Rumba Dance Exhibition, Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Or PANIC IN THE TRENCHES

Thursday night (April 8), Dennis got a call from the president of the Ocala Dance Club.  The message simply said, "Call me".  I asked Den if he had any idea what it might be about; did he think maybe someone had complained that we had been too affectionate on the dance floor, or something.  Of course, he didn't know.

So Friday the 9th, he talks with Joe and Joe asks if Den would do a dance exhibition for the club.  The couple who had been scheduled, cancelled.  The performance would be on Tuesday night, the 13th.  Well, Dennis doesn't say no very well, so he figured he could call me and I'd say it for him.  We danced around it for a bit with, "Well, do you want to do it?"  "I don't know, what do you want to do?"  Finally, I said if he thought we could do it without embarrassing ourselves, I would try.

Dennis left a message for our dance instructor, Trish, to please call, but she didn't.  So, Friday night we wrote down a list of all the moves we have in rumba, three of which we had just been shown in our intermediate rumba class on Thursday night.  We didn't really HAVE the moves, we just had an idea of how they worked.  Then we put everything we knew together in a string.

Saturday the 10th we practiced again but since we hadn't heard from Trish, Den called Joe Mounts, another ballroom dance teacher.  He returned the call immediately and said he'd come to my house on Sunday to help us.  Bless his heart.

Sunday the 11th, we had at least a very full hour with Joe.  He cleaned up my turns, showed me how to do one of the new moves correctly, and tweaked the ending.  Then we practiced for another couple of hours.

Monday the 12th, I kept working on my turns and the move called fan and hockey stick.  I wasn't stepping correctly although sometimes I'd get it right.  I wasn't happy with that, so I repeated it until the right way was the only way I could do it.  Practice, practice, practice.  We got together again that night and worked on it until we did it three times without messing up.

On Tuesday morning, 7:45, Trish called Den and told him she forbid him using the new moves she had just shown us in class the previous week.  She said, "Linda doesn't have the footwork or the turns and she has no styling.  It will look ridiculous."  Den said, "Okay."  Of course, it was too late to change anything.  And then it was showtime.

I didn't have time to get nervous.  I just did it.  

Dennis is such a good dancer, he makes me look much better than I am.  His leads were perfect and he remembered the sequence of moves.  We had a good time while we were performing and I think it showed.  I enjoy dancing with him so much.

It was funny how the men admired the way he rose slowly from the kneeling position with only my finger under his chin.  And it was impressive.  He's very fit and his legs are really strong for any age, much less 60.  

Remodeling Week Seven 4/5 - 4/11

Charlie laid the flooring in the sunroom, at last.  Troy is pretty sure he sealed the source of the water intrusion.

We added some trim around the Neuma doors in the bedroom.

Here's Troy and Jerritt after they hung my swing.

And here are the "finished" pictures.

*sigh*

FINALLY

Remodeling Week Six 3/29 - 4/4

March 28th there was a very strong thunderstorm that passed through and I had leaks.  Not from the ceiling but seeping along the floor.  Argh!  Troy and Jerritt, my two supervisors, aren't really sure where the water intrusion is occurring.  It's all along the East wall as well as the South side where the sliding glass doors are.  Naturally, the floors were supposed to be installed Monday, the 29th.  *sigh*  Two weeks before, I waited for the plaster to dry, now I have to wait for the floor to dry.  AND we need to find out where the water is seeping in so it doesn't happen again.

While Troy and Jerritt were investigating the water intrusion problem, Charlie Carpenter (yup, that's really his name and he's really a carpenter) replaced the carpet in my library and two bedrooms with laminate flooring which matches the flooring in the rest of the house.  Charlie and his helper, Jeff, moved all the furniture so the library wasn't too bad to clear out.  However, I had to move all the clothes from the guest closet so they had easy access to the floor.  I had also been using that closet for miscellaneous storage.  There was a lot of stuff in there! This forced me to get better organized.  So, Tuesday Charlie did the library, Wednesday, the guest bedroom and Friday was the master bedroom.

Also on Tuesday, I got the rest of my fence put up.  Now the whole back yard is fenced and the dogs can use the doggy door.  Of course, the floor is dusty but the dogs don't care.

Remodeling Week Five 3/22 - 3/28

Now I'm catching up.

Monday, the plaster finally dried and the painters did the room in a nice, soft tan which matches my den.  The match is important because the two areas flow together now.

Tuesday, the electrician finished his work but he had to put up my old light fixture outside because the pretty one he brought wouldn't fit.  There's about a foot between the fixture and the overhang so the light need to hang down.  I told him I'd buy one then he could come back and replace it.  He agreed.

Wednesday, some trim work was done as well as the termite treatment which is apparently a requirement.  It's not that any bugs were found.  Also the French door to the bedroom was removed.  Immediate egress from a bedroom to the outside must be possible or a house doesn't pass inspection.

Thursday, the home inspector came by and I passed!  Yay!!!

Friday, Windows Plus installed some awesome sliding glass doors with blinds in the doors.  They are made by Neuma.  I wish I'd seen it before the outside doors had been installed because I would have chosen this door for the outside instead of what was used.  Oh well.

A Defective Mac?

I can't believe it!  Except it happened to me.  *sigh*  The disc drive didn't work on my new MacBook Pro.  I didn't discover it until Wednesday when I tried to burn a DVD.  (If I can ever figure out how to get the video to play in my blog I'll post it, but so far no luck.)

Anyway, Dennis and I performed a rumba exhibition which a friend of ours videotaped.  We tried to burn a copy so my parents could watch it on their TV.  It wouldn't work.  At first we thought it was the disc but then we found it wouldn't play CDs or DVDs either.

I called Apple and they offered to replace it.  Sadly that meant I would have to return the new Mac before they would send a new one.  I did that yesterday.  The good news is they are sending me the new model that just came out.  It will have a new intel core processor either i5 or i7 (my guess is i5), next generation NVIDIA graphics and a 10-hour battery life.  Now I'm not a techie but I did notice that the Mac I'm returning had 2.8GHz processor and the new Mac will have 2.66GHz processor and that doesn't sound faster or better but we'll see.  Don't know when I'll get it, but at least I still have my old Mac.  Bless it's reliable little heart.

An in spite of this, I can't imagine ever going back to a PC.  EVER.