Monday new class start and doin's

The rain on Monday may have kept some new dancers away, but we still had seven new souls on the floor with us.  Two of the dancers have solid dance experience, one is a young woman who is the daughter of a contra cuer, and another is a young man that danced through Plus 10 years ago in New Hampshire, so he'll be a ringer for sure.  I didn't see any particularly awful dancers in the other five.

Since we had so many angels, my initial 'big circle' to get everyone up was larger than the hall could support, so we quickly dropped into two circles, then into squares.  The initial EZ singing calls went flawlessly with lots of whooping and cheering at their success at the end.

Announcements went overlong, since we talked about the Pride events, convention.  The table area was packed with dancers.

This will be a short Basic class ending August 27, so I did away with the open houses and just started classes on the run.  The first three nights are easy enough that new dancers can assimilate.  We'll see how this goes in the long run.

Georgian is well into planning the 25th anniversary dance day on Saturday, March 22.  Anne Uebelacher is flying in for this, so it will be a real treat!  We'll have dancing in two halls with workshops/level dance from 10 to noon, 1:30 to 3:30 and 7:30 to 9:30 (one hall), with a catered (I think) dinner and presentations.  I believe Kris is going to arrange a contra dance with a live band, I've been asked to do the Hex stuff again, and I'm hoping we have a C1 dance, and a Basic/Mainstream workshop/dance.  This is going to be a LOT like a mini-flyin, what with all the energy and planning going into it.

Monday new class start and doin's

The rain on Monday may have kept some new dancers away, but we still had seven new souls on the floor with us.  Two of the dancers have solid dance experience, one is a young woman who is the daughter of a contra cuer, and another is a young man that danced through Plus 10 years ago in New Hampshire, so he'll be a ringer for sure.  I didn't see any particularly awful dancers in the other five.

Since we had so many angels, my initial 'big circle' to get everyone up was larger than the hall could support, so we quickly dropped into two circles, then into squares.  The initial EZ singing calls went flawlessly with lots of whooping and cheering at their success at the end.

Announcements went overlong, since we talked about the Pride events, convention.  The table area was packed with dancers.

This will be a short Basic class ending August 27, so I did away with the open houses and just started classes on the run.  The first three nights are easy enough that new dancers can assimilate.  We'll see how this goes in the long run.

Georgian is well into planning the 25th anniversary dance day on Saturday, March 22.  Anne Uebelacher is flying in for this, so it will be a real treat!  We'll have dancing in two halls with workshops/level dance from 10 to noon, 1:30 to 3:30 and 7:30 to 9:30 (one hall), with a catered (I think) dinner and presentations.  I believe Kris is going to arrange a contra dance with a live band, I've been asked to do the Hex stuff again, and I'm hoping we have a C1 dance, and a Basic/Mainstream workshop/dance.  This is going to be a LOT like a mini-flyin, what with all the energy and planning going into it.

Life in the wilds of Albuquerque

Danny and I enjoy sitting on the upper deck watching the birdlife in the evenings.  It's mostly hummingbirds, robins, house sparrows (finches) of various sorts, and the sweet-but-dumb varieties of doves.  It's a very relaxing time and we can now see some of the different personalities these feathered friends have.

Driving to work this morning, I saw yet another of these fabulous roadrunners wandering around, scouting out bugs and lizards.  This one was just on the other side of the street from the house.  They're even bolder than robins, so you can nearly walk up to them before they wander away.

No matter how I feel, these comical looking birds alway bring a smile to my face and make me appreciate that there is life outside my own narrow little path.

On the dove front, when I went out at 7am to feed the birds, one that had obviously slammed into a window *at some point wandered out from near the house in front of me.  I could tell it had a damaged wing, but it waddled away without too much trouble...right into the garage...I had just opened the door to get to the bird food.

I followed it around the garage until it wandered back out and strolled under one of the arborvitae.  I did warn it that the cats would be on the lookout for just something snacky like him, so he'd best either recover quickly or hide in the trees!

* All of our windows have full imprints of birds on them, especially after we just wash them.  It's like a comic-book scene when we open the curtains to see where a bird had splatted.   Although many birds love trying to fly through them, many find it a less than satisfying journey.

Life in the wilds of Albuquerque

Danny and I enjoy sitting on the upper deck watching the birdlife in the evenings.  It's mostly hummingbirds, robins, house sparrows (finches) of various sorts, and the sweet-but-dumb varieties of doves.  It's a very relaxing time and we can now see some of the different personalities these feathered friends have.

Driving to work this morning, I saw yet another of these fabulous roadrunners wandering around, scouting out bugs and lizards.  This one was just on the other side of the street from the house.  They're even bolder than robins, so you can nearly walk up to them before they wander away.

No matter how I feel, these comical looking birds alway bring a smile to my face and make me appreciate that there is life outside my own narrow little path.

On the dove front, when I went out at 7am to feed the birds, one that had obviously slammed into a window *at some point wandered out from near the house in front of me.  I could tell it had a damaged wing, but it waddled away without too much trouble...right into the garage...I had just opened the door to get to the bird food.

I followed it around the garage until it wandered back out and strolled under one of the arborvitae.  I did warn it that the cats would be on the lookout for just something snacky like him, so he'd best either recover quickly or hide in the trees!

* All of our windows have full imprints of birds on them, especially after we just wash them.  It's like a comic-book scene when we open the curtains to see where a bird had splatted.   Although many birds love trying to fly through them, many find it a less than satisfying journey.