Busy, Busy, Busy

It’s been a day. Actually, it’s been a couple of days. I had some medical things to deal with (not mine and all is well but that’s all I’m going to say) which chewed up parts of yesterday and today.

Then, my brother tells me that they are leaving for Christmas (there is a good reason) and that if we were going to send anything, it had to be there by the 20th. Well I was mostly done with the shopping but nothing had been wrapped. Typically, that is something my wife does because she’s artistic and creative and detailed and everything comes out looking extremely professional. When I wrap stuff it is nothing but awkward folding and excessive tape to cover up the mistakes.

But she wasn’t able to do any of the wrapping so that was on me. Early this morning, I was out getting the final touches so I could assemble the box to be shipped out today. Plus one gift via Amazon just because I couldn’t find anything in the stores. Good news is that the UPS store tells me it will be there in plenty of time.

Oh and I had to order some stuff for Dad and my wife. Still have to put the final touches on gifts for my brother and sister and respective families. But there isn’t as much of a time crunch. I know other people have a lot more to do but I hate it when it just feels like you have too much to do and not enough time to do it. But since I’ve carved out a little time before I have to make dinner and get to my dance lesson, I thought I’d unwind a bit here.

So I have to call myself out again because a week or so ago, I was freaking out about the two routines I’m going to do on Friday. Well, on Tuesday, JoNY and I started with the Mambo and did it twice with no real glitches. They have slowed the music down a bit and that certainly helped. But we did it so well that we spent the rest of the lesson on the Waltz and trying to work in some of the last coach’s comments. Some day I will learn to stop doubting myself.

Yesterday was Quickstep day. I still don’t know the timing on certain pieces as well as I should. My new instructor was talking about phrasing and changes in the music that trigger certain things. Yeah, if you asked, I might be able to give you a passable definition of phrasing but it is still mostly a foreign language to me. I mean I’m lucky that I can find and feel the beat. Anything else is just bonus material. It happens when you come to dancing with absolutely no musical background what so ever.

Still, for the thing on Friday, I can just wait for her cues. In the long run, I kind of need to be the one leading things but there wasn’t going to be enough time for that to happen. I mean I can do the stuff that is on traditional timing which is most of the routine. But when she wants to pause and fill up the music or extend our shape a little bit, I can’t quite get to the point where I know when we are supposed to come out of it.

Had an interesting experience on the floor last night. Happened to be sitting on the sidelines waiting for my lesson and some new people came in for their first lesson. Long story short is that they were the members of the family who can’t dance and there is a family wedding coming up. So they want to pick a spot and just start dancing. Pretty cool goal.

Well they just happened to be on the floor while we were doing the Quickstep. When you Quickstep, people get the heck out of your way. We avoided them but the Quickstep takes the entire floor so you are going to get close to anyone who’s on the floor. There were other people on the floor and so we were scattering people every time we did a run. I mean we were mostly going around them but they’d see us coming and just move out of the way. My instructor thought is was funny that people were afraid of us and she said it was a good sign because it just meant we were projecting power and speed.

I will say that I’m glad I’m not working because dealing with the last couple of days would have been seriously problematic if I still had to go to the office. Actually, I probably would have needed time off which always sucked to have to burn vacation days just because you have things that can’t be done during non work hours.

And, with that, I’ll go knock off a few more items on the mental to do list. I feel bad for Rocco the wonder dog. He thinks a walk should be on that list but there just isn’t time. Actually, he becomes quite a pain in the you know what when he thinks we should be taking him to the park. I hate having to say “NO” because I swear, he pouts.