bjarvis | Square dance redemption

Last night's DC Lambda Squares club night had a few slight complications but ultimately went exceedingly well.

For starters, we couldn't park in the church lot: the church is having outdoor movie nights every other Thursday for the next month. While the congregation & friends were watching "Field of Dreams," I was parking 4 blocks away at 16th & R Streets NW. This wouldn't normally be a problem but I was bringing the speakers, speaker stand, turntable/amp, power distributor, my laptop & mic bags and my backpack of various papers. And the heat index was almost 100. Ah, well...

Our 2009 convention planning meeting went well, I think. My minutes from the last meeting and agenda for this one were accepted without issues and we covered all of the material in 90 minutes. I'll type this set of minutes later today. I also managed to pass along the promotional postcards for our upcoming community dance to the club prez who will relay them to the club secretary so I can check that item off my 'to do' list.

Immediately after the meeting (and about 15 minutes into dancing), Kent snuck out to get dinner. Dayle came over during a break between tips and asked innocently "did I mention you're up next? The last tip was Mainstream so make this one Plus."

My patter calling was acceptable. Better than most of my past efforts but nothing particular to write home about. My singer was none-lame, which for my level at the moment, is great! As mentioned previously, I was drilling "Here I Am In Dallas" continuously for the past several days during every spare minute with the intention of being relaxed enough to remember the lyrics, maintain flow & timing, sustaing dancer interest and --above all else-- not sing like a tortured moose. I did indeed remember the lyrics and largely kept the timing; the only snag came when one of our newer Plus dancers blanked out on "fan the top" so we lost a few beats while the rest of her wave helped sorted out their positions, but I just reduced the middle break to resync the dancing with the music. Above all else, I didn't sound like crap. Victory!

While it seems that the drilling helped, a sample space of N=1 isn't especially meaningful. Over the next few days, I'm going to beat "Don't Believe My Heart" (Rhythm Records 178) into the dirt to see if I can repeat this next Tuesday in Baltimore.

This morning, as a personal reward, I slept in an extra hour. Work is very light today, it's payday, it's a jeans day at the office, I was heavily cruised by a hot bear with a huge moustache in a jeep with MD plates "K Coach" on the drive to the office, and at lunch, I'm going to bury my face in a large chocolate sundae, just because.

Today is a very good day.