Interesting weekend!

abqdan opted to stay home this weekend, rather than make the dash to Detroit for their flyin with me. He had been booked on another flight on Southwest back and forth, so we wouldn't have traveled together anyway. Turns out, I should have booked the SW flight, too, even thought it was more expensive...

( Longish )

After a LONG sleep in, I drove (I was loaned Jay's car for the weekend! What trust!) to the noon dance at the Berkley Community Center, which mercifully was less than 10 minutes from my host's home.

Set up the sound equipment myself, and Ken Burke came in about 11:57 for the dance. We clicked immediately, after finding out we're the same age. We played the Mutt and Jeff angle up a bit with the dancers...he's a dedicated runner and biker and keeps his Lance Armstrong like figure from that. I don't.

I had convinced John and Jay that we should all stay in one hall, rather than split the event into two halls. Their registration was only about 50 people, and that always makes for an awkward lack of people dancing if the hall is split with so few dancers. Only one Mainstream dancer had registered, as well as only about 3 C1 or above dancers. Made sense.

Worked out pretty well, too...Ken and I got to do 3/4 of our tips as duets or shared patter. Our calling styles are a bit similar, although he REALLY says some off-color things on the mic that I wouldn't even try to get away with and tends to try to fix broken squares much longer than I would without giving up. (in spite of my own risque comments from time to time, I try to temper it with some PC wisdom earned from experience).

I think at one point we had five squares dancing, but it would have been bleak if we had split the dancers into two halls. We called with fewer breaks than we normally would have had.

The Cadillac Squares had a fine potluck and "Asian Raffle" on Saturday night before the dance...lots of opportunity to be social. They must have made a few hundred dollars from that, helping the coffers. Oh, in between the noon and evening dances, John and Jay hosted a little relax-BBQ at their home. What garden John has there! I'm not sure why they had food at their do...I ended up not eating at the potluck!

Ken and Linda didn't eat any meals with us at all, which some people commented on.

The Sunday brunch (included with registration) at Angel's Cafe in downtown Ferndale was really tasty (and filling). Apparently that restaurant is closed on Sundays, but they open up for special (gay) events. Got to spend some quality time yakking with Leo and John from Suncoast Squares, and their driveway host (another non-dancer, but has a driveway big enough to accomodate their motorhome). We'll be seeing John and Leo again at the Denver flyin in September.

The Sunday afternoon dance ended up being mostly my dance...Ken had to leave at 2pm to get to a dance at Chicago that night. Hope he made it! Ken's wife Linda was there over the weekend, and seems very nice and supportive. I called a mix of MS, Plus, and Advanced, but there were some REALLY weak dancers in all the tips. I'd have never been able to call from pre-planned written choreo.

Over the weekend, I called several Hexagons with varying degrees of success. It seems a lot of callers are doing hexes now, but mostly the "Clark Baker-East Coast" version where you learn to dance six couples to four-couple choreo. I explained the difference in the dance form from "my" way to "Clark's" way several times. I also taught the Barn Dance as a mixer on Saturday night...happily, many knew it, so it was an easy teach.

Gail Oliver made an appearance on Sunday, but she had been dancing all weekend to Vic Ceder nearby at a C2/C3 weekend and was pooped. She had booked me for their very first flyin 10 years earlier.

Cadillac Squares usually themes their weekend. This one was supposed to be something to do with Diamonds, but since Wardson had to work on Saturday, they never put together anything having to do with Diamonds. Several Grand Rapids dancers did have tiaras on Saturday night, but that was the extent of it!

We ended the dance at 4pm on Sunday with 4 squares still left standing, and heard many humming "happy trails to you" after it ended....always a great idea to leave folks with a hummable song!

Two Chi-town dancers took me to the airport, where I mercifully had NO problems on my flight and landed just after 10pm! Yahoo!

Danny had sliced his finger pretty badly cutting an onion with a new chop knife that I had bought a few weeks ago....ugh!

Interesting weekend!

abqdan opted to stay home this weekend, rather than make the dash to Detroit for their flyin with me. He had been booked on another flight on Southwest back and forth, so we wouldn't have traveled together anyway. Turns out, I should have booked the SW flight, too, even thought it was more expensive...

( Longish )

After a LONG sleep in, I drove (I was loaned Jay's car for the weekend! What trust!) to the noon dance at the Berkley Community Center, which mercifully was less than 10 minutes from my host's home.

Set up the sound equipment myself, and Ken Burke came in about 11:57 for the dance. We clicked immediately, after finding out we're the same age. We played the Mutt and Jeff angle up a bit with the dancers...he's a dedicated runner and biker and keeps his Lance Armstrong like figure from that. I don't.

I had convinced John and Jay that we should all stay in one hall, rather than split the event into two halls. Their registration was only about 50 people, and that always makes for an awkward lack of people dancing if the hall is split with so few dancers. Only one Mainstream dancer had registered, as well as only about 3 C1 or above dancers. Made sense.

Worked out pretty well, too...Ken and I got to do 3/4 of our tips as duets or shared patter. Our calling styles are a bit similar, although he REALLY says some off-color things on the mic that I wouldn't even try to get away with and tends to try to fix broken squares much longer than I would without giving up. (in spite of my own risque comments from time to time, I try to temper it with some PC wisdom earned from experience).

I think at one point we had five squares dancing, but it would have been bleak if we had split the dancers into two halls. We called with fewer breaks than we normally would have had.

The Cadillac Squares had a fine potluck and "Asian Raffle" on Saturday night before the dance...lots of opportunity to be social. They must have made a few hundred dollars from that, helping the coffers. Oh, in between the noon and evening dances, John and Jay hosted a little relax-BBQ at their home. What garden John has there! I'm not sure why they had food at their do...I ended up not eating at the potluck!

Ken and Linda didn't eat any meals with us at all, which some people commented on.

The Sunday brunch (included with registration) at Angel's Cafe in downtown Ferndale was really tasty (and filling). Apparently that restaurant is closed on Sundays, but they open up for special (gay) events. Got to spend some quality time yakking with Leo and John from Suncoast Squares, and their driveway host (another non-dancer, but has a driveway big enough to accomodate their motorhome). We'll be seeing John and Leo again at the Denver flyin in September.

The Sunday afternoon dance ended up being mostly my dance...Ken had to leave at 2pm to get to a dance at Chicago that night. Hope he made it! Ken's wife Linda was there over the weekend, and seems very nice and supportive. I called a mix of MS, Plus, and Advanced, but there were some REALLY weak dancers in all the tips. I'd have never been able to call from pre-planned written choreo.

Over the weekend, I called several Hexagons with varying degrees of success. It seems a lot of callers are doing hexes now, but mostly the "Clark Baker-East Coast" version where you learn to dance six couples to four-couple choreo. I explained the difference in the dance form from "my" way to "Clark's" way several times. I also taught the Barn Dance as a mixer on Saturday night...happily, many knew it, so it was an easy teach.

Gail Oliver made an appearance on Sunday, but she had been dancing all weekend to Vic Ceder nearby at a C2/C3 weekend and was pooped. She had booked me for their very first flyin 10 years earlier.

Cadillac Squares usually themes their weekend. This one was supposed to be something to do with Diamonds, but since Wardson had to work on Saturday, they never put together anything having to do with Diamonds. Several Grand Rapids dancers did have tiaras on Saturday night, but that was the extent of it!

We ended the dance at 4pm on Sunday with 4 squares still left standing, and heard many humming "happy trails to you" after it ended....always a great idea to leave folks with a hummable song!

Two Chi-town dancers took me to the airport, where I mercifully had NO problems on my flight and landed just after 10pm! Yahoo!

Danny had sliced his finger pretty badly cutting an onion with a new chop knife that I had bought a few weeks ago....ugh!

Relaxing

August already....whoa!

Good class and dance again tonight, at least by my line-of-sight with the Wilde Bunch. Called with few breaks from 6pm to 9:25pm. Beginners through C1 as per usual, all in one night.

There's a board meeting tonight post-dance where the agenda includes "Future Classes for the Wilde Bunch: One Night or Two" (my agenda item) and "Was the Money All Accounted for the Past Two Years" (Danny's agenda item). We'll see if any communication with either Kris, Danny or me happens from this. I have my doubts.

Crossover* is going to be August 29. Probably going to have a "Rush Thru Mainstream" session for new dancers between then and the Denver Flyin, but that'll be tuff since abqdan and I will be on a cruise Sept 3-10. Maybe Jim E, Kris, or Tim will be able to help out with that.

Chatted (IM) briefly with a caller in the Bay Area earlier today...he's excited that he's being considered as a teacher/caller for ECR. I remember the first panic online imagining life post-Andy! Wonder what all the politics are like now. I feel a closer bond with the club than most others, mainly because of my history with Andy and my relationship with Danny who first danced with them.

Now to go read page-print on the Patricia Cornwall book I started on the way back from Detroit. I know it's not the intellectual type of book I probably SHOULD be reading, but it's mindlessly intriguing. I haven't read any others of hers, so I'll probably go back and find earlier books in the series to plow through...

* Crossover seems to be uniquely Wilde Bunch in the gay square dance world. We started that in 1983 when we taught dancers for 15 weeks up through Basic, had a big party night and made them Wilde Bunch members with badges, and all the fluff that goes into a graduation. But Mainstream was really the destination level. We've always called that Mainstream Continuation. The dancers were all invited to continue on with MC if they like, OR take the Basic class over. Lately, I've been trimming the 15 weeks down to 10 or so.

Relaxing

August already....whoa!

Good class and dance again tonight, at least by my line-of-sight with the Wilde Bunch. Called with few breaks from 6pm to 9:25pm. Beginners through C1 as per usual, all in one night.

There's a board meeting tonight post-dance where the agenda includes "Future Classes for the Wilde Bunch: One Night or Two" (my agenda item) and "Was the Money All Accounted for the Past Two Years" (Danny's agenda item). We'll see if any communication with either Kris, Danny or me happens from this. I have my doubts.

Crossover* is going to be August 29. Probably going to have a "Rush Thru Mainstream" session for new dancers between then and the Denver Flyin, but that'll be tuff since abqdan and I will be on a cruise Sept 3-10. Maybe Jim E, Kris, or Tim will be able to help out with that.

Chatted (IM) briefly with a caller in the Bay Area earlier today...he's excited that he's being considered as a teacher/caller for ECR. I remember the first panic online imagining life post-Andy! Wonder what all the politics are like now. I feel a closer bond with the club than most others, mainly because of my history with Andy and my relationship with Danny who first danced with them.

Now to go read page-print on the Patricia Cornwall book I started on the way back from Detroit. I know it's not the intellectual type of book I probably SHOULD be reading, but it's mindlessly intriguing. I haven't read any others of hers, so I'll probably go back and find earlier books in the series to plow through...

* Crossover seems to be uniquely Wilde Bunch in the gay square dance world. We started that in 1983 when we taught dancers for 15 weeks up through Basic, had a big party night and made them Wilde Bunch members with badges, and all the fluff that goes into a graduation. But Mainstream was really the destination level. We've always called that Mainstream Continuation. The dancers were all invited to continue on with MC if they like, OR take the Basic class over. Lately, I've been trimming the 15 weeks down to 10 or so.