Birthday Bonanza with Buckteethed Rodents: And Other Tales of Thirty-Something Auntiedom (With Bonus Tangos)

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Purity of Essence! Auntie Adella's battles with Evil Associate Thompson ended in blood loss, while veggie heads did roll and seizures ran amok round Padden Lake. Wits were lost to Wiley Wittgenstein, whilst oneiric aerial animalia caroused in oriel cockpits of white and lilac. Papers plummeted like manna from heaven and work was conquered at great cost. And the Great Wolves bayed as family fun-trips loomed on the horizon. 

Coming Up: Do you hear the howls of the great wild wolf beyond the tittering rodentia? A birthday blast explodes in sauce, sass, and sugar! Odysseys commence beyond the setting suns and into the apocalyptic dregs of baby-Vegas. While the rat blow favor on kiddie quests or no-dice the demoniacal quest for ticket dominance? Kitties purr and pounce on tables under siege, as father flee and grammas are left to fend for themselves in a battle with terrorist teriyaki and anarchist scuba tots. Will Auntie Adella survive the fudgey schrapnel long enough to reach  thirty-two with eyes of blue? Will Grandpa David e'er be found or has he fled in fear well into the mountains? What horrors and treasure lie beyond the year of 31 for our Auntly heroine and her cycling consort??

Grab your cup o'tokens, break out the duct tape, and join the fray to discover the seedy secrets of tiny-tots-den-and-din-o-sin below...  


Me-Yowza Wacky Weekend Whoopety-Dooo-Dah Auntie Adella searches out her stilettos and pours the coffee

Associate Thompson goes on Furlough today folks as the grand wait for the official start of 8:30 a.m. breakfast with the family pends. Technically, is it currently 8:45 and last I heard, somebody was still in the shower and Daddy-Ryan returned from leaving (around 8:20) to grab some pre-breakfast donuts... 

Oh ho, but as this post turns live-blog, I've just been informed that "Everyone is in cats and headed to Diamond Jim's" Meeeeow indeed. I believe that's s swypo, but one can never be sure with this family. Given that this is a very crowded diner and we number in the nearly tens when all are accounted for, I may not be rushing to meet them. I'm anticipating a thirty minute wait as a high possibility, and the service there is typically sluggish and frenetic all at once!

8:47: I suggest that perhaps, given the crowd and all, Andrew and I will head down after the order for the table has been put in. 

9:00: I am informed by gramma Pam that there's a table with the Falconer dibs on it (just a pesky other family to wait out). Andrew and I get our shoes on and head out. 

9:02: We are now heading to the Cat. Being a pathfinder, I'm thinking our steed today is some kind of lion, which is appropriate since I am, after all, a leo. 

9:05: We head out. I tell Gramma Pam as much.

9:08: Gramma Pam suggests maybe we want to wait, since we still don't have a table. I say whoops too late and we continue along a slightly serpentine path, since Andrew got a little confused about where he was going and I was otherwise distracted.

9:14: Receive a text message that the patriarch of the clan who've been lingering at OUR TABLE is now paying, so should be ok.

9:17: Approach the restaurant. Notice a man crossing the street who looks incredibly like Daddy Ryan... about two blocks from the restaurant. Wonder if this implies mass exodus. Carry on towards the restaurant.

9:22: Make faces through window at related nephews before squeezing into the little waiting area. Contribute our part with appropriate glares at the cunctatious family still sprawled across OUR TABLE.

9:27: Daddy Ryan returns to add to our symphony of stares. 


... etc.  I think we did in fact managed to be seated around 9:35, and after several complex negotiations (John Kerry made a brief appearance near the final go-round of talks), orders were even made. Food was, somewhat, consumed. Coffee was, most definitely, refilled several times. 


After one final push through one of the crazier weeks at work, Englettlaw has rested its case(s).

 Thank goodness, because the paper flurries in my office were getting perilous. Tonight I've got tango with which to contend. As the special guest dj, I have a playlist less carefully cultivated than I'd hoped for my grand return to the spot. I'm thrilled about my cortina (music played in between sets of tangoable music to clear the floor) though. It's the Anvil of Crom from the original Conan movie. I was originally going to honor my upcoming birthday by cutting together several cortinas from different movies that came out on my birth year (1982), but got lazy. Plus, a single cortina makes it a lot easier to distinguish between "alternative tango music" and "get off the floor + find a new partner" music. 

Mostly, though, it's laziness. And an overwhelming sense of excitement every time I hear the Conan score wash over my computer speakers. 

I'm not entirely sure what's up otherwise. My dilatory approach to reaching the restaurant is complemented by an urgent desire to get to the grocery store before it's too crowded and to get the other little chores done that I'd like to accomplish out of the way. Also, hang out with the nephews and folks. I'm sure they have some excitement in store. 

Anyways, hope that your morning/afternoon/evening is going well. May hypoallergenic felines purr you through a pleasant weekend!

Traspie-ing the Light Fantastique And Other Musical Interludes on the Maundering Way to Thirty-2-Cool-2-B-4-gotten
I don't stay out late for nearly anything. Parties. Friends. Family. Fun. But give me a chance to (1) gambol in gravid musical ecstasy with fresh feet and only slightly fresh dream-dance partners, (2) inflict my music on a community of dancers regardless of oneiric status, and I will be up at buzzing like a bumble bee on Red Bull. 

Currently my cavorting days are limited by the creaky arch, which is still a touch tentative about flinging itself back into the very activities that strained it so. Being just enough aware of the little electric shocks in my feet keeps me out of ensorcellment. Having been absent from "the scene" so long has limited my cadre of recognizable "safe" partners. So, fortuitously perhaps, I've been making early nights of my tango dalliances this summer.

Until last night. When I played the house down. It's been far, far too long since I last dj-ed, an activity that always feels like a hassle until I reach the trance state of pure playlist passion. Usually about four hours before my duties start up. 

I have a pretty typical pattern: (1) Obsess about the upcoming obligation while listening out for random music I think I might want to fold into a playlist. (2) Do very little with these other than accumulate wishlist mp3s or a hodge-podge of orphan singles. (3) Get distracted by life until a few days before the event. (4) Give up entirely on having a newer better playlist, and determine to just recycle an old one. (5) Get a little engrossed changing out the cortinas (musical interludes) for the even funnier little injoke with myself that I've developed. (6) Some hours later, call it a "workable playlist" and flee without really finishing it. (7) At the aformentioned very close to the actual event, bend to the mad afflatus of Eutwerpy (Terpsi's kid sis and Muse of musical arrangements). (8) Become completely obsessed, change absolutely EVERY single list, buy at least three more songs, discover several pieces of music I never knew existed and certainly didn't know were perfectly concinnuous with entirely different songs I own from different genres and artists, and otherwise plummet down the Rabbit hole. (9) Make it to the event, get things booted up and have several last minute attempted switches to hit the timing just right or accomodate the mood of the place. Most of the last minute switches will be reversed even more last minute because it is a damned good playlist. (10) Revel in how friggin' awesome my music is and what a buzz it is to really share it with a room. 

I had some very successful sets last night. Not a whole lot of misses. The floor was abnormally packed. Given the slight unfamiliarity mixed with the carriage that telecasts "we do this aaaall the time and are not shy about being here so... so there!" I'd posit that we had some peregrinating Canadians on the floors last night. Perhaps a large showing of them. They were, as is their wont, pleasant and far more into experimental, fusion, and otherwise non-traditional, for the most part. Levels scattered all over the place to make for a farrago of our fandangos. I didn't feel horribly out of place forcing Mr. (W)right to dance a blues set with me (technically an alternative vals set, though I'm not sure many people picked up on that and I'm probably not repeating that set again, sadly... the musicality and skill ranges were more or less all over the place as is typical). 

The musical details in:

I used tv as inspiration in a few ways. A Virgin State of Mind is a song I first heard on a particularly steamy scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (good soundtrack for mining), as was Transylvanian Concubine (an alt vas attempt that didn't hit nearly as well as the Zero 7 If I Can't Have You or Natacha Atlas' This is a Man's World). One of my favorites for a long time has been Boom Boom Ba, which featured heavily in the Dead Like Me Soundtrack. I paired that with Superveille's Miles De Pasajeros and G-Spliff's Viejo Abasto. And my final set ended with a Bear McCreary cover of All Along the Watchtower (Battlestar Gallactica score) following the aforementioned Virgin State of Mind and Viviane's Meu Caracao Abandonado.

I did recycle one successful set from about a year ago: Resolve by Nathan Lanier and Alten Mara by Mythos (they are perfect complements) followed by Andalucia by Mythos. 

And no set is complete without cross genre covers. I filled the need with a classic Mandragora Tango set that ended with Oelle Como Espiritu Adolesente (Smells Like Teen Spirit)

And my arch held up with several prolonged breaks in between dance. Almost a relief not to have too many familiar leads with whom I'd otherwise be tempted to trip fantastical lights. I was twitchy enough sitting through some amazing sets that just begged for dancing. 

While I'm skipping our DINK run this morning as a precaution, I do think I'm regaining strength. I even wore heels yesterday! Phew! I hate those flats. I think they're just as much strain as the heels (stickier to boot, and the floor was HUMID last night). 

And with that bit of interlude I'm back to Auntie Adella with a little helping of DINK house keeping thrown in there. We met up for dinner in the oven-attic of Fairhaven Pizza last night. Precariously set up at the edge of the stairs, "we" (Ok, mostly Andrew) quite impressively polished off several fancy pizzas. I actually could not finish my large salad, which was roughly the size of a small garden. 

Bingeing on salad is a strange activity: one alternates between horrifically uncomfortably oversated and rapaciously hungry quite often within the time frame of a typical pizza meal. While the Falconers followed up their pre-breakfast donuts with a post-dinner ice cream run, Andrew and I returned to pretty ourselves up for tango. 

This morning Daddy-Ryan is fleeing the Coast back into the warm and welcoming arms of Wall Street. The boys have had their donuts (apparently this is his way of distracting them for long enough that mommy can have her shower... lord knows what we're going to do once he leaves and they are left donutless). I believe that my sister is also briefly fleeing "to drive Daddy to the airport." There may be stops along the way home, Auntie Adella speculates. And Gramma Pam is in full swing, possibly on swings at a playground. Auntie Adella is keeping  a watch on her chat as she armors up for her weekly shopping excursion. We'll call her "on-call" for now. 

She is also tired from not getting enough sleep the night before. Her grand plans include naptime later, once Uncle Andrew returns from whatever masochistic bike ride thing he's on about today. 

One must rest up before ascending to the next level of thirtysomething! It is not to be wandered into lightly.  

Mustard Cake and Play-Do Ice-Cream Thirtysomething Even Somethingier and other Tales of Almost Grown-Up Life

First off, holy crap, thank you for all the birthday wishes world! Really, the credit and the congrats should go to Ms. +Pamela Englett, who did a lot more work to make this particular day a reality. I hear that birthing a child, even one as stellar and spectacular as myself, is something of a challenge. She even had a prior birthing experience so as to know that cake-walks would be deferred until future years (and then would likely be more like "cake smearing across toddler faces and unwashable furniture." So thanks for the wishes and a Happy You-Did-Something-Crazy-32-Years-Ago-And-Are-Still-Paying-For-It-Momsy to the aforementioned Gramma Pam/Mom-boss.


Having had my frisky fandangos with tangos on Saturday evening, I was ready to rise from bed with bleary eyes and  a bit of a buzz for my oncoming rush of Auntiedom. First a yawn or two. On Adella Standard Time, the milonga ended at "This is TOTALLY SUNDAY MORNING in my land" time, which translates in typical Tango Standard Time to "just about time for the really  hopping milongas to start opening the doors for early birds and beginning lessons." Which in PST equals about 11:45 p.m. As I am functionally a blend of five and ninety-five years old, I tend to rise as roughly 5:00 a.m. most days regardless and in defiance of any particular bedtime. I was determined not to let my punctilious punctuality get the best of any stab at sleep; determined to the point that I swilled a half dose of nyquil before bedding down (at about 12:30) in the hopes that it would grog me up nice and good for a later morning. 

Semi-success. I slept until 6:45. Which is pretty impressive. I have a tightly wound internal clock. Any longer in bed and it might have sprung me right into a wall. So, go-go-gadget off-label abuse of common cold medication!

Sixish hours under my belt, I was surprisingly chipper and conscious for my date with Auntiedom. Mommy was driving Daddy Ryan back to the airport... in Seatac... which is a long ways away. Apparently, Mommy and Daddy didn't think that 4 - 4.5 hours of straight driving would make for a fun full-family outing. And Grandpa David had some other obligation involving his family. So at roughly 11:00 a.m. all the grown-ups ditched Gramma Pam with the rugrats. Except me. 

I tend to think it's important that in non-parental child-watching situations (and ideally child-watching situations across the board, but we'll start with non-parental for feasibility's sake) (1) children should never outnumber the adults by more than a 2:1 ratio, and (2) there should be a back-up grown up to drive the primary grown-up to the emergency room should kid-watching go awry. Given that philosophy, I spent most of the airport caper with Gramma Pam and the Munchkins (911 button on standby dial on my nearby phone, of course). Especially warranted when the two more articulate and sizable sprats declared in no uncertain terms that "THERE IS NO LAW!" early into the morning. Wee little anarchists can not be trusted. 

As I approached the door, I heard muted shrieking and a minor rumble of elephant tiptoes. I was belatedly ambushed by Sam and Braden, who had mistakenly staged their scuba sniper stations in the garage. They did at least give me a half-convincing "Boo" upon realizing their misdirection. I was promptly armed with a snorkle gun in a moment of fair play, upon which we entered into a teeny-tots John Woo stand-off 'twixt myself, Ian, Braden, and Sam... all of whom were on their own separate sides and sporting everything from baseball bat rocket launchers to bicycle pump grenade launchers.

 I was naturally tattered into a distant smoky memory several times within the first few minutes of my arrival (thank god, we did have that second adult, see??). I'm only amazed that the house held up! Also, minimal bloodshed and battering... yet. That came later. Some time between blocks and treadmill dashes. Yes, that's right. If you recall last years adventures with treadmilling, you might recall Auntie Adella had the prominent honor of being the "adult" who turned away for one second and allowed Ian to go flying off the treadmill into a distant wall with a face full of tread-track.

Luckily. Gramma Pam was a bit more strict in enforcement, and the elder ones were too distracted by building an armada of paper airplanes. Or should I say duct-tape airplanes, I'm pretty sure we went through a roll of tape getting the "balance" just right. I once had fingerprints, I'm pretty sure. Wonder if there's worker's comp for duct tape airplane technicians? 

Actually the most hazardous event of the day appeared to be Wii Olympics curling! At least somehow, Braden ended up with a fist in his eye (I don't follow curling very well, but can only assume that this is some kind of technical snafu that comes up during "sweeping"?) and Ian manufactured several little (possibly bleeding) spots on his legs. Duct tape bandages were forestalled only through vigilant interruption from Aunt Adella and a healthy heaping of bandages from Dr. Sam. 

A close second in the hazardous event category was certainly lunch. My god, it's a battle and those microwave burritos are vicious foes. Burns were seared, sauce was spilled on the ground and adorably matched outfits soiled with terrorist-teriyaki. It's just too close and too soon in my trauma therapy to speak of the fudgesicles.... oh the bleating of the fudgesicles shakes my dreams! I'm not sure much was actually consumed of any of that meal, but it was appropriately vanquished and scattered to the four corners of the living room with only a few tantrums. 


Sam's increasing inquiries after upcoming PARK plans and/or return of the mommy were deferred temporarily with tales of Dot the Existential Fire Dog? Why? Why should firepersons wear suspenders and why will they put out fires and WHY just WHY? What's the point of it all?? Ok, that was Sam's take on it anyways. As we only got through two pages of the book, I couldn't say how it all turned out. Maybe Dot ultimately grasps the universe's indifference to canine suffering, which allows her to plunge into the fires for a final respite to her meaningless existence. One can never say for certain, except that should such an ending have been found, you can bet that Sam would have simply smiled and - once more with feeling - asked "why?" 

A mixture of lunch and traffic delayed mommy even longer than anticipated, and once plans were set in motion for park, Auntie Adella abandoned ship. As I hadn't exactly planned to stay at the house very long, I'd left a load of laundry in the washer and had yet to accomplish any of my weekend chores/tasks. A wild warrior dash through Freddy's left me with the essential staples (no prep work for Adella today). Another dash through the house got trash out, bed made, dishes washed, groceries stowed, and second-load laundry stopped.

At some point, I alit in the study where Mr. (W)right had nestled after finishing his ride. After a semi-coherrent exchange of grunts, he mentioned that he'd pretty much played computer games all afternoon while I battled for my survival on several fronts! I'd be bitter about the discrepancies there, and whatever insanities endured on behalf of our home chores, but I brought it all on myself today. Would it have been nice to return to a fully cleaned home, fresh coffee, and a made bed from a husband who just knew I might be tired after a long day with the kids? Sure. Would it have been even more nice to be greeted at home by the solicitor of some long-lost relative who left her entire estate, including a five bazillion dollar mutual fund and a few flying horses? Mos' Def'! Did I ask or broadcast any expectations to my husband that he do anything other than stare vapidly at the computer after a pleasure ride while I ran around like a DINK without her head on? No. Did he, in fact, do the one thing I actually requested and move "my laundry" (mostly our sheets, granted, but started by me and with my other laundry). Yes.  If he had tried to help out with my chores was there the very real possibility that he might have "done it wrong" and actually incurred annoyance instead of uxorial gratitude? I cannot deny such things! A foretaste of motherhood should I endeavor upon that perilous path for sure. 

An increasingly complex series of colloquial grunts, and a rousing round of Frere Jacques that last much longer than anticipated when we first set out into counter-point, melted into a pleasant afternoon's walk and some something about bike gears and nutrition strategies and um... things. My brain was mostly hash at the time. But it had to do with bikes and/or biking. I'm pretty sure of that. 

We reconnoitered with a returned mommy, Screaming Sammy, screen-timed-out Ian and Braden, and a bedazed Gramma Pam at Boston's. Andrew noted the fortuitous overlap between "places that are family friends" and "places that serve a crapton of alcohol" and I admit I'm tickled by the convenience as well. Drunk people... children... pretty much the same thing.

From what I've gleaned Sam was maybe just hungry, but he did seem to be quite particular about (1) going home, immediately, (2) rejecting his lemonade until mommy ordered a chocolate milk under his ukase, (3) rejecting the chocolate milk in favor of the lemonade, (4) combining the lemonade and chocolate milk into a single confectionary beverage (some were put off by this, but the more I think of it, then more easily I see the overlap between chocolemonade and milk chocolate gourmet bars with citrus notes... he's just a connoisseur, (5) Adding Ian's Sierra Mist and water to his beverage vault, (6) ordering mac and cheese, (7) rejecting mac and cheese, (8) demanding any one else's food available, (8) fleeing the restaurant with his chocolate-lemonade-soda combo.

Whatever fills a screamin' mouth with a short smile is fine by me.

Today, it is MY BIRTHDAY!!! Naturally, we are going to Chuck-E-Cheese. Uncle Andrew's never been. I haven't been since I was a kid myself. Clearly this had to happen. I might even invite the nephews. Braden informs me that CEC only serves mustard so I am guessing we'll be having a dijon cake, perhaps with the Play Do "ice cream" that Sam and Gramma Pam ever so carefully mushed into the table yesterday... My gastric juices are rumbling with anticipation already!

I might also try a spot of work. Just for kicks. Wise and bright little owly kicks.

Happy my birthday everyone! And Monday. Happy Monday.

Kid Vegas: Where an Aunt Can Be Adazed Whizkid Wizdom in the Merriment Meggido

Auntie Adella has earned her age-up. And possibly a few new fine lines - not wrinkles, mind you, so much as beautiful-fairy-princess marks from a crown possibly made for a smaller headed lass judging by the enduring headache that she eventually correlated to prolonged assumption of her celebratory diadem. 

And boy have I been feted. Or boy has there been celebration nominally having to do with my survival for yet another year on this earth mostly centered around upping the stakes to see if I could survive THIS day! By god, there was cake (or something approximating "cake" made of indestructible nuclear sugar bombs). 

So, Chuck-E-Cheese... if you didn't grow up in the US in the 1980s and/or if you haven't been a parent in the US in the last forty years, this little din of mini-sin may have slipped past your radar. Which is a shame. It is a cultural institution. My earliest birthday memories actually involve a Chuck-E-Cheese (or, if you are hip and cool these days: CEC).

It really is Vegas for kids (and their desperate parents) - a mean, lean spare income sucking machine that will squeeze your hearts and your wallets like lemons in a press. Flashing lights, junkified comfort foods at marked up prices. Stage shows. A million ways to lose your lunch money. And lady luck whispering sussurous nothing about her favors all around.

 Like many arcades, there are games. These games are funded by tokens, which parents can purchase in bulk. Many of the games reward you with tickets. These tickets can be accumulated in amounts far exceeding the average paper stock of an office printer. They can then be "fed" into a mouse-themed ticket muncher. The munching machine, far as I can tell, makes lots of munching noises and then gives you a certificate noting how many tickets you have fed it. From there, you (the beleaguered parent) take your hard working ticket-earning children to a little prize desk and claim... one or two pieces of candy. Because your tickets aren't worth much, baby. Sure, they have the BIG ticket (har har) prizes on wild display, but to earn these, you'd probably have to spend roughly twelve hours and untold fortunes' worth of tokens.

This particular reward system serves to leave one feeling a slight ping of dopamine-appetizer, but mostly empty inside - just a little bit like the food itself - all in the hopes of leaving you desperate for a bigger hit. It seems like a pretty workable model. Shockingly, this particular Casa Del Epilepsy maybe was not cashing in, exactly. I mean, they were workin' it. They had their animatronic CEC rat announcing half-hourly entrances from their disgruntled employee in Rat Suit. They had every light in the house strobing more than your average rave could imagine... and yet... ABANDONED in a vacant mall with even the big letter stores already shut down for the day. With the exception of ourselves, a few morbidly obese elder people and their sobbing children, the clamor of the machines eerily belied the stillness of the human element. 

Bored employees doted on us, making up for a minor error in executing our order by foisting an additional semi-edible pizza on our underpopulated table (Grandpa David inexplicably manufactured some airtight alibi for his whereabouts and fled the county). Now, I'm casting unfair aspersions on the pizza. It was beautifully and exquisitely targeted at two specific groups: (1) college aged stoners (and actually much of the ambience seemed to have an underlying vibe, not just because of the almost transparent drug references in games like Primo JOINTZ snowboarding and the phallic towers of lights begging for an addled chuckle), (2) children just shy of insulin explosion. I couldn't shake the lingering sense of familiarity, as if somebody had dredged the dumpsters of late-night Domino's of yore. Nostalgic, almost. Perhaps with the theoretical beer on tap, this also appealed to parents grabbing on to memories of youthful freedoms. 

Anyways, yes, wow! What a girlishly garrulous gambol we took! Utterly fascinating. And Andrew's first time! The nephews seemed properly plugged in to the Seizurelandia prozac, tabbing up tickets with gusto and all but snubbing their enormous heapings of pizza and sugar paste for yet more flashing images. I even took a few spins on a few of the "simulated ride" games with Sam earlier on. Retreated to my table with a double salad plate (Grandpa David bailed only after we'd ordered too much pizza, drinks and salads). And we all sang a very merry Happy Birthday to myself before attacking the cake, and opening my beautiful handmade cards. Braden's had yellow crayon on it to signify mustard, while Ian's was florid with prose and wishes that I enjoyed the book Gramma Pam bought me since the gift from them hadn't arrived yet. 

As I like to drag these things out, the birthday celebrations are only beginning. I did just go all to pieces receiving a gift, a card, and a phone call from Daddy-Dubya and Grandpa Wright. Made my morning and evening, as they spaced it just accordingly. I even heard from a friend who I thought had stumbled off into North Korea (really, he had plans to do so and apparently fell through) last night. 

I've got stockpiles of presents yet to be opened and a few cards to sift through. The fella and I are celebrating on our Wednesday date night. He's been trying to hand off the amazon box in which my present must have come on me since last week. So I think he'll be relieved to transfer it into my possession before a chance loss. 

And of course, who doesn't celebrate their birth week by first going to the place most likely to turn young adults onto birth(day) control AND then following up with a nice fun visit to the reproductive endocrinologist! What can I say? Maybe the Doctor have cake (to shove down my throat while telling me to keep gaining weight and take some more crazy hormones or whatever). 

And all this, is just a foretaste. You could call our CEC CEC Caper a dress rehearsal (bathing suits optional) for THE TRIP to GREAT WOLF LODGE!!!! DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN. Fasten your seatbelts, baby. It's gonna be a weird and wild ride in a pretty small car. 

Happy Tuesday. I'm feeling the 32 and it feels fine! 

A pre-milonga dj-update: Irish Edition

Oh The joys of cloud computing (other than clouds being somewhat damp and cold over all). I dj off of my old early-law-school laptop. I stopped using it as a computer early in my lawschool career, so as to avoid horrible back problems resulting from lugging the damned thing around from classroom to classroom. Since then, I've used my netbook for most portable computing (portable computing of course includes any kind of use at home, because sometimes I just suddenly need to change between the bed and the living room and the kitchen at a moment's notice), and my work computer for everything else. I keep my music backed up religiously on my google and amazon clouds, and a portable harddrive that gets lost more often than any other item I own, except usb cables and chargers for my camera. The lion's share (ROOOOOOAR... yes, lions love eclectic mixes of tango/modern/dance/classical/blues/jazz/flamenco/um/wow/I/have/quite/the/assortment/on/my/computer) is on my stereo/laptop, but of course I frequently purchase music that I hear while using other computers. As an aside, I think my minimal exposure to computer programming has done horrible, horrible things to my use of the English language. I am the Shakespeare of word creation through dashes, slashes and other violent punctuation marks! Yes, I am a language-bully!

Oh right, music. So, I often hear a song I like on pandora, or get a wild hare to find a particular song during my lunch break... or maybe I hear something playing in a tv show, at the ballet, or on a commercial that I hunt down on my work computer or netbook. And I have a compulsion, so I add quite a lot of songs. These, of course, all upload to my cloud. I keep a loose playlist saved on both clouds of music that I intend to use at a given milonga (strike that, after accepting I don't like following rigid requirements of tango etiquette that would officially qualify dances as milongas, I will call all events tango-raves - I'd go with the standard "practica" but I don't really like to practice and raves sound like they'd have more glowing things involved).


And, because I am lazy so busy, I often don't get around to downloading these onto my actual media monkey playlist until the day of a mil... -er -  tango-rave. And since it is a St. Patrick's Day!! party, I don't just need to download those celtic harp versions of Libertango and Verano Porteno, but also some kind of appropriately annoying contrasting Irish music to cut for cortinas. This is a necessity. And apparently I own virtually no Irish music, except for some Loreena McKennitt songs that I'm already using as alt tangos (yeah, yeah, Tango for Evora is almost too cliche, but people like it and it works with some tandas that I'm setting up). Of course, since I've been at my dad's house all week, which does not have wireless, none of my home computers have had access to the internet and none of them have been able to acquire their Microsoft security-update-booster shots. They're making up for this now. And so, stereo-laptop internet connection is moving at the speed of highly intoxicated molasses mucking through mud. And Media Monkey now wants to me to download an update that will also likely take an ice age to sort out, but may (or may not) fix some problems inherent in the software. My iTunes induced PTSD makes me fairly certain that any update will do horrible things to my music collection and possibly cause incidental brain damage. I am hoping this is not the case, but many years of iAbuse has taken its toll. Be gentle, Media Monkey!

So, tango crowds, you'll be passing out to a breathy and contemplative Enya between tandas, since this is going to take about an aeon and it's probably more important to have - oh I don't know - music for the dancing instead of the "get of the floor"-ing. Now people will stop dancing and pass out on the floor. Too bad, I was hoping to find "I'll always be Irish" from the classic Disney film, The Happiest MIllionaire. Maybe I'll still have time. 

The Twelve Tangos of Christmas

My Very Merry Mauve Elephant Tango Setlist


As promised, I dj-ed Tango Popolare's monthly milonga (dubbed the Mauve Elephant Milonga because I decided that everyone would bring tango themed gifts to leave wrapped or unwrapped at a table for the taking and mauve seemed like a far more tangorific color than white for my theoretical elephant).

Here, in case you missed it, is the terrifying graphic that I created for the event page:

Obviously, I missed my calling and should have gone into graphic design. Or terrifying small children...

If only I could monetize wearing whimsical
socks, stilettos and short skirts!

In addition to hosting, I was allowed - lord knows why - to set foot near the dj station again, and I needed to pay proper homage to the privilege. Since it was so close to Christmas, I set about trying to holidayafi (officially a word, date of birth, 12/20.2011) my set-list within an inch of its life. This involved a lot of idle browsing and sampling through music stores, finding tangoable songs of a Christmas theme that could then work with other music that I already had to make a set of sorts. Naturally I cut all new holiday cortinas, but I was far prouder of my holiday tangos. Granted, many of them were only sort of holiday tangos and perhaps the equivalent of a dj's inside joke, but I am inordinately proud of my little tango musical stocking stuffers. To keep you distracted from the music geekery about to teem forth in this post, I will intermittently include photos of the evening, which are very adorable.

1. La Marocha was originally written in a single 24 hour period by Enrique Saborido and premiered on Christmas. The story goes that he went out with some boys on Christmas Eve to a nightclub and inspired by a singer Lola Candales. His companions bet he could not write a song for her, so he rushed home, wrote the song and brought it to her Christmas morning. Apparently she liked it enough to sing it that night and it became one of the epitomes of Argentine Tango as it was exported through Paris in the tango craze. This version was by Di Sarli.Paired with El Recodo, Como Los Nardos En Flor, and Un Lamento.

The Santa of Light and the cutest friggin' bow-tie ever!

2. Navidad Vals is an actual Christmas tango vals written by Osvaldo Pugliese and sung by Jorge Maciel . It's not the most danceable of all valses, but it more or less works and complemented some orphaned valses that haven't really made it into prior sets due to lacking companion valses for a good tanda. One of the valses, Gobbi's La Vieja Derenata, was also sung by Jorge Maciel. This in turn had a transitional quality from the scratchy record classic through Salgan's Motivo de Vals, sung by Angel Diaz who has a similar timbre and sweetness in his voice to Maciel.

3. Que Noche - played by Osvaldo Fresedo's orchestra, since I have a soft spot for Fresedo and wanted to play a set of his anyways. Que Noche was originally written by Bardi on June 22, 1918. That night it actually snowed in Bs As, which is extremely uncommon.The same night, his car broke down a ways away from any auto repair shop. The story goes he began humming this while trying to fix the car and later Arolas saw the score of his new tango and titled it "que noche" (what a night!) Paired with En Mis Noches, Contratiempo, and Apasionado (some of my favorites)

A smashing photo of my back - but I am proud of my hair. Perfect length
nowadays to get trapped in my lead's left hand during an embrace!

4. What's This? played String Tribute Players, it's an ode to the song "What's This" from Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas. The song is sung by Jack Skeleton, the king of Halloween when he wanders into Christmas land and discovers snow and santa clause. I had to actually slow the song down considerably and it was still fast to dance to, but went quite well with a set of very strange and fun tangos that I have by Magali, from the delightfully insouciant album Schwenkglenks and the Gringos of Tango. I've wanted to use these for a long time, but they are not too easy to dance to. One of them switches into a milonga mid-way through the song, for instance. I often waffle (Wafflebot hates pancakes!!) on exactly how much the dj gets to play with the dancers and how "challenging" music should be. I feel like many of the absolute beginners will gleefully dance to any music (or, perhaps to put it more bluntly, while any music is playing). And more advanced dancers enjoy a bit of novelty and complexity. I think, while definitely an alternative set, it was a success. There were undeniably some confused intermediates, but two people asked to look at my set list to write down this artist/song. I am assuming because they enjoyed it and not so they can later burn the paper in effigy to purge a horrible set experience.

Although it may have had a disorienting effect.
Office Christmas Party View Setting on the camera works well!

5. Carol of the Bells - I admit that I listened to roughly one hundred versions of this darned carol before finding *the one* on an album that listed the artist as "The Hit Company." I had to include a vals set with The Carol of Bells. It is just dying to be valsed to, given its general pacing and feel. And this was a gorgeous piano version. It immediately reminded me of Yann Tierson's work, and eventually I was able to find the piano version of his Amelie Waltz, which of course has been an alternative vals staple of mine for years. Then, I just had to find one more piano vals, the best of which ended up being Romance de Barrio by Juan Abitabile in an album also appropriately title Tangos en Piano Bar. I was approached later by a woman who apparently knew the performer/artist of my carol of the bells. At least by her story, he is well known, but partially local to the area and she had dated him while he was recording it. It is a distinctive enough version that such an account hardly strains credibility and I really like the small world story so I am choosing to believe it.

Tango isn't tango without a little drama and diabolicism!

6. Anclao in Paris -This is mostly a sad tango about missing Buenos Aires while stuck in Paris. Not exactly or at all Christmas themed, but it was written when it was snowing in Paris and this is featured in the lyrics. Anyhow, the song was made famous when lyricist Cadicamo sold the song to Carlos Gardel, the resident saint of Argentine Tango as far as most Argentines are concerned. This was a version by Litto Nebia and Enrique Cadicamo, another pairing that features some highly danceable and pleasant music that I've been meaning to play anyways.

7-10. All Xmas Tanda: I'm sad to say that my final tanda was virtually ignored, since our class ran late and my tanda list was long in anticipation of the usual hangers on who always complain that we end too early (none of whom actually came this evening). So the set occurred more as incidental music for people scavenging the gift tables and exchanging the requisite goodbye hugs. I started to dance with Andrew, just to make it clear to people that the set was intended as a tango, but finally gave up and decided to delete the last song of the set (for future use) and the Cumparsita. That said, I was fairly proud of the set and think it would inspire dancing in different circumstances. It featured Let it Snow by Paola Aimone from the album A Tango Christmas. I mostly don't enjoy this album, since it is mostly pop holiday singing with a vague accordian humming underneath, but Let It Snow did have a recognizable sense of tango and a chill mood that lent well to I'll Be Home For Christmas, a spanish guitar version by Benise.I'm not sure it was the most exciting piece to dance to, but it was very beautiful and led well into A Christmas Tango with Santa L M Azpiazu. This piece I love. It's almost more American Tango, but has a very showy feel and I think it would be a blast to use it for a performance piece. Not quite as bombastic as an American Tango would be and with a more sultry feel, it would have really delighted a few of the absent dancers. But c'est la vie - it's Christmas season. As a final piece, I found Mia Stigmi Gia Panta, an absolutely stunning operatic piece by Jannos Eolou. Though the holiday connection is less pronounced, it is the opening song on the soundtrack for the Greek film A Christmas Tango which qualified it for my tastes.

Ghosts of Tango Present (and hopefully Future!)

11. My tanda gift to myself: Naturally, my favorite set of the night was actually a stock standard Color Tango set that I through in last minute because a student of mine requested that I do more "post 1960's tangos or something like Pugliese." I have done it a bunch of times, largely because it is such a succulent combination and moves from the fairly playful and wistful Pavadita through heavier rhythms and tones of Malandraca and Zum into the deep and soulful simmering A Evarista Carriego. I managed to schedule another perfect tanda with the same perfect lead, who was only slightly flustered with the pressure of having read my last entry. I also threw in a few favorite sets by Calo with Raul Iriarte, De Angelis, De Caro, and Bianco Bachicha.

Keep telling my cohost to bring fewer snacks so he can
maybe turn a slight profit someday. He continues to bring more instead!

(12).For Cortinas I found a cavalcade of fantastic old Christmas cds and spent a few days with them and my cheapo freeware version of Audacity (I love you Audacity).

They included (Spaced out to make this seem intolerably long but slightly more readable!): 

Zat You Santa Claus? Louis Armstrong

I'll Be Home For Christmas - Bing Crosby

Boogie Woogie Hannaukah - Seattle Men's Chorus. One of my all time favorite holiday songs and a toe tapping jitterbug that I would love to do a performance to someday.

Santa baby - Marilyn Monroe.

Jingle Bells - Robbie Hardkiss version

Deck the Hall - Nat King Cole

Christmas in New Orleans - Louis Armstrong

Baby It's Cold Outside - Ray Charles

White Christmas - Bing Crosby

Deck the Halls - 11 Acorn Way

The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Seattle Men's Chorus Performed by Zipper

Jingle Bells - Michael Buble and the Puppini Sisters.

Thanks for reading. Have a Holly Jolly Christmas! And, please, if you have any tangos that work well for the holidays I'd love to add them to my list so drop a comment!!

Monkeying around with Music Again

So I want you to squeeze your inner thighs together like you're holding an orange between them and you're trying to make orange juice. If you just focus on your partner's chest and making orange juice, your ochoes are going to feel much smoother... but probably don't focus too much on the orange juice, or it's going to get kind of messy out here.

- One of my more profound moments of teaching this Saturday

As the diabolical facebook event description may have tipped some of you off, I had the honor of dj-ing and cohosting the Tango Experience milonga on Saturday evening.This was my first gig dj-ing in a fairly long time, which I guess I hadn't realized. At least I wasn't aware that I had never used Media Monkey to dj before. I'd previously used iTunes, but broke up with it angrily after another ubiquitous update ate up half of my music collection. It is good to be free, let me tell you.

In case anyone is wondering, Media Monkey is pretty decent for djing but it has a default setting that cuts out "pauses and silences." This means that once one song ends, the next immediately begins. Not great for tango and a cause of great frustration for the first part of the evening as I tried desperately to fix it and had all but resigned myself to living at the computer and manually stopping the songs so people could get their dramatic end posing on.

At least I didn't put on the cross-fade feature, although it was kind of tempting. Luckily, after some phone internet browsing, Andrew figured out how to uncheck the default setting and restore the natural pauses most tracks come with. If anyone is ever planning to dj with Media Monkey, you'll have to ask him how he did it. I imagine that I could figure it out if I had it open.

As always, I managed to change up my theoretical playlist so many times that half of the new music I just HAD to buy for this playlist didn't make it onto the final product. I had two and a half hours to fill, but our class went long (unsurprisingly), so I was forced to make some edits for time's sake. Then somebody requested a Biagi vals set, which required more edits. The typical set structure for a milonga has very specific structural components between tandas (sets of 3-4 songs of a similar sound, orchestra, artist, singer, etc.) of tangos, valses and milongas, so changing one thing usually means changing everything. Sometimes I think it would be much easier to just wing it entirely instead of trying to set up a list in advance, but I get a certain satisfaction about lingering on music as I try to listen through to find the best possible combinations of sets and sounds.

This time around, I played fewer valses and milongas in the first hour and a half, due to the fact that a fair majority of dancers were new and didn't know what valses and milongas were. I also exchanged some of my nuevo sets that would be more challenging to dance to for traditional sets, as again there were more new people and traditionalists than I'd anticipated. This is pretty par for the course, but it does mean I have these beautiful unplayed sets:

Volver - Luis Rizzo 

QuintetoAntes del Alba - LRQ

Simple - LRQ

And


El Amanacer - Pablo Aslan

El Flete - Pablo Aslan

La Ultima Cita- Pablo Aslan

And my favorite Esteban Morgado set of milongas got cut as well.

But I did get to include a great set from Medialuna Tango Project:

Una Flor y Dos Corazons

Una Rara Semblanza 

Volver a Inicio

And because I couldn't help myself, I included my Xavier Cugat Samba de Cumparsita at the very end. I did include your run of the mill D'Arienzo cumparsita for a "last tango" for all the purists out there, but I'm thrilled to pieces that my tango-crush Jeff and his partner insisted on dancing to the Cugat cumparsita as well.

Anyways. The moral - as always - is that I have way too much music and dj far too infrequently.

Oh and squeezing is good, but peeing on the dancefloor is less good.

Thoughts about music, communication and voice

• When I've really hit it off with my partner during a tanda/dance, it sometimes pops up in my head that he and I "hear the same music" as if this is the rarest and most revelatory of all things. I guess because I think there are infinite "musics" to be heard in any one piece - depending on how you notice and interact with the rhythm, the instruments, the nuance, the lyrics etc. Sometimes, hearing somebody else's music is an amazing experience and opens me up to possibilities I'd never imagined - these are the great conversations - but that experience of knowing one other individual hears the same piece is oddly breathtaking This more than any proficiency of steps is what makes dance transformative for me. A partner can absolutely butcher his physical interpretation of his inner music, so long as I feel it within him. 

• I have a naturally soft and sing-songy voice. I read somewhere that such qualities are generally associated with higher degrees of empathy in individuals. I'm not sure how solid this relationship is, but I find that often when I am forced to alter my speech patterns because people are having difficulty hearing or understanding me, it changes my perception of myself in the coversation and my reactions to my interlocutors. I feel a greater distance between myself and the other when I speak like this and am often less patient and more rational. Perhaps this is more related to it being a conscious speech choice requiring more concentrating to maintain, although the reverse connection of these moods and those tones is certainly inevitable. Considering that we can induce emotions from the expressions we hold on our faces, I wouldn't be totally surprised if the way we intone also affects our moods. 

• In relation to that: Because I am a terrifically contextual person (the hallmark of a true introvert, I think), I can have a very different voice depending on my concept of "my role" in a given situation. When I dabbled in theatre, I was always the actor who did *not* need to be miked (I also had quite the stirrings of a Wagnerian boom to my mezzo when I studied voice) and when I am the authority figure, I manage to speak clearly, succinctly and audibly. In some contexts I am "loud" and boisterous.When I am most soft-spoke, it is a signal of intimacy. When I know somebody remotely well, I tend to understand them far more through their patterns and pitches (as well as context, body language, etc.)  than the words they say and so I expect that these others also will intuit my meanings instead of parsing out my individual words.I feel oddly uncomfortable when people do parse out my words in these contexts (something easily read on their faces), it puts me on my guard. As if our shared speech is a specimen to be dissected instead of a harmonic in the music of our conversation - meaningless taken outside of the whole point and counterpoint. 

• Instead of going out (got one of them there colds) on New Year's Eve, I found myself obsessively scouring Kafka on the Shore. It's funny, because I'd downloaded it while my mom was in the hospital and had gone through it a few pages at a time fairly contentedly until SMACK about 20% through, the storylines start to connect, at which point the whole thing became impossible to put down. Anyways, I would like to go through it again more closely, as there's a lot in there that a first-read can't grasp, but I did like this quote about the title song of the story: "Symbolism and meaning are two separate things. I think she found the right words by bypassing structures like meaning and logic. She captured words in a dream, like delicately catching hold of a butterfly's wings as it flutters around. Artists are those who can evade the verbose."

iNnoyances

It's becoming some sort of tradition that I must - in making any playlist - delete at least half of the playlist while I am making it. My lemons-from-lemonade-Pollyanna take on the tradition is that it's some sort of test wherein I recall the really good selections and have to substitute the forgettable ones with something better, thus scattering the dross, putting my musical taste through the purifying fire to make a truly perfect list baptized in my own errors.

My less jovial nature thinks that iTunes sucks and is constantly putting me into awkward positions where I think I am attempting one thing while I am in fact accomplishing something entirely different. I am amazed that I continue to remain in possession of a good chunk of my favorite music. I somewhat detest iTunes, although I appreciate the ability to categorize according to genre and subgenre and some of the other features hand made for dj's and collectors like me. But at the end of the day it hates me about as much as all apple products do (which is to say, quite a bit - I can't look at an iPhone without it making lots of unhappy beeping noises and going into iTaser mode (oh I'm sure they have an app for that)). iTunes can be generally more agreeable, but it's none-too-plussed that I continue to embrace an ante-diluvian silver-pink sony walkman instead of something with an "i" in front of it's otherwise banal name (my real question being, when they move into the personal hygiene business, will it be iToilet-Paper or iToilet iPaper?? all bets are on - I like iTP) for my musical needs. It takes great pains to express this to me by refusing to transfer music directly to it and messing up most attempts to transfer music in sneakier and more creative ways. I am at battle with my iTunes all the time, basically. I'm considering moving, but re-categorizing genre and subgenre and notes etc. of over 80 days' worth of music is a pain. I'm still having to do some tweaking after my last large musical acquisition. I should manage to finish this up briefly before my centennial if no more music is ever made. Still it would be nice if it didn't always wait right until I am about to call my lovingly labored lists perfect and complete before mistaking a slight sneeze as a "yes delete this entire list, thank you"

My first day of vacation

Starting at about 2:30 yesterday, I became a free woman. One more month until school begins! What am I going to do with all my free time? As little as humanly possible, since this is my last chance to do so for the next lord knows how many months. Some running, some dancing, some massive obsessing over my music collection, some lingering over coffee/breakfast with pleasant company, but no trips or extravagent goals.

But I started vacation with a bang -> 6 a.m. to 6 a.m. of action packed fun and craziness strewn across The Pacific Northwest from Bellevue to Vancouver (B.C.) and many spots in between.

My big day began more with a sploosh than a bang actually, as my eggs, tofu and "buttered" (because that adjective works much better than "vegan-alternative-whipped-spread-ed") toast schlupped themselves onto the floor; and then the tinkle of metal, as I left my keys in the trunk of my car for the first two or three hours of work. Things kind of went uphill from there (and for the most part not in the running sense, where hills are cause for cursing, crying and despair), but with some stops and starts.There was lunch and an early release from my last day of work and then traffic... oh so much traffic. I will so incredibly not miss the sitting in the car at a dead stop on the freeway aspect of my summer internship. I shudder to count the hours I've spent sitting in my car mouthing obscenities and making the odd shrieking noise as traffic once again inexplicably slows and starts.

In the evening, I met up with my Dad and we tried to acquire the promised shoe-gifts, but were thwarted on all fronts: my Asics are on severe back order and tango shoes don't exist in this town/I have yet to find something online that calls to me. On the bright side, I did get one of those belts that runners wear to carry water with them! I'm pretty pumped about this, since the long runs are getting long enough that not hydrating is pretty awful and sloshing around with a huge water bottle is agonizing and because the belt is black and techno-lime-green. W tried to have an easy dinner, but were equally thwarted by an inscrutably long wait, resulting in an awful lot of rushing to make it to the Blue Moon.

The turn-out was a touch dissapointing. The Seattle people were at Pablo Veron workshops or couldn't get rides or... whatever. Many of the Bellingham people were off at some thing at Harrison Hot Springs. An email that was supposedly sent out by the resident BMB teacher apparently did not actually break loose into cyberspace and most of the students themselves didn't know about it. Aside from the small percentage of facebook invitees/random assortment of my friends who don't really tango and don't know each other, most of the attendees were tipped off by an email from *another* teacher in town whom I'd invited. All I can say is thank goodness for 'the competition' or it may have been a very dismal evening indeed.

C'est la vie, it turned out to be a lot of fun. I think I did my best set ever last night. It hit the perfect balance between traditional and modern; between stuff-I-love and stuff-that-makes-people dance. I think the best balance between being true to one's voice but accessible to the crowd is when every song is the sort that would make you whisper "I love this song" before a dance, and many are also met with requests from other dancers for the name of the song just played.

I had to find a number for an impromptu birthday dance insisted upon by David. I was against it at first, but it turned out to be at least colorful! My dress was a one strap - a startlingly classy little Versace number from Labels that is regrettably just a little too big and thus not a "twist-proof top," as one of my partners enjoys to put it. So much of my personal style is "impending wardrobe malfunction" but this took it a step further. Combined with the fact that I handle like a Porsche and all my partners were inevitably showing off a bit for the crowd with big and very open moves (see, the joy of close embrace is that your shirt doesn't have to stay on!), the twisty top twisted enough for me to be deeply grateful for the crepuscular tango-mood lighting, because I'm pretty sure I went all National Geographic on the audience at least two or three times during my seven minute ...performance. Consider it a promo for the oft discussed Blue Moon Topless Tango Tuesdays...


-- begin tango geek moment -- (just smile and nod)

Since I wanted to dance with everyone, I picked Gotan's Vuelvo Al Sur. I usually avoid Gotan, because it is so ubiquitous, so it actually had a nice spell of novelty to it, but I let let bleed into a new electrotango set:

Una Noche en "La Viruta" (just happened to be after Vuelvo Al Sur in the list I pulled it from) - Otros Aires

Postales - Federico Aubele

Trampa Del Alma - San Telmo Lounge

After which I finally premiered my Medialuna tanda, which kept getting shorn off the too-long lists for fear that people wouldn't enjoy it, but which is also one of my absolute favorites:

Una Flor Y Dos Corazones

Fragilidad

Chromotango

(I took out their Vuelvo Al Sur, since I just danced to the Gotan version, which actually worked pretty well time wise anyways and made for a nicely cohesive set )

Needless to say, it was heaven to dance to!

I finished out the night, with another new Esteban Morgado set from Patio de Tango, thus ending the evening with Lidia Borda's beautiful and lulling rendition of Sueño de Juventud - yes, technically a vals, but so slow that it losses any rhythmic imperative that would set it apart from the rest of the tangos. This had been the source of some distress earlier, when I realized that somehow iTunes had jumbled the track names for this entire cd, necessitating a hurried journey through the track to find the actual songs I wanted instead of the songs that were named what I thought I wanted. Thanks so much iTunes for giving my evening some excitement! My cumparsita was also a vals version, although I doubt anyone appreciated this, but we all need our little comments.

--- end music-geek moment --

After the party there wound down, I hopped a car-pool to Vancouver for some after-tango blues, which absolutely hit the spot. I haven't been up there for a long time and delighted at going incognito - in my running clothes, glasses, and a ponytail. Nobody recognized me, even some of my favorite dance partners reintroduced themselves to me and were very confused when I told them my name. I think unrecognizability is one of my super powers. Even more likely, those 80's movies were right and taking off your glasses while simultaneously pulling down your hair is the most magnificent transformative makeover a girl can have (the reverse apparently also applies)!

Many long drives down, I'm ready to crash. Particularly because I didn't really get that much sleep this week in anticipation of vacation.

But in sum, I played a great set, saw some friends I hadn't seen in months, and potentially managed to flash a large audience of people (always a favorite) and flummox a few others.