Shameless Self-Promotion
Can I spend a few minutes tooting my own horn here? (No, Special K, that is not a euphemism for something dirty.) As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am an Irish dancer and do several competitions a year. Since I started dancing 6 years ago, I have always danced in the Adult category. Everyone was always so nice and we felt a lot of camaraderie comparing our dance/age-related knee and hip problems.
My teacher has been trying to talk me into testing for my certification so that my students can compete and I can help teach at her dance school. I sent off my application to test and planned on doing my last competition (called a “feis”–pronounced “fesh”) this month. Once you’ve taken the test, you are no longer eligible to compete. So I took a big leap for this competition: instead of signing up for the adult dances, I signed up for the competitions with the teens–the 15 years and over group. And once you’ve danced in the “and overs”, you can’t go back to Adult.
As soon as I sent in my feis entry, I started doubting myself. I mean, dancing against teenagers? What was I thinking? My head would be handed to me on a very colorful and sparkly platter. (See picture below.)
See colorful and sparkly dresses? Check out those bouncy wigs, too! Supposed to make us look lively and full of energy. Notice I don't wear a wig. I'd look like an idiot. It is forbidden to take pictures at these things-- a friend's mom was very naughty! BTW, I'm sixth (or seventh, if you look closely) from the left in the royal blue dress.
I started dreading the thought of doing this competition. I have always felt that there should be a handicapping element to the scoring. The more kids you have birthed, the more extra points you should get. I mean, most of these chickies aren’t having to drag their 5X uterus around the stage.
Yesterday was the feis. I figured I’d do my best and resigned myself to not bringing home any awards. It would be a learning experience, I told myself. Well, imagine my surprise when this happened–
I rocked those teenagers!
If you can’t read the itty bitty type on the trophies, that’s two FIRST places and two fourth places! I am such a stud. (I am in denial that one of my fourth places only had five dancers. Congratulations–you came in next to last! The other awards were more legit, though.) Can you believe this old bird kept up with those young’uns?
I was really impressed with the teen dancers. I figured they’d all just ignore me, but they were really nice and several started conversations with me. Just before the feis, I found out that I’m only on the waiting list for the first certification test. If I don’t make it into this test, then I’ll be dancing with the teens for a while longer. I think I can take ‘em.
Misunderheard
Last night at dinner, Baby Girl started singing “Jesus Loves Me”. She’s only two, so it sounds more like “Hee-nuh yuh me ga ga no.” Then she starts the next line and all of us freeze. I swear “for the Bible tells me so” sounded JUST LIKE “da Viagra teh me so.” DS1 and I both choked on our Stouffer’s lasagne and said at the same time, “Viagra?! Viagra tells you so?!”" Maybe this church is more progressive than I thought. That’s just my sweet baby making her joyful noise to the Lord!
GWS
Years ago, I took a Physics course in San Antonio. When we would do our lab write-ups, our teacher would often leave written comments in the margins. One of his favorite notes was “GWS”–”Goes Without Saying”. In other words, we were giving too much information that was already a given. Since then, the Sugar Daddy and I have used that as shorthand in our verbal communications.
Last week, Baby Girl was watching a show on Noggin. (Noggin totally rocks, BTW. Preschool programming 24/7!) The show is Yo Gabba Gabba, and I find it very disturbing.
The lead actor is a guy called DJ Lance Rock.
DJ Lance Rock
I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be an orange afro or a hat that would make even a tacky grandmother sniff, “It’s too much.” He’s so perky, he must have his own meth lab going in that giant boom box he carries around. I’ll admit that my tastes lean more towards the understated sarcasm of Steve from Blue’s Clues.
Even more frightening, however, is the character Muno.
Muno
Um, I’ll try to be delicate here, since my children read this blog. But this just does not seem like the best, well, shape for a children’s toy. (Don’t even get me started on the texture. Ick.) Doesn’t it bring up images of the piano player from Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life” singing the penis song? (Something about a one-eyed item. I think the p-word will get me enough pervert hits. I don’t need to put in the song lyrics to have all the love-starved middle-of-the-night dirty-blog seekers coming here. Put your pants back on, DUDE!)
Where was I? Totally off-topic, as usual. So we’re listening to Yo Gabba Gabba and Baby Girl is sort of dancing around as the music plays. Then the words finally register. “We don’t, we don’t, we don’t bite our friends! We don’t, we don’t, we don’t bite our friends.” I did a double-take at the Sugar Daddy. They actually have a song about how we shouldn’t bite our friends? Seems like not biting your friends really GWS. (See, I eventually tied it all together! It does happen occasionally.)
I’m thinking some people I know should have some similarly helpful songs recorded for them. These issues may seem like they GWS, but apparently, not everyone has gotten the memo. How about, “We don’t, we don’t, we don’t let our kids run like wild monkeys on crack around your house.” Or, “We don’t, we don’t, we don’t choose a guy over our girlfriends.” For one special friend: “We don’t, we don’t, we don’t date married men.” (Me-OW!) Or for me: “We don’t, we don’t, we don’t waste our whole day in front of the computer in our PJ’s while the Baby Girl runs around in nothing but a diaper.” I could have a whole album of these. If I ever put on some daytime clothes and brushed my teeth.
It’s a Miracle!
No, I’m not fitting into my summer shorts. And the cosmetic surgeon hasn’t called to say he’ll do my whole body for free as a charity case. We’re talking THE Miracle. With a capital “M”. The great battle of good and evil. Right there in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, down the street from the Nike outlet and the dinner theater starring the “Tennessee Studs” and “Southern Sweeties”.
Last summer, the big kids went to Pigeon Forge with my parents and did all the fun tourist activities there. The hands-down favorite, by a large margin, was The Miracle Theater. The kids have been talking about that for the past year, saying that the Sugar Daddy and I need to go see the show. When we planned to meet my parents there for a few days last weekend, we finally were able to see the show as a family. Well, sort of. Baby Girl stayed at the rented condo with the grandparents. She would have LOVED seeing all the animals, but I think she would have wanted to wander way before the two-hour show was done.
The Miracle Theater is a beautiful building on the main parkway next to the Wonderworks museum (can’t miss it, WW is an upside-down building). Out front, they have camel rides. Real, live camels. The camels walk a slow circuit around their pen, doing that weird figure-eight chewing motion thing. Two of the kids climbed a hump and rode one of the camels. Then we went inside. The Miracle Theater is sort of a Christian combo of movie theater and small amusement park. The kids were waiting in the lobby while their dad and I used the rest rooms and when we got back, one of the theater managers was chatting with them. He was telling them that they were the first quadruplets to attend the show. After the show, a photographer will take pictures of guests with cast members. The manager told us to come over to the picture area and they’d give us a free family picture. (If only the quads could get me free groceries and beer, we’d be in business.) Everyone there was very nice. You can see our picture with Jesus and the angel below.
We found our seats and the show started. Lots of really cool special effects with performers swooping in on wires; live sheep, horses and camels walking up the aisles; lights; smoke; and JESUS! Check out the pictures below–this guy looked like every children’s Bible painting you ever saw. The show was great and the performers were very talented. Every performer and employee at The Miracle Theater is a Christian. You could see the passion on their faces as they sang and spoke.
After the show, the kids had the different cast members autograph items. Each performer had a special Bible verse that they’d put next to their name. It gave the kids a little Bible study to do when we got back to the condo. We took several pictures with the cast members. They were all very accommodating and sweet and patient.
I have to say, I think playing Jesus would be a little stressful. Don’t you think that knowing that all these people saw you as the Son of God would make you feel the need to be good all the time? Even when you’re not on stage? I’d feel like if I ever did anything wrong, someone would be standing there, slack-jawed, horrified that Jesus could possibly have run that red light. Just seems like a lot of pressure.
The guy who plays Satan, on the other hand, must have it easier. Leave a decent tip and people would be commenting, “You know, he may be the Prince of Darkness, but he’s actually a pretty cool guy.” If you acted like a jerk, people would just take it in stride, “That’s Satan for you. [shrug]” He’s even got it better than the guy playing Judas. No one trusts a traitor.
A great weekend was had by all, with lots of pool time with the grandparents and great-aunt and -uncle. (The Sugar Daddy and I even got to satisfy our Krystal cravings. Next trip, we MUST go somewhere with a Zaxby’s. That’s one itch I haven’t been able to scratch in recent months. If you haven’t ever had Zax Sauce, you are missing one of the greatest foods ever.) This was supposed to be part of our grand farewell tour, but turned out to be just another family visit. We have been so blessed with our family (relatively) close by and are looking forward to more chances to see them now that we’re staying here for a while longer.
-
- The Miracle Theater
-
- Camel Jockeys!
-
- Playing Pool
Final Assignment (?)
After two weeks on pins and needles, we think we’ve gotten the last word on where we’ll be. We get to stay here! We don’t know for how long, but at least for one more school year. Guess this means I have to stop the stress eating and drinking. The scale hit a number yesterday that I haven’t seen since I was losing the weight after Baby Girl was born. I’ve been having to wear a lot of sun dresses since my shorts are tight. I look cute, but I know the truth.
We’re hoping to find out today if we get to stay in our house. I asked a friend last week to pray that something would work out that we wouldn’t have to move to another house. The NEXT MORNING, the new renters called to say that they had some other options and would be willing to let us stay. Ain’t God great? We’re just hoping that their other options work out today and we get a definite.
Well, enough of the admin stuff. We just got back from Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and I will be posting pictures and stories about our fun trip!
