Interesting weekend!

[billeyler]

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...

The irony is that MY flight on Continental had mechanical problems. First class, their "Elite" passengers, and rows 25-29 had already boarded for our 6:45am flight, then the captain came on and announced that the plane had a hydraulic leak, and we all just had to get off the plane. Period. No instructions as to what to do then. When I got off, I made my way to the phone booth to call John in Detroit to tell them that I was delayed and don't know when I'd get there...I had a 60 minute phone card with me for things like this. Wouldn't you know, that NOW the (expletive deleted) phone company sucks out THIRTY minutes in advance for using a pay phone. Gawd! John has a cell phone, so I was able to get through to him though. Also called Danny at home, but the phone card is virtually worthless now.

Turning around, I saw that I was now LAST in line to make arrangements for some other flight. It seems that all the people that hadn't boarded were first in line, and the rest of us schmucks that got off the plane ended up at the back of the line. First Class and "Elite" got their own line. BUT since nearly every flight leaving ABQ was full, it was taking 15 minutes per person to make some other arrangements, if any could be made at all. After about 90 minutes of standing in that line and with about 50 still in front of me, the gate agent suggested that about 20 of us head downstairs for the front line agents to 'help' us. That was pretty necessary, since the next Continental flight was about to leave from that gate. On time, of course.

So off I trundle with my bags (no checked luggage happily!) to the front...I was the only one that went downstairs from that announcement...everyone else was firmly rooted in place. There were only a few in the 'problem' line there, but that was taking about 15 minutes per person to deal with too...happily, the other agents had a lull, and could help the rest of us schmucks. There of course were NO other flights available on the major carriers that could get me there before the dance started, so I ended up booking a 1:35 flight that wouldn't get to Detroit until 10:41 that night, missing the dance.

We live just a couple minutes from the airport, and Danny was off work, so he came over and picked me up. I called John back from home and he was gracious about me not making the dance that night.

Since I hadn't slept well the night before, I just vegetated at home, but did have a nice phone conversation with Anne Uebelacher about next year's Montreal Games Square Dance Fest. (something else for another post).

The 1:35 flight took off as planned. As did the Houston connecting flight after a 2 1/4 hour layover. Or at least left the gate reasonably on time. The (expletive deleted) flight sat with us on the plane for 90 minutes TAXI-ING, due to the flight congestion there. And me with no way to tell anyone I was going to be late on THIS flight. 'Grumpy' doesn't define it.

I was too cranky by this time to do anything but try to nap, but that didn't happen. The flight landed 70 minutes late at 11:30pm, and I hightailed it to a phone to call John with apologies. Well...due to a comedy of errors, one of their dancers who DIDN'T have a cell phone came out to meet me, but went home when I didn't show up. John apologized for that, and started out to get me, but the original dancer finally showed up at 12:40am to pick me up (he had gone home to pee...he didn't even think about parking the car, checking on the flight, etc...he just drove around and around the terminal looking for me), so I called John back to NOT come out (he was 1/2 way to the airport by then).

It was a 40 minute drive from the airport to my host's home (a non-dancer), so I just said HI and crawled into bed at 1:40am...gawd, I was tired

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!