I figured, hey it happens in a mass of oblivious people. Well, I tried to move away as best I could without much luck because remember, I was in a 3cm by 3cm radius of space and had pretty much run out of options of escape. I was bumped again and started to really wonder what was going on with this person because it was square on my bum that I was being bumped into. After the second time, I turned around and saw a girl dancing wildly with her boyfriend facing away from me and paying no attention at all, so I turned back to face the stage and watch the small parts of Sam Roberts and the band that I could see amid the sea of tall people. At this point I was bumped again! Only this time, this girl is rubbing, and I mean seriously rubbing, and grinding up against my butt with hers! It was very disturbing but I laughed in shock because I could not believe that she a) didn’t care or b) really had no clue she was grinding her ass against a perfect stranger who also happened to be female. What’s even more ridiculous is that I tried in vain to move closer to D and R to get away from the disturbing grinding and she moved with me! I was completely flabergasted. I yelled to D and R about it and we laughed, even though given the volume of the music it was difficult to get my message across. I also turned around to look at her again after the ass-following incident and she was still completely oblivious, dancing away with her boyfriend. I guess finally she must have clued in because mercifully the grinding stopped a few seconds later.
Poor D also suffered at the hands of that crazy crowd. At one point another girl and her boyfriend shoved their way through to stand beside us and I guess the girl decided that the view would be better from atop her boyfriend’s shoulders so up she went. Unfortunately she did not factor in the direction her GIANT purse would go flying in as she leaped up onto her boyfriend and poor D ended up getting smacked in the head. D very nicely informed her of the folly of her actions and the girl seemed genuinely apologetic and later disappeared into the crowd with the aforementioned boyfriend.
Eventually we all decided we’d had enough of that crazy group of people with no awareness of a respectable distance to stand apart from someone in a crowd, and decided to form a human chain to get the heck out of there. Of course that was another adventure in itself because literally everyone felt the need to be a sardine and there was almost no path of escape. We had to revert to the methods of the crowd and shove our way out. I felt bad because I think at one point I nearly fell on someone and quite possibly stepped on a foot. I felt bad but we were reduced to blindly propelling ourselves out of the crowd with only one goal in mind, freedom and fresh air. Ahhh, it’s a beautiful thing. I won’t go into a lot of detail about the air quality of that crowd situation because I would like to blot it from my memory forever, but I’m sure you can imagine the kind of odiferious scent that pervaded that area, coupled with a few other unpleasantries.
All in all despite the horrific experience in the crowd I didn’t have a bad time, it was definitely an experience and I thank R for letting me tag along. Unfortunately the next day I caught the terrible cough and cold that lasted nearly two weeks and resulted in me missing one whole week of my summer vacation causing me to miss a lovely evening of summer dancing. Oh well, I guess it made me slow down for awhile so that can’t be all bad.
Now I guess it’s on to fall and the wonders it brings with a new school year. We’re off to a roaring start already with I’m sure a few blog worthy tales to come.
Well, it appears with this entry I ended up on a tangent about Big Time Out, you never know what will happen when you randomly start a blog entry with no goal in mind.
Adios until next time folks…..
My apologies once again for being away for so long. I don’t know how it happens but it always does, I blink and lose a month or two. That seems to be the way things work though, especially when you are teaching. April ended well with the birth of my beautiful nephew. He fills my days with wonder and delight every time I see him. What a wonderful blessing a baby is. My sister is an amazing mother too, it’s lovely to watch.
May and June went well. Lots of dancing to be had. I also survived all the year-end stuff I had to do with school and only stayed at the school until 6pm a couple of times.
July has started off well with a lovely bellydance performance. I remembered all the steps and even to smile, and one of the best parts was that I didn’t have a wardrobe crisis in the middle of the song. That part I liked a lot. I wish we’d had even just one more song to perform though because it was so fun to be out there on the stage in my costume. Our group looked spectacular in our costumes and we all danced very well.
Now, onto other bemusements. I was struck recently with what it meant to be a dancer, this occurring to me after a particularily inpromptu, but enjoyable dance experience.
After our last practice the night before the bellydance performance I was out with one of my fellow bellydancers at an outdoor concert. As we were sitting on the hillside I started to notice a large number of my other fellow ballroom dancer-types gathering together and decided to go say hello. This led to dancing a rumba on the grass in my hiking shoes. I went on to dance a samba and a couple of swing hustles as well. When I set out for coffee that evening with my friend I had no idea there would be any more dancing to be had and certainly never thought I’d be doing a samba on the grass in hiking shoes! The whole thing reminded me of what it means to have the heart of a dancer and prompted me to think of this description:
We are dancers:
We keep our dance shoes nearby at all times.
We dance wherever, however, and whenever the opportunity presents itself and it does not matter one bit if the only dance floor is made of grass and you have questionable footwear, or you have to move all the furtniture in your apartment so you can dance in the kitchen in your socks.
We hardly even blink about spending a large amount of money on a pair of shoes that essentially can only be worn inside. Dance shoes with suede bottoms are really the only way to go though. (It makes perfect sense when you think about it.)
On that note, one can never have too many dance shoes because they do wear out and more importantly, a girl needs options.
Most of us could probably lose a great deal of time pouring over a dance shoe catalogue. This time loss grows exponentially when one is actually in the dance store where these lovely shoes are sold.
We live for the thrill of the performance and the donning of beautiful costume.
We arrive home after a night of dancing, with blistered, throbbing feet, and sore backs and legs, and we are blissfully happy because all this pain means we spent the whole night dancing. This is a very good thing.
Even more enjoyable is when this occurs on multiple nights.
We make a music mix for summer dancing 8 months early. (Oh, wait, maybe that’s just me.)
After falling off a rope swing, cutting and spraining a finger, and receiving what will probably be a large bruise, one of the first things said is: “oh good, it’s my left hand so I can still dance because that is the hand that rests on the man’s shoulder”. (Ok, again, this might just be me).
We show up to salsa dance with the sprained finger and bruises because nothing is going to stand in the way of a good dance opportunity. (Are we seeing a pattern here?)
And the list could go on……..
I’m sure some of these things have been said before, (definitely by Indigo Eve and I), but it makes my heart glad to belong to such a neat little community of dancers who will probably read this and understand completely what I mean. I’ve decided I like it in the dance world and I’m going to stay for a while. It’s fun here and the people are friendly.
(Oh, and there’s always room for more so come join us everyone! 
)
So I’ve been having a lot of fun with my new camera….
The lovley Indigo Eve spotted this great shot.
1. Look at car one day and realize there is a significant amount of dirt collected on its lower half and you cannot remember the last time it had a bath.
2. Remember that there is $10 in your wallet and think, “the carwash is on my way to town, I’ll stop there and give my car a nice easy scrub”. After 2 minutes into the journey to town come to the conclusion that $10 is a lot for a carwash and $10 also = one night of dancing and dancing is so much more important than a carwash so decide to use your own good two arms to wash car tomorrow.
3. Wake up and confirm that today is the day for carwashing, it is sunny and you remembered to borrow all things needed to wash car from mom’s house.
4. Spend time with itunes adjusting a good ‘carwashing’ mix to listen to while washing said car.
5. Gather bucket, gloves (because you don’t want soaking wet hands when it’s cold outside), and fuzzy washing mitt.
6. Head into bathroom to fill bucket with nice warm water and soap.
7. Get a little bit distracted because you’re listening to ‘Right Round’ by Flo’ Rider and you can’t help but sing a few bars and dance in the mirror.
8. Remember that you are filling a bucket and there are more important tasks at hand than singing and dancing.
9. Head out to car to move it to a more ‘washing-friendly’ location.
10. Grab questionable looking hose attached to side of apartment building and get ready to put nozzle on.
11. Attach nozzle and give it a ‘test run’ only to get soaked because the water shot out the bottom of the nozzle in all directions.
12. Adjust tightness of nozzle and give it a second ‘test run’ only to find that the tightness, or lack there of, was not the cause of water spewing everwhere and soaking you, in actuality the cause is the fact that the nozzle itself is cracked in mutilple locations and completely useless.
13. Determined to wash car anyway, decide that you will just carry on without the silly novel and use the tried and tested ‘finger in the hose opening’ tactic to adjust the water pressure.
14. Start to hose down car after dousing self a couple of times due to the inaccuracy of the ‘finger in the hose opening’ tactic and realize the location you chose for your car is actually still too close to the apartment building.
15. Turn off hose, get back in car and move it a couple of more times until you find the best spot.
16. Fetch hose and lay it on grass so that water doesn’t go everywhere.
17 Walk back up to faucet, turn on hose.
18. Give car a nice rinse, yourself included due to the afore-mentioned inaccuracy of the ‘finger in the hose hole’ method.
19. Wonder why you didn’t notice how windy it was beforehand as this is adding to mutiple face-sprayings.
20. Remind self not to sing along with ipod while scrubbing car because there are men working next door.
21 Determine that whistling is acceptable but only in small amounts.
22. Wonder what black stuff is around wheel hub that is hard to scrub off.
23. Let your mind wander for a few seconds whenever “Hey Baby” from the ‘Dirty Dancing’ soundtrack comes on your playlist because you remember the exact scene from the movie that goes with that song.
24. Mentally thank Indigo Eve for sending you that lovely song.
25. Lament the fact that you must walk back and forth to the faucet each time you rinse and scrub parts of car as you get up for the 3rd time to do so.
26. Slip on weird slimy, icy bit on driveway on nearly every return trip from the faucet.
27. Accidentally spray self in face. Again.
28. Do a walk around of car after much scrubbing and rinsing.
29. Find spots that were missed (?!!@##&) and scrub again.
30. When the soap is nearly all gone and the car is rinsed stand back to appraise hard work and wonder why car isn’t shinier.
31. Appreciate time spent in the lovely sun but wonder to self if next time you should just spend the darn $10 and drive through the nice easy carwash.
Ok, so whoops, I’ve been gone a very long time. :S I didn’t mean to stay away so long, I just havn’t had much of interest to say and it seems February just flew by! I thought that I better come and say something before everyone thinks I’ve gone for good.
So March is here already and with it comes the time change again. I enjoy spring but I have such a hard time losing an hour since my days are full and I enjoy my sleep even though sleep eludes me sometimes.
February was good, quick as it went. I did a lot of dancing which always makes for a favourable month. I even went to the family dance at my school which was quite enjoyable, being a disco theme an all (see previous post on disco-themed dances). I even managed to dance ‘real’ dancing because the student teacher at our school just happens to be a dancer. Fun as that was, the side-effect was that it got all the parents talking which I found rather amusing, though a little embarrassing.
I got a chance to play with my new camera too and I’ll post some of my shots at the end of this blog. I’ve so far resisted reading the manual but I know I have to because my camera is just too ‘smart’ for me and I have no idea how to use half of the features. I’ve been playing in the ‘auto’ function which really doesn’t require much skill on my part so I’m going to have to read the manual and get creative very soon.
Hmm, what else can I ponder on? Oh, I read Maggie’s blog tonight and agree on the lamenting over the Bachelor finale. I thankfully missed all but the last few minutes when he picked Molly after un-picking Melissa. I’ve been sort of following it in the sense that I catch the last few minutes when I stop in at my mom’s after bellydancing class. After watching that poor excuse for television last night I was left thinking I’d be hard-pressed to find anything more contrived than that and I really had the thought that they staged most of it. I mean, if you’re really going to un-engage from your girlfriend (ok, ignoring the fact that you met her on tv in the first place) wouldn’t you do her the favour of telling her before she sits down in front of millions of tv viewers, you know if you really loved an respected her? After that thought I then realized, well of course you would if you weren’t under contract to provide ‘good’ ratings for the tv station that put you on the air in the first place. I usually walk away from watching these things shaking my head at how there continues to be people that sign up for these types of shows. Every woman watching that show probably wanted to smack Molly, the runner up who was so excited this was actually happening to her even though she was still a bit ‘confused’ and Jason ‘the bachelor who seemed really sweet at first’. Odd, it’s all very odd. After reading this, it sounds more like a rant when really I was just pondering. Well, I’ll let you lovely readers be the judge.
On the topic of tv, Dancing with the Stars is returning and that makes me happy. I know, more reality tv but this is dancing, it can’t be bad.
Oh, and on the topic of dancing, since it’s my favourite and all, I’ll be heading to the stage, (well the floor at the front of a hall) this weekend. I get to perform a bellydance with my class and I’m excited and a little scared, but those two usually go hand in hand when I’m performing. Sewing has been involved and although things seem to go wrong for me at an alarmingly fast speed when I sew, I do enjoy it — despite how frustrated I get. I like costuming and it’s very exciting when everything is done. Indigo Eve, you are the master though and I am eternally grateful. I’m sure there will be a blog about the dance performance so keep checking.
Well, I guess that’s all for now. Nothing of real substance but I came back. We’ll see if a more intriguing blog topic strikes me this month.
Here is one of the pictures I promised. As you can see I like my zoom.
I am the proud owner of a brand new camera. I’ve coveted one for a long time, relying on my old film camera (I lovingly refer to it as my ol’ faithful ) and did not think I would acquire my lovely new digital one so soon but as luck would have it I found one. Although, by ‘found’, I mean I made three attempts to go to one store, then finally gave up when they were continually sold out and went to a second store and found it there. Victory is mine though and I am blissfully happy.
It’s beautiful in its brand new pristine-ness.
In leaping into this decade as far as cameras go, I realize I have a lot to learn still. It’s not like I’ve never used a digital, I’ve had others, I’ve just never had one this fancy. I took some preliminary ‘practice’ shots when I first put the memory card in the other night. They were not good. I will get better though. I suppose I’ll have to read the instruction manual even though I really would rather just grab the camera and start playing.
It’s a Canon SX 10 and I will post pictures of it, taken with my other camera of course. I’ll post a picture of my ol’ faithful too.
I’m going to focus on my pretty new camera to ignore the fact that work is stressing me out (even though I’ve solved some stresses for the most part) and this stress seems to be taking its toll on my health in small subtle ways. I’ll be fine though, especially after I go out and play with my camera all weekend.
I’m also going to ignore the fact that my difficulty in getting an appropriate amount of sleep at night seems to be taking its toll as well. I’ve diagnosed myself with having a body that wants me to keep dancer’s hours but a day job that demands otherwise. I love my day job, I just seem to be stuck on suddenly becoming suspiciously more alert as the 10pm hour rolls in. I can be exhausted and nearly sleeping on the couch at 5pm and then suddenly it’s 10, 11pm at night and I’m starting to wake up and be functional. I don’t fully understand why my body insists on doing this to me but it is not an easy pattern to break. Especially when I go out and dance late on weekends, because I just can’t help myself, and jump right back into the same old pattern I spent the work week trying to get out of. Hmmm, such a quandry, and one I think I may be stuck in awhile since I don’t plan on giving up dance. A gal’s gotta have some fun you know.
I’m sure there will be more to come on this topic but before I fall asleep and forget it, I remembered an amusing moment during my night of birthday fun.
I was dancing with this one kind man who frequently asks me to dance, a swing hustle I believe, and at one point he turned to me with a bemused expression and asked “__________ , do you like to dance?” He said it in that way people have when you know they already know the answer to the question but ask it anyway, and it’s not being done in an unkind way. I suppose it could have been the enormous, Cheshire cat grin that never left my face the whole time we were dancing and the pure joy I exude while on the dance floor that prompted him to ask the question. I, of course, called out “yes!” over the music in answer to his question and he smiled back at me and chuckled to himself.
I couldn’t find a songwriter to give credit to and there are a number of different singers of this song, Cab Calloway being one of them, but I love it so here it is. Understandably I’m sure, it brings me pure joy every time I hear it.
Enjoy. :)
Happy feet!
I’ve got those happy feet!
Give them a lowdown beat
And they begin dancing!
I’ve got those
Ten little tapping toes,
And when I hear a tune
I can’t control my dancing heels,
To save my soul!
Weary blues
Can’t get into my shoes,
Because my shoes refuse
To ever grow weary!
I keep cheerful on an earful
Of music sweet;
‘Cause I got those hap-hap-happy feet!
A concept that seems to escape me at times. For some reason, one which I’m still trying to grasp, there are ‘mistakes’ we’ll call them, that I make over and over. I should learn the first time right? I should realize that the first time I did things ass-backward, had a panic attack about them, then had to go to great measures to fix them (meaning I did what I should have done in the first place after the fact), should have been the last.
Yet, I continue to find myself in these frustratingly ridiculous situations. Take last night for instance, once again, I found myself lying awake, berating and worrying myself into a froth over how to right a sticky problem I’d fumbled my way into. The problem is solved for the most part today but that involved my previously referred to self-beratment and worry that caused more sleep-deprivation I didn’t need, all of which never needed to happen!
My particular problem last night involved a minor business transaction where I was purchasing some teaching materials (see, not even something that would cause a normal person stress!) that has been taking place over a few months. The last pieces of the transaction have gone smoothly up until last night but part of my problem is that I’m too nice, and when someone is being nice to me in a business transaction I have a hard time being direct.
(This may be getting confusing for you readers but it’s rather cathartic for me at the moment so bear with me while I continue to ramble on. )
So, back to lack of directness. This annoying habit of mine often ends up with me committing myself to things I realize later I cannot do or manage. Like last night, I came home after dealing with the rest of the agreement to purchase these materials, carting some of the materials in the trunk of my car and agreeing to come back later for the others. I’m pleased to have these materials but upon arrival at home I was suddenly struck with an ovewhelming sense of dread. I knew I could not manage the agreement I had come to with the person from whom I was purchasing the materials. It was one of those situations where I had agreed to take some of the materials a month ago but then when I saw what I had agreed to last night, I realized it wasn’t possible to take all of it. Now, problem is I really do want all of it and the person who is selling me the materials is so very nice I was stuck on what to say, so of course at the time I just agreed to what she was saying. This became problematic when I was trying to go to sleep later and a panic attack set in while I struggled to find an escape clause. It was also frustrating because it was on a night where I was already quite tired and would have fallen asleep nice and early for once if I hadn’t been worrying about problems I should never have gotten myself into in the first place.
So, after about an hour of fretting and temporary self-loathing I came to a workable solution and things are fine now but, it brings me back to my original point. Why in the heck can’t I just learn from my mistakes? I’m always doing this (here’s where the temporary self-loathing comes in) and it annoys me to no end. Of course then, in addition to the annoyance that results from not learning from my mistakes, I’m then annoyed that I’m annoyed at myself because really, how productive is that? Then I get caught up in that annoying cycle of annoying, annoyance for awhile and eventually move on. (Ok, sorry, I just really wanted to see how many times I could get away with using the word annoying).
Sometimes I lay awake for hours until at some point in the wee hours of the morning I fall asleep. Lately I’ve gotten better with myself and like last night, I was only fretting for a couple of hours until I told myself that there is really, and I mean really, nothing that I can do to solve my problem at 11 and 12 pm at night so I just need to shut up and go to sleep. Surprisingly, that worked believe it or not.
Lately, I’ve also had to tell myself that nothing makes sense at 3 and 4am so I need to stop trying to think at that hour of the day and just sleep.
Now, after all that blathering I really don’t know if this won’t happen again. I’d like to think it won’t, I really don’t need the late night worry-sessions and self-beratement. I can promise though, that I will make a conscious effort to be more direct the first time around so I don’t have to go back and do damage control after the fact. At the very least, I got an interesting, if very long-winded, blog out of it.
Happy reading!
