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this is exactly the kind of Saturday I have been needing for a long time. I slept in, though not as late as I would have liked*, sent M off to his recording session, ate a leisurely breakfast. Then I took a walk to Walgreen's when the rain had stopped to pick up a new pair of gardening gloves, since one of my old pair seems to have disappeared from the front hallway. I blame the moving company hired by the upstairs neighbors. On the way back from Walgreen's, since it still wasn't raining, I stopped by Spy Pond and wandered around a bit. Because of the weather there was hardly anyone there, but since it still wasn't raining it was quite pleasant, if overcast. I can't remember when the last time i had time to take detours was. A northern shoveler came to see what he could cadge from me as I sat on a shoreline rock, but I had nothing to give him. He hung out with me for a while anyway, even though I lectured him on the need for wild birds to be self-sufficient and told him that begging was really not becoming. I don't know, maybe he was happy that finally somebody got it and was pleased to be getting some respect as a wild bird. Across the lake I could see the pair of swans** and around me flitted various sparrows and wren-like birds that I could not identify without my glasses, plus they kept on flitting which made them hard to see.
After getting bit by a few too many bugs, I wandered over to the Greek corner store and picked up frittata materials for dinner, as well as some odd ring shaped biscuits that turned out to be very tasty and very low fat as well. Yay for sort of healthy snacks! Then, warmed up by my walking, I ran through my routine for tomorrow night's Middle East show (Zay el Howa, violin and qanoun taqsims, same drum solo as from last night), which went well enough the first time through that I decided to leave well enough alone. Then did both the upper and lower body theraband workouts. I can't tell today whether my body is screaming for time off or is having the kind of stiffness that needs to be worked through, so the therabands seemed like a good halfway point. Now, I relax and eye the stack of netflix dvds that came in today.
Dancing at the birthday party last night was quite fun. I was looking forward to it because I knew many of the people there hadn't seen me dance in a long time, and possibly never seen me do an Arabic style show. It was *wonderful* to have loads of space around me for canework, I could do stuff I'd never be able to do at the Middle East but still feel like I had that audience closeness, without the remove of a stage. One of the hosts said to me later "you didn't come over for tips!" and was sad about that--note to self, when dancing for non-Arabic crowds, the tippers do not come to you. For Arabs, and for people who hang out in Arab venues, part of tipping is not just giving the dancer some money but also making a show of yourself as a generous patron, so they come to you, or you meet them halfway. Directly seeking tips is not something I'm super comfortable with at this point--see remarks to northern shoveler above--but it's probably something I should work on. Or not. I guess I'd rather get fewer tips but more respect from those with cultural knowledge. But then again, a party situation is something different, and if tipping makes people happy but they don't want to make a show of it... well, food for thought.
After performing I happily continued dancing to Siouxsie, Qntal, Collide, Nick Cave, etc. Happy happy me. It's funny though how one can be self-conscious about being the only person on the dance floor when it's just regular dancing, but perfectly comfortable on that same floor when one is performing and everybody is definitely looking.
*our air conditioner is the type that circulates air in the room rather than sucking in air from outside and relies on the outside air being pretty hot in order for its condensation system to work. so when the temperature dropped sometime in the middle of the night (well, the early morning, I guess, since we went to bed at about 2:30), the ac ceased being efficient and so the room became unpleasantly hot and stuffy and was probably warmer than outside. This is annoying, but it's an otherwise energy efficient model, so we put up with it.
**I noticed earlier in the week when I saw the swans on the Little River by the bike path (they eat the alewives once the alewife runs begin) that they had no babies with them, unlike previous years. This is most likely directly correlated with the dramatic increase in snapping turtle sightings; baby waterbirds are one of their favorite meals. Which is a good thing where the Canada geese are concerned, they clearly need a predator or two, but makes me sad about the swans.
After getting bit by a few too many bugs, I wandered over to the Greek corner store and picked up frittata materials for dinner, as well as some odd ring shaped biscuits that turned out to be very tasty and very low fat as well. Yay for sort of healthy snacks! Then, warmed up by my walking, I ran through my routine for tomorrow night's Middle East show (Zay el Howa, violin and qanoun taqsims, same drum solo as from last night), which went well enough the first time through that I decided to leave well enough alone. Then did both the upper and lower body theraband workouts. I can't tell today whether my body is screaming for time off or is having the kind of stiffness that needs to be worked through, so the therabands seemed like a good halfway point. Now, I relax and eye the stack of netflix dvds that came in today.
Dancing at the birthday party last night was quite fun. I was looking forward to it because I knew many of the people there hadn't seen me dance in a long time, and possibly never seen me do an Arabic style show. It was *wonderful* to have loads of space around me for canework, I could do stuff I'd never be able to do at the Middle East but still feel like I had that audience closeness, without the remove of a stage. One of the hosts said to me later "you didn't come over for tips!" and was sad about that--note to self, when dancing for non-Arabic crowds, the tippers do not come to you. For Arabs, and for people who hang out in Arab venues, part of tipping is not just giving the dancer some money but also making a show of yourself as a generous patron, so they come to you, or you meet them halfway. Directly seeking tips is not something I'm super comfortable with at this point--see remarks to northern shoveler above--but it's probably something I should work on. Or not. I guess I'd rather get fewer tips but more respect from those with cultural knowledge. But then again, a party situation is something different, and if tipping makes people happy but they don't want to make a show of it... well, food for thought.
After performing I happily continued dancing to Siouxsie, Qntal, Collide, Nick Cave, etc. Happy happy me. It's funny though how one can be self-conscious about being the only person on the dance floor when it's just regular dancing, but perfectly comfortable on that same floor when one is performing and everybody is definitely looking.
*our air conditioner is the type that circulates air in the room rather than sucking in air from outside and relies on the outside air being pretty hot in order for its condensation system to work. so when the temperature dropped sometime in the middle of the night (well, the early morning, I guess, since we went to bed at about 2:30), the ac ceased being efficient and so the room became unpleasantly hot and stuffy and was probably warmer than outside. This is annoying, but it's an otherwise energy efficient model, so we put up with it.
**I noticed earlier in the week when I saw the swans on the Little River by the bike path (they eat the alewives once the alewife runs begin) that they had no babies with them, unlike previous years. This is most likely directly correlated with the dramatic increase in snapping turtle sightings; baby waterbirds are one of their favorite meals. Which is a good thing where the Canada geese are concerned, they clearly need a predator or two, but makes me sad about the swans.
