Did You Notice The Weekend That Just Flew By?

I like to think of myself as a man of contradictions. One of the major ones is that I love to stay busy, but I also love to just sit and read and relax. Agnes does her part to make sure I stay busy and don't have to worry about wasting time sitting and relaxing...one of the phrases I dread hearing is "We need to..." which is Agnes for "Get off your wide, lazy butt and get this done!"

Sometimes, though, Agnes doesn't need any help keeping me busy. This past weekend was a prime example.

After getting home late Friday night after the weekly dance party at Studio One, on Saturday morning we were up at (for a weekend) the very crack of dawn to be able to meet our dance coach at 9:00 AM in Bethesda, Maryland for two hours of work on our International-style dancing. When the coaching session was over, we each hauled a change of clothes out of our carry bags and did a quick change in the rest room, then raced across DC and down into Virginia to get to the 1:00 PM memorial service for one of our acquaintances who had passed away recently.

Well, okay, one doesn't race across Washington, DC, which is where all the extra traffic lights and stop signs that aren't being used elsewhere in the country are stored. We lurched from intersection to intersection, finally arriving at our destination (no particular thanks to Map Quest) at about 12:15 PM.

We'd agreed to help one of our friends set up for the reception after the service, a task complicated by the fact that no one seemed to know quite how many people were going to be there. Agnes and I, our friend, and her brother, did our best imitations of whirling dervishes as we unpacked dishes and silverware, prepared food trays, rushed everything from the downstairs staging area to the upstairs reception room, and tried to estimate the size of the milling crowd.

In the end, we never did make it to the memorial service (although we did hear parts of it through an open door as we frantically tried to organize the reception). We had food and drinks for about 300 people...of whom roughly 100 actually came. Everything came off all right, but it was quite a frantic production right up to the moment everyone started crossing the hall from the church to the reception...and it culminated with more frantic flailing later as we desperately tried to clean everything up for the next group scheduled to use the rooms.

We slept well that night.

Yesterday morning was fairly quiet, and at 3:00 we presented ourselves at Dance Studio Lioudmila to participate in that studio's Winter Showcase. It was quite a large affair, with over 60 amateur and professional dance exhibitions organized in four groups. Agnes and I danced our crowd-pleasing Cha-Cha routine in the third group; Agnes then did a quick change into one of her long gowns to dance an International Tango routine with Phil, one of her students, in the fourth group.

We had a great time, and I even managed to remember our routine and dance it with few mistakes, all of which were recoverable. The best part of the day, though, came after the Showcase - two young children, a little girl of about 3 and a little boy (in trousers, white shirt, and vest) did their own dancing on the now-empty floor...she did a wonderful job of dragging his reluctant form around the room in vague time to the music still playing in the background. I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera!

After all was over, we got home about 9:30...just in time for Agnes to feed Punky while I ironed my shirt for work today. By the time the shirt was done, it was time to take Punky for her final walk of the day.

And then time to collapse into bed.

And here we are again. It's Monday. Punky's ready to go out again, another work week looms, and Mr Bush delivers his final (woo-hoo!) State of the Union address tonight. According to CNN, the speech will run about 42 minutes, but I can't imagine it can take that long to say "awful." Then again, I'm not a politician (with apologies to all the readers who think I should run for president).

I need a vacation.

Well, gotta run. I hope your weekend was pleasant and enjoyable, and that the coming week will be good for you.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

P.S. - Thought for the day: "Conservative, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal, who wishes to replace them with others." - Ambrose Bierce