Chalk and Excuses

Oh, I know, I know. It's been a few days. But I have a good excuse! In the last four days I have taken my cat to the vet three times (including once at midnight) and my car got broken in to. Sigh... I am still going to class, though! And still being rheumatificated. So, I can count any down time as research and development, yes?

Anyway. This story is vaguely ballet related:
Over Labor Day weekend my city holds an annual chalk art festival that is a lot of fun and usually means that I will be spending at least two of the three days eating massive snow cones and listening to indie music. My husband and I have gone every year since we met (awwwwww).
This festival involves a lot of people creating large works of sometimes-art-sometimes-I-just-don't-even on the sidewalks around a park. The art is sponsored by various businesses and organizations around town. There is almost always a ballet themed piece because the local professional company is a sponsor. Sometimes the final piece of art is really cool. Sometimes... errrr... not so much. But it's chalk, dudes, you don't have to feel  bad about it. When we stopped by on Sunday afternoon I didn't see any ballet art being made, though, and I was kind of bummed. So when we went back on Monday to check out the now finished (or nearly finished) art I didn't bother bringing my camera, or even my phone. Which I immediately regretted when I saw the three or four adorable teenage dancers in (now horrifically covered in colorful chalk dust) dead pointe shoes over ankle socks gridding out their tardy but quite ballet-themed hunk of sidewalk. It would have made for some really amazing close-up cropped photographs, I am sure.
I contemplated going back home and getting my camera... but then the sky opened right the heck up and suddenly it was POURING rain. And all those lovely, ephemeral artworks... trickled away in to the grass.

To my infinite disgust I have been unable to find a single freaking picture of it online. How is it possible that  of the hundreds of people wandering around taking photographs at the drop of a hat not a single one of them thought "hey, this would be a cool picture!" when they saw those girls. It kills me, it really does.

The courage of men TOTALLY fails

Sitting up late nursing a headache and waiting for the cat to calm down so I can administer subcutaneous fluids (YUCK, guys. Yuck.) and watching grainy and slightly (okay more than slightly) crooked videos of our studio's ballet recital (last Saturday) on YouTube. Thinking to myself oh how pretty they all look! And also OH I am glad I didn't try to do that. Seriously, guys. I get lost during tendus at the barre, trying to remember an actual ballet variation would be an exercise in ridiculousness. Especially right now with the moving and the cat stuff (and the gas tank on my commute vehicle being drained on two out of the past 3 work day mornings, and the plumbers in and out of the place every other day, and the having to work overtime several days a week, and and and...) I don't think my brain has room for choreography.
Maybe someday (as Aragorn once said) but it is not this day.

circle to the right

This is the floor next to the barre. The glare from the overhead lights makes it hard to see, but I find the row of perfectly aligned half-circles directly next to the seam to be pretty fascinating. That is a lot of pointe shoes doing a lot of rond de jambes! I always use that seam as a way to place myself the correct distance from the barre. If my working leg just touches the seam with the end of my toes then I am about right.

Why Ballet?

Why did I decide to take ballet? Again? Hmm. Let's see. I love dancing, so I just really wanted to take some form of dance class. I have been looking pensively at studio web sites for the last six years or so (when I moved away from my suburban home and my community center belly dance class). I tried a few times to convince my husband (for whom, bless his heart, physical coordination is an afterthought) to take tango lessons but that was obviously not ever going to happen. I attempted to take a belly dance class with a friend of mine a couple of years back, but when we got to the studio the teacher and students were, and I am not kidding here, toking up on a bong in the classroom between sessions. I mean WHAT. There is another studio in my immediate area that does belly dance classes, but the instructor is an old nemesis of mine from back when I worked in retail. Woman is obnoxious. So I tried to find any kind of dance class at a community center or something... but there wasn't anything available for adults.
And then I went online and saw pretty ballet shoes.
Again.
It is my fatal flaw. I first decided I had to take ballet years ago when I ran across Gaynor Minden's website. I don't even know how I landed there. I just did. And then it was all photos of pointe shoes and pink ribbons and the logic center in my brain just turned right the heck off. This time I am pretty sure it was looking at the product photo for these Grishko technique shoes. I just died a little inside.
My natural dancing style is very unrefined. Far more Isadora Duncan than Darcy Bussell. I am particularly fond of dancing around to Florence and the Machine right now. In a sort of wild modern-slash-ballet hybrid. It's pretty ridiculous.