The Church Triumphant: Spotlight on St. Gianna Beretta Molla

Happy Thursday all! Today is another installment in The Church Triumphant saint series, and just a few days ago, April 28th, we celebrated the memorial of a favorite of mine, St. Gianna Beretta Molla! Let's talk about her a little bit, shall we? And then I'll tell you why she's so special to me.

St. Gianna is a contemporary saint, she lived from 1922 to 1962. My parents were alive for the last ten-ish years of her life. She was born into a large and devout Italian family, the tenth of thirteen children. Several of her siblings joined the religious life, and Gianna considered that as well, but ultimately decided to pursue medicine as a career, and later married Pietro Molla. She specialized in pediatrics, and was involved in faith-based social groups such as Catholic Action. Her faith was an important part of her life that she brought into her work as a physician, and then as a mother. She and Pietro had three children, when in 1961, she conceived their fourth child. Early on in her pregnancy, she was advised by her doctor that she had a fibrous cyst on her uterus. Eschewing the advice to have an abortion (which would make removal of the cyst less risky) or a hysterectomy, Gianna chose to have the cyst removed and to carry her daughter to term. Following the delivery via cesarean section, Gianna soon developed septic peritonitis and died. This daughter, Gianna Emanuela, also went on to become a physician, inspired by her mother's example. In May 2004, when Gianna was canonized by Pope John Paul II, her husband and two of her daughters were at the ceremony, marking the first time that a husband was present for the canonization of his wife. There is a book memorializing letters between husband and wife, called The Journey of Our Love: The Letters of Saint Gianna Beretta and Pietro Molla. How sweet is that?! (and only $6.99 for Kindle!)

St. Gianna's story touched me as a young woman for several reasons (in fact, my Dominican religious name is Maria Gianna!) She was a lay woman, and let's face it, the majority of saints were religious. I can relate to her very much as a lay Catholic woman working outside of the home, and as a wife and mother. And even before I myself was married and had children, I was so inspired by her example of putting the life of her unborn child ahead of her own. Originally I was under the impression that the mass on her uterus was cancerous, but it was not. However, her being pregnant certainly complicated the situation with removing it, particularly given the medical technology of that time. For her, there was only one option, and that was to ensure that her baby survived. All of her actions were ordered toward this goal. I really admire St. Gianna, and with her countenance so relatable to me, I feel like she's a friend of mine, interceding for me and rooting for me up in heaven. *heart*

Does anyone else have a devotion to St. Gianna Beretta Molla? Do let me know in the comments!

The Catholic Book Club: Vow of Evil (A Sister Joan Mystery)

Happy Catholic Book Club Wednesday everyone! This month I read Vow of Evil by Veronica Black, which is appropriate given the day I had yesterday. And relatedly, the reason why I didn't get to blog yesterday. Read: Evil Reference Shift From Hell After Which I Wanted To Go Home And Cry. Let's just say it involved:

(a) A mean lady,
(b) Some guy talking to himself (who apparently had been disruptive earlier and was threatened with expulsion),
(c) A loud and tension-filled conversation in the middle of the library between another guy and his bank, and
(d) an Arabic/English source reference question that took me an hour to answer.  Good times!

It's one of the dangers of being a librarian. :-\ Evil afoot in the library...*doomy music plays* Instead, I just went home and drank a lot of wine. And I ate tacos. Win!

But at any rate, back to Sister Joan. This is a fantastic series by British author Veronica Black (pseudonym for Maureen Peters), who unfortunately passed away in 2008. Thus, the series comes to a conclusion with Vow of Evil. I read all of the other Sister Joan books one summer a number of years ago, procuring print copies from Amazon long before I had my Kindle. I was addicted, quickly moving from one story to the next. Sister Joan, when the series begins, is 35 years old, a "late vocation" to a fictional, semi-enclosed order called the Daughters of Compassion. She's a feisty little number, and as these things go, gets caught up in a number of local murder cases and helps the police out with solving them. Her personality and interactions with the other sisters is lively, humorous and refreshing, and I found the books a delight to read. Vow of Evil was written in 2004, and back when I was reading the series, this title was not available in print from the American Amazon store. I remember feeling chagrined that I couldn't get my hot little hands on it.

Now, all these years later, I happened upon in on Amazon available for Kindle. Shazam! Downloaded. And this book takes place about 7 years after the last installment in the series ended, so all of the sisters have aged slightly, and Sister Joan has kept out of happening upon dead bodies for a spell. ;-) The short description from Amazon:

It's been some time since Sister Joan of the Order of Daughters of Compassion has had to solve a murder, but there are indications that will soon change. Outbreaks of vandalism in the village coincide with the sighting of a devil in the churchyard and strange candles left burning in the postulancy, now rented out to the Lurgan family.

The Order of the Daughters of Compassion hasn't had any Postulants for a few years, and no new ones are incoming for the next year. The sisters sadly decide to rent out their separate Postulancy building to raise a little money. Meanwhile, Sister Joan notices some strange happenings while she cleans out the structure. She comes across offensive graffiti and defaced library books and wonders who has been sneaking into the old Postulancy? As well, her dog goes missing and is found some distance away, purposely tied up and left there. Once the new tenants arrive, things take an even stranger turn, and the members of the tenant family don't exactly endear themselves to Sister Joan. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the village, an older woman is saying that she has glimpsed a demonic-looking creature in the cemetery. When someone turns up dead, Sister Joan immediately suspects foul play, and that all of the strange occurrences of late are related.

So, my review. Overall, I enjoyed this book. I loved the series as a whole, and I highly recommend it for wholesome, Catholic mysteries. This book did have a few instances of foul language, an FYI if that bothers you. I will grant that it's been about 10 years since I read the other books, but it seems to me that this particular book was a bit different from the others. It felt a little darker, and like our Sister Joan had grown a bit cranky in her 40's. It also got a little slow for me towards the middle. That didn't mar my enjoyment of the book, but I did notice it.

I'm really glad that I got to read this book, since this is the last we'll see of dear Sister Joan. I plan to go back and re-read the other books, since I have lovingly held on to my print copies. Many of them are available for Kindle now, though not all. The ones that aren't are available for Kindle are available via the Amazon Marketplace in print for a penny plus $3.99 shipping. WELL worth it, that's how I acquired my own collection. This site has a very nice rundown of the series, with an overview of the background plus a description of each book, if you'd like to gauge your own interest in the other titles.

Have you read any of the books in the Sister Joan series? Do comment! Tomorrow, I have a saint post planned, oohhhhh! So do come back to join me. :)

Mother and son bowling, and electric candles?! on the 4th Sunday of Easter...

Happy Monday everyone! I'm feeling a bit sleepy, but otherwise quite well. It's rather overcast here today in Western New York, but there's a definitely spring feeling in the air. We'll take it!

As we continue to celebrate Easter, yesterday was no exception to my feelings of happy joy. :) The kids and I made our usual pilgrimage to the 10 am Mass at our parish, and though the Easter flowers dwindle, the spirit pervades! I was amused to note a short message from our pastor in the bulletin. He's doing his best to not step on any toes given how new he is, that dear Fr. Joe, but decisions need to be made, and money is in short supply, so sometimes tough calls have to be issued. Exhibit A: candles.

:0

Change does not come easily in our parish, and people are attached to their devotional candles. You know, the ones you light on a stand near the front or back of the sanctuary, for a special intention, and then you drop a couple of bucks in the donation slot? They are very popular in our parish, and a year ago or so, the price noted for each size of candle increased a bit. Our former pastor put a note in the bulletin saying that the cost associated with the candles is purely their supply cost, the parish does not make any money from them, but the cost had gone up, so obviously those choosing to purchase a candle needed to know this and start making up the difference. That went fine and without much fanfare, it's simple inflation.

Well, apparently the candle costs have gone up *again* and Fr. Joe has decided to make an alternative suggestion. He doesn't want to charge more for the candles, but yet the parish doesn't have the money to make up the difference. He is proposing that we move to, wait for it...electric candles. "They flicker and look very similar to traditional candles!" Precious Fr. Joe. I have no problem with this, but I can just see the Ladies Sodality mobilizing en masse to protect the integrity of traditional candles. We'll have to see how this turns out. ;-)

After Mass, Henry and I were slated to attend a mother/son bowling event sponsored by the parent association at his school. Henry was very excited about this, and I was very excited to spend some solo time with Henry, but if I'm being honest, I wasn't exactly looking forward to the actual bowling in public thing. I haven't bowled since, let's see...the 80's.

*audible gasp from the gallery*

Being a decent bowler at age 13, but then not bowling since then, doesn't really lend itself to a retained skill set, I am here to tell you. But I didn't want to dampen Henry's enthusiasm, so I did my best. As long as I don't humiliate myself in public I'm good.

That sounds like an ominous way to end off that paragraph, but everything went fine. :) Before we got started, I pulled out my camera and attempted to take a selfie of the two of us:

Yeah, that didn't go so well. :0 Henry was a bit scandalized by the thought of taking a real, live photograph IN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE.

"I am humoring my mother, that is all that I am doing."

Henry, the dear, dear, child, has been saddled with my personality. This means that he is shy, introverted and somewhat socially awkward. Don't you wish you had these genes, dear reader?! He is such a sweet boy, but he would never say a word if he didn't have to. While we were waiting for our lane-mates to arrive, we sat side-by-side, totally silent, and happy as clams. Introverts don't need to physically communicate with each other to be soothed by the others' presence, you see. It's part of our behavioral ritual. Our complex and rich non-social infrastructure could be studied for publication in a peer reviewed journal.

;-)

When the others arrived, we did our best to greet them and got started. Henry beat me in both games. :0 Yikes, those bowling skills really don't carry over across decades, do they? I needed to use the special lighter ball because I apparently lack any sort of lower arm throwing strength needed for bowling. But I didn't fall or accidentally throw myself halfway down the lane, or anything like that, so life is grand. I'm not going to reveal my score here, for the sake of protecting at least an ounce of my dignity, but I did manage to pick up two spares, and let it be known that I did NOT have the lowest score on our lane. The fact that the lowest scorer appeared to be about 5 years old did nothing to diminish my joy of victory over this fact.

We had pizza and soda and tons of cookies and a great time was had by all. How was your weekend, dear reader?

7 Quick Takes {Take 77} Spring reading and yarn, 1st Communion rosaries, and dancing with giant veils, edition!

Well, the sun is shining here in Western New York, so that seems springy, right?  The snow that fell yesterday would dispute this fact, but we're ignoring that little detail. What's going on with me this spring week, you ask? Do read on. :)

-1- April book club coming on Wednesday!

Next Wednesday April 29th marks our next edition of the Catholic Book Club, and this month I'm reading Vow of Evil, by Veronica Black, the last in the Sister Joan Mysteries:

I read the other books in this series some years ago, but was unable to procure a copy of this one as it wasn't available via Amazon's U.S. store at that time. Now, happily, it is available for Kindle, so if you'd like to read it, it's downloadable for under $9. And despite the fact that this is a series, the books stand alone, so don't be scared off from reading this by the fact that you haven't dipped into the earlier titles. These are LOVELY books featuring a crime-solving British nun, I mean, did you ever?

-2- And we also have a crime-solving vicar's wife!

I just can't resist such things. I've read previous books in this series, the Berdie Elliott Mysteries (here and here), and for May I have the Catholic Book Club slated to read Into the Clouds: A Berdie Elliott Ascension Mystery, by Marilyn Leach:

I am so tickled that the story is set around the feast of the Ascension, and I picked it for May for just this reason. I have really enjoyed the other books in this series and am excited to get started on this one. The book is just $3.99 to download for Kindle, if you'd like to join in!

-3- Can you even believe this gorgeousness?

A friend of mine (also named Anne, love!) is a talented spinner and dyer of yarn, and she recently hand painted the following bulky weight yarn that I nearly got apoplectic over:

I mean, I LOVE IT. The colors just scream "SPRING!" to me, and if we're not screaming it, I'm afraid the sun may not get the hint and go hide for another 6 months, so we *must* do our part! I immediately messaged her to buy the skeins, and plan a spring cowl from it, plus matching mittens for next fall.

*squeals*

-4- First Communion gifty goodness!

My cousin invited me to her twins' First Communion party, and unfortunately I can't attend. But never fear, perfect gifts are on their way! I live for this stuff. Allison's shop is freshly restocked with lovely rosaries ready to ship, and I thought I'd share the pocket rosaries that I ordered for the twins (a boy and a girl :)). We have Pope Francis in citrine:

...and St. Therese in pink:

Perfect little gifts, yes? I can't wait to send them along.

-5- Summer dance dress is enroute!

My troupe ordered Baladi dresses for our summer festival season, and since they are custom made, there was a small delay in shipment. Finally, they are on their way to us, and I'm terribly excited. Mine is a halter style with a full flared skirt, because we want things to be as twirly as possible, right?! Nothing better than a new dance costume. Except new yarn. Or a new book. But I digress!

-6- And speaking of summer dancing...

Our spring hafla (in studio show for friends and family) is next Saturday, and we're in high rehearsal mode. Excitingly, for the first time, Mike and both kids are coming! Mike has come before, many times, and Henry has seen me dance a few times, but Anne hasn't. I'm very excited! Given that Anne gets down to the Gloria during Mass, I'm thinking she's going to be out of her seat and joining in the dancing fun at a hafla. :0

-7- "Oh, I think somehow a little water got onto our veil?" "No that's sweat, sorry!"

Soooooo, I've been alluding to this dramatic new choreography we have in which my part in the beginning involves me wrapping up into this giant piece of fabric with my troupemate Amy at the other end, and then we twirl out to do this carousel-like spinning sequence with it. Eventually, we fluff it up airbourne so that other dancers can enter from beneath it. It sounds really cool, but let me tell you, this whole thing has got me really stressed out. :0 Lots of room for error here, and I *really* don't want to get stuck in this thing, and/or trip over it, and/or somehow become engulfed in a wave of hot pink fabric and subsequently fall off the stage. Hence, every time we wrap up in the veil to get started, I'm perspiring. As demurely as possible, I assure you, and this would be the TMI portion of our post today, sorry, should have warned you! But at any rate, poor Amy has now learned of this reality, and so as we wrap up, we both try to think non-sweating thoughts, but it isn't easy, dear reader. The dancing life is decidedly not stress-free, apparently! But we're persevering. We're busting out this new choreography at the hafla as a bit of a trial run for summer festivals, and here's a raised glass to not humiliating myself! Or sweating in public.

All right, I gotta jet. Have a great weekend, everyone, talk to you on Monday! And don't forget to check out more 7 Quick Takes at This Ain't the Lyceum!

"How do you work this thing?! Eh, I'll just start dancing." *3 minutes elapse* "Oh. It wasn't recording." Adventures in dancing when you're clueless...

Yep, that would be ME. An enthusiastic dancer wanting to improve her performance skills, but clearly lacking in focus and technological abilities. What the heck am I talking about? Well, let's settle and allow the humorous anecdotes to fly.

*procures tea*

I have a bunch of dance performances coming up, including some in which I'll dance *gulps* solo. That has been the most intimidating part of performing more frequently for me; it's not dancing with my troupe, it's the solo thing. And the solo thing is totally voluntary, so I'm bringing this on myself. But I know that the only way to improve upon things that you truly care about is to challenge yourself. If I only did things that never take me out of my comfort zone, well, that wouldn't be any fun for blogging fodder, would it? ;-) But more importantly, I'd never improve upon where I'm at. I love dancing, it brings me joy. Why would I want to accept wallowing in the comfortable when I can expand into a much vaster universe of fabulousness? Well, hopefully. :0

And so every year, I dance solo at least twice. This year, it may be more, so I took stock of where I'm at with my solo dancing:  I'm comfortable improvising, I don't need to choreograph anymore, which allows me to be a bit more spontaneous. And for someone as uptight as I am, spontaneity is clutch. ;-) I also make a concerted effort to smile whenever I think of it, to make for a more inviting performance. Nobody likes to watch a dancer who appears to be tortured by the very fact that she is forced to dance in front of US FREAKING PEOPLE. She (or he!) is just nervous of course, but that's the way it appears, and I want to do my best to guard against that.

AND, that's pretty much the size of it. I do well, but could I do better? A million times, yes. :) So I used my little brain to think of ways that I could further improve upon my performance skills. Hark! I have a smartphone now. I can video myself! This way I can see the areas in which I could improve.

That is what I did, and I am here to tell you, dear reader, that watching yourself dance on video is FANTASTICALLY painful:

"Those arms *again*. Do I know no other arms?!"

"What is my face doing there? Oh dear, that isn't good. I look like some nefarious odor has just wafted in"

"My hands, good heavens. The infamous Stupid Hands! Mine could certainly be smarter!!"

I will say though, that it is HELPFUL. It's not pleasant, let's be clear, but in 7 years of Middle Eastern dance, this is the most powerful mechanism I've ever enlisted to improve my own dancing. Of course, this applies only when I use my smartphone video functionality *correctly*. I was halfway through my music yesterday when the screen went dark and I realized that I had never actually hit the Record button.

D'oh.

In tandem with this fun video project, I have been watching lots of YouTube videos of *other* professional dancers. This is also super helpful. I watch dancers that I really admire, and think: what are they doing that makes me enjoy their performance so much? And so I have determined that the thing I need to focus on more is...

*drum roll*

My face. :0 I do smile when I dance, but I need to smile MORE. Infinitely more! When the dancer looks confident, assured and joyful when she dances, THAT'S what I enjoy watching, and what all audiences enjoy watching. The actual movements, sure. I enjoy watching dancers who coordinate movements to perfectly compliment their music, yes. But again, that comes back to confidence. It's that *combination* of confidence and really beautifully interpreting your music that makes a performance so compelling.

And so, when you take your brain away from worrying about what your body is doing while you're dancing...

"Why did I just do that stupid hip drop, I already did about 10 of those in the past 30 seconds, what is wrong with me?! And, man! There went that accent and I was right in the middle of a travel step to nowhere. Blast!"

...you can just focus on being in the moment and letting the music guide your movements. I *know* that I spend a lot of time in my own head when I'm performing: "Ok, I'm doing this, but what am I going to do NEXT? I don't want to look stupid!" Looking stupid is pretty much my worst fear in life. ;-) Sort of like when people list public speaking first on their list of fears, above DEATH. We all fear being up in front of others and making a fool of ourselves more than death. Yes, yes and yes.

So I've realized that I need to keep things simpler. My legs and hips will do *something* relevant and of interest even when I'm not obsessing over them. What I need to keep my mind on is:

"What is my face doing? Am I smiling? If the music is more serious, do I have my 'pleasant face' on?"

Because if I don't have my 'pleasant face' on, the default seems to be "I MAY TURN YOU INTO KUMQUATS WITH THE POWER OF MY GAZE!" face. :0 I look SO super serious. That's my 'thinking face' it seems. Alas, I have to live with it; it's the only face God gave me. :)

When I'm thinking too much about what I'm doing, that's when *the face* comes out, and that's what I have to eliminate. As I videoed myself, working more and more on only thinking about my emotional reaction to the music and how my face is responding, I could see a huge improvement in my performance persona.

And THAT led me to change my music. I dance to a lot to kicky, fast instrumentals and Arabic pop music, because it's busy and fun. But this time I'm dancing to "New Baladi" by Mario Kirlis, which has much slower instrumental sections than I'm used to. But it's a perfect song to try out my new goal of slowing things down and focusing more on how the music inspires me. Because it does. And I don't need to worry about what I'm going to do next, because when I listen to that song my body knows what to do. Thus I can focus on just being in the moment and letting my face remain relaxed and joyful.

Of course, this required that I go into the dreaded AUDACITY (appropriate name *glares*) and trim the music, because it was a hair too long to be hafla-friendly. The resulting inappropriate language I will not repeat here, but let's just say that after an hour of struggle, I have an edited song that is 4 minutes long and that I'm pretty happy with.

*round of applause*

So, the videoing continues:

"What's my face doing?! Man, it's not listening again!"

But each time I notice a small improvement. I'm essentially retraining my brain to focus on different things when I dance. We'll get there. At least I can watch the videos now without cringing. Much. :0

I've got rehearsals with the troupe both tonight and tomorrow, and the hafla is a week from Saturday. Zoinks! I'll report in. :)

Have a complicated life situation that you'd like to unravel? Join me in a novena!

Good morning all! I've written about my devotion to Our Lady Undoer of Knots before, but I thought it bore repeating today since this is officially day 1 of the novena as organized by Pray More Novenas. With that site, you can sign up to receive an email each day with the prayers all included, and of course it also serves double duty as a reminder so that you don't forget a day. Though, who is it out there *forgetting* days in a novena and then scrambling to "catch up" on days or otherwise counting a novena as two full weeks to make up for neglected days? Slackers!

*look of innocence*

I know that I absolutely love Pray More Novenas and I'm permanently signed up for all of their novenas. I don't pray all of them (sometimes I'm praying another novena at the time, or otherwise focusing on something different at the time) but I do pray most of them. They put out about one a month, and I love the feeling that I'm praying along with a much larger community.

And Our Lady Undoer of Knots is just such a favorite of mine. Especially thorny situation in your life that's been festering along for nigh a decade? Something you're super worried about, and you don't see how it could turn out particularly well? All perfect fodder for Our Lady Undoer of Knots. I can just see Mary, our mother, up in heaven as I type:

"Good grief, she's done it *again*. Time for another intervention!"

:0

So if you're intrigued, do go sign up! We can pray together, and today is the perfect day to get started.

Some amusing dance updates have transpired this week, and I plan a dancey post for tomorrow, so come one back if you enjoy those! But in the meantime, if you're praying the Our Lady Undoer of Knots novena, leave a comment and let me know!

Mother's Day gift ideas?

I need serious ideas here, people, so let's put our thinking caps on. ;-) Mother's Day is fast approaching, and each year I struggle with what to get my dear Mommy. She's one of those people that feels hard to buy for, although she isn't particularly fussy about items she receives as gifts, so I don't why I fret over this so much. But my superpower is to turn ordinary, everyday tasks into Anxiety Levels Worthy Of Classification As A Cardiovascular Activity, so there you have it.

I've seen two things that have caught my eye, but then I want your creative energy to chime in. :) One is this lovely embroidered rosette necklace from Call Her Happy:

She'll customize it to the number and gender of the children of the mom in question, which I think is perfect. My mom has three girls and loves purple, so voila! This is almost certainly going to get ordered.

If you're of the persuasion to make jewelry, I saw this Peas in a Pod Bracelet as an inspiration project on Fusion Beads:

I happen to have two sisters, but you could add or subtract beads accordingly depending upon the mother. I'm feeling a bit lazy about making jewelry these days, but I thought it was a nice idea for a Mother's Day gift.

So. I need your ideas. :) Lay 'em on me!

Things are really blooming, on the 3rd Sunday of Easter...

A daffodil! It's a miracle!

Happy Monday to you all! How are you this fine spring day of Easter season? I'm at work, so you know, I could be better. ;-) But it was a lovely weekend, and I hope that you had one as well.

Yet more flowers blooming in our yard this week, including this lovely daffodil. I had a perfect photo framed in my smartphone of Anne sniffing the daffodil, but some sort of automatic focusing feature very boldly took over my camera and by the time it had finished its bossiness, Anne had long since moved on. Bummer.

We arrived at Mass yesterday to find a bulletin chock full of upcoming parish activities, and I have to say that I absolutely love our new pastor. He's very social and friendly, and I can tell that he is really trying to get to know everyone and inject some life into the community. Starting in May, there will be a monthly coffee and doughnuts gathering after the 10 am Mass where Father will be present for lively conversation. I am very much looking forward to this and am thinking of even calling the number listed for volunteers to help with these.

Indeed, Fr. Joe came over to chat with us following Mass, but let me circle back for a moment since I'm jumping ahead, as I'm wont to do. :) I am loving the readings from Acts that we focus on during Easter, and Mass was as joyful as ever. When I brought Anne back to the sacristy for the inevitably demanded trip to the restroom, I noticed some wilting Easter flowers back there, the true sign of our progress through this liturgical season - lily weeding. :0 But the church just has a different feel to it during Easter, just such a sense of satisfied joy.

After Mass, the kids and I stopped to chat with our friend Kendra, and that's when Fr. Joe wandered over from his spin around to any lingerers. He's newly back from a short vacation, so we got the scoop on that. Priests have real lives too, who knew? ;-) We talked to Kendra extensively about her senior project art show, which had been the following evening at a local gallery. She's about to graduate with a bachelor's degree in Art, her specialty is drawing and painting, and so Henry, Anne and I went to support her. It was hard to see everything because it was VERY crowded, but it was a lovely event, and she is very talented. I saw several other people there from our parish, including her parents and a couple people from the music ministry, and I'm really feeling like I'm getting to know people now outside of Mass, which is so, so lovely.

The only one not enjoying all of this post-Mass sense of community is poor, long suffering Henry, who sits politely by with a "can we go now?!" face. It's not easy being 9. :)

Mike and I also had a really nice date night this weekend, aided by the fact that the kids spent the night over at their grandparent's house. This was hard on Mommy who has never had Anne spend the night somewhere besides home, aside from our anniversary getaway back in January. It's always hard with that first sleepover, I remember it from when Henry was littler too. So I struggled a bit with the two empty bedrooms for that night, but Mike and I went out for a nice dinner and a movie, and that time together is always so valuable.

How was your weekend, dear reader?

7 Quick Takes {Take 76} Elements of a wacky dance performance, edition...

Happy Friday all! No Catholic content today, this will be a dance focused post, so for those who are interested in such frivolity, welcome! :) My troupe had a performance last night at a college cultural night, and as ever, it was amusing. This is my 5th year dancing with the troupe, so I've been to lots of these, by which I mean public performances. They are very different from dancing at a hafla, which is essentially a studio-wide recital, wherein your audience is the family and friends of the dancers. In a public performance, your audience is the people attending the event you're dancing at, and they may or may not be (a) into dancing, and/or (b) nice. :0 Like I mentioned, I've been to lots of these, and experienced the full gamut of possibilities from: Awesome! to Will This Music Never Be Over?! One of our troupe members, however, is new to our group, and while she danced with us at the last hafla, this was her first, what I term "crazy, public performance." She was pretty wide eyed about the whole thing, as was I the first time I danced at one of these, and understandably so. Because you never know what you're gonna get! And so what were the 7 elements to this particular performance, which do seem so common at many others? Settle in. :)

-1- Rain, rain go away...

We weren't dancing outside (this time), but there was a decent amount of walking outside to get from the parking lot to our destination, and it was raining. Rain = soggy dance coverups, which really isn't a good look, and it also means that Tiffany's hair goes into gigantic expansion mode. Also not a good look. But persevere we must.

-2- "Why are there women wearing voluminous hot pink mumus on the stairway landing?! Never mind, we don't really need to go upstairs after all."

Given how many different choreographies we now perform on a rotating basis, and how many formation changes we inevitably need to make for each event to accommodate for absent members, it's a little nerve wracking right before we perform. Do I remember everything? Do I remember the *new* everything, now that I'm in totally different spots than usual?! So we usually try to find a discreet spot to run through problem areas right before we dance. Last night, we found a back staircase with a decent sized landing, so we clomped down there in our giant pink coverups to practice. Apparently though, this back stairway wasn't all that secret, because several groups of people saw us and immediately hurried off. Even after we were finished and were just congregated on there chatting, people would approach the stairs, see us, and quickly back away. I guess we're kind of scary. ;-)

-3- *peeks in room* "OK, the audience appears ____" (Fill in blank with either (a) dead, or (b) unbelievably rowdy. No option (c) ever materializes :0)

I don't know why, but there isn't much middle ground with audiences at these events. People are either completely silent, such that you fear they are actively hating you and plotting their escape from this torture of watching you dance (they're likely just very polite and feel it's improper to move or make noise during a performance, but there you have it), OR they are completely off-the-wall loud and boisterous. For whatever reason, there usually aren't further alternatives. In the case of last night, we had...

-4- "YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!" *enthusiastic whooping noises and clapping* That would be option (b), rowdy :0

Don't get me wrong, I'm appreciative. It's just that when college students are that enthusiastic about a dance performance, I suspect that they were three sheets to the wind before even arriving. I will say that they were *super polite* after we danced, coming over to us to tell us how great they thought the numbers were and how much they enjoyed it. And they didn't appear drunk or disorderly. So maybe they really did love us because we're just that good. ;-) But YEAH, they were into it. People were dancing in their seats and clapping in time to the music. Our kicky drum piece even ramped that enthusiasm up to the next decibel. So you could say it went very well.

Us in motion. I love these ladies.

-5- "Does anybody want to participate in a short demo class, to learn some movements of Middle Eastern dance?" *suddenly everybody is super shy*

 In between our sets, Claire taught a demo class. Inevitably, there is always resistance to this, even amongst enthusiastic audiences. Getting up and dancing in front of people isn't so easy, yes indeed, I am well aware. :) So even our loud college fans had to be coaxed a bit to get some volunteers. Claire is very good at this though, and within minutes she had a crowd up there with her. So that went well too. But then...

-6- "I'm going to let the music keep running. Improvise, and try to get people up to dance with you!"

 Let's all groan together, shall we? Improvising is no problem for me, but I don't want to have to actually (a) talk to anybody, or (b) interact with them in any meaningful way. #introvert! But we are often tasked with doing this at these public events. And the thing is, people are either jumping out of their chair wanting to dance, which is easy, or glued to their seat in terror that you are going to ask them to dance. Me? I don't want to do anything above smiling at you winningly and dancing in your general vicinity. Unless someone comes over to me, I *really don't want to go over to you.* It's just my lot in life as a shy person. I have no problem making stuff up as I go along and dancing around a full perimeter of the room, that's what makes Middle Eastern dance so fun, in my opinion. But this interaction thing gives me hives every single time.

And so for our second set, we danced our new Shaabi piece, and then the dreaded moment came: we struck our final post, and the music kept playing, so we all reluctantly improvised our way out to the crowd. The room had thinned a bit during the demo lesson, so our most enthusiastic supporters weren't there. This was a definite problem. As I improvised my way around the room, I could see some of my troupemates bravely trying to convince people to get up and dance, and getting petrified-looking rejections for their efforts. For my part, I just kept dancing and prayed for the music to end. It didn't.

:0

But I made it. Eventually, a few people got up and we made the most of that. Then we were done. Glory be.

-7- Sweat sets in...

 It was chilly in the room we were dancing in, but as soon as we were done, I realized how warm and sorta gross I was. :0

Exhausted selfie

We worked hard, but it went smashingly well, so who can complain? Back out to the rain we went, pink coverups blowing in the breeze. All glamor, all the time. ;-)

More dance fun to come in just over 2 weeks at our spring hafla! Then festival season sets in, and the real adventure begins. Stay tuned!

If you're still reading, thanks for hanging with me in this dance-themed 7 Quick Takes! It's a passion of mine, and I hope that you enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoy writing about it. I'll talk to you all on Monday, but in the meantime, check out more 7 Quick Takes over at This Ain't the Lyceum!

"Tiffany, why don't you just GO!" Adventures in introvertism...

Yes, I talk to myself. Usually just in my own head, although if I'm in the car alone, I'll sometimes vocalize. ;-) And is "introvertism" even a word? According to my spell check it isn't, but that's another part of the talking-to-self thing: I don't care. I can make up as MANY words as I want, and nobody can correct me!

*goes hog wild*

But at any rate, one of the things I berate myself over is that I don't get out more. There are things that I genuinely WANT to do, want to attend, but yet...I don't. I think this is part of the Introvert Mystique: We're homebodies, we like to stay in. And when we do get out, even to things we genuinely enjoy, we cannot wait to get back home to our Safe and Comfortable Place. Which is our couch, of course. With a book and a glimmering glass of your beverage of choice. Chatting with your friends on social media is also a strong possibility, which is totally fine with your introverted sensibilities since a device stands between you and them and you can control the asynchronous flow of the conversation.

#ironic

OK, so ANYWAY. One of the things that I want to do more often, and I emphasize this to myself annually whenever my brain and I have this particular conversation, is to attend the ballet. I take the kids to see The Nutcracker each year, which is fabulous, but there are SO many other good productions that come through town that I rarely attend. We have a beautiful historic theater downtown, where my mom and I saw Phantom of the Opera last month, but there is also a Center for the Arts at the university for which I work. Each semester, I look at their schedule of performances and think how I'd like to attend 1-2 of them, and then I never buy tickets. And the tickets are SO reasonable! We're talking $30 or less for the best seats in the house.

This year, I finally seized the moment. I asked both my mom and my mother-in-law if they'd like to go see The Sleeping Beauty, which is one of the three great Tchaikovsky ballets that I've never seen and have always wanted to. My mom is in Albany at a work conference and couldn't go, but my mother-in-law could, and so off I went on a gorgeous spring day to fetch our tickets, and last night was the performance.

BEAUTIFUL. It was the Russian National Ballet Theatre, and they did an outstanding job. Some of the principal dancers were exquisite, particularly the man dancing the role of the Bluebird. And the ballerina dancing the role of Aurora: oh my. To dance like that! Stunning.

We went out to dinner first at a Middle Eastern restaurant and then on to the ballet. By Act II I was a bit tired, as it was a Wednesday night (but the only night that this ballet was in town), yet it was SO worth it. I had a fantastic time! And I loved seeing the ballet and reading up more on it in the program.

And so I talked to myself again in my head on the way home. ;-) I absolutely am going to do this again next season when the new schedule comes out. If I notice a ballet that I'd like to see, I'm going to buy tickets. Boom! I need to do more of that, every single year.

Speaking of dancing, I'm slated to do my own (not nearly so exquisite) version tonight at this cultural shindig with my troupe. Here's lifting a glass to not humiliating myself! I'll report in tomorrow. :)