Good gifts

Look mom! I'm wearing the skirt you sent me! I wear it all the time, because it perfect for me, and also perfect for a summer in which you have 63 days over 100 degrees. That's right. 63 days. Thank you mom!
Also, tonight we once again played Rummikub, which was a bridal shower gift from my lifelong friend (we met when I was a few months, and she a few days, old!) Julie Rose, as well as her mom Shirley Parrott (my mom's college roommate, and my 2nd grade teacher). Julie and her husband James apparently play a hardcore version of Rummikub where everyone plays at once (a la Speed Scrabble), but so far we're addicted to the plain old original.
Joe and I had the idea to play a card game at the same time as Rummikub. We started with something simple, Go Fish. Unfortunately, I lost both games at the same time. But here is Joe looking forlorn (or trying to), and Will Ferrell accidentally showing up on the tv in the background! (Naturally, we had the baseball game on mute while we played)
We are so happy to have Trey back from camp! It's also nice to have Sunday nights free- we normally all go to the 6:30 pm contemporary service at church, but today was the soft launch of the new morning contemporary service, which meant we could go to church once for middle school group and church and not have to go back later!
Travis is only pretending to be grumpy. He really loooves it when I take so many pictures.
When Joe and I started playing Go Fish during slow turns, Trey and Travis started exploring iphone apps. At one point Travis tried to use the iphone as a coaster (it didn't work very well- too tippy), and we wondered if there is an app for that. Probably.

What We're Told

This weekend I performed in my 4th (I think?) show with Borealis. We entered two pieces in 10 Minutes Max, which is sort of like a film festival for dance. It was at the Carver Museum in the East End, which is a beautiful building with a perfect-sized theatre.The first piece we entered was Awaiting Fate, a piece Danielle choreographed by Danielle about the Salem witch trials. It is breathtaking, and I always love watching Danielle, Bethany, and Katelyn (in jackets, below) perform it. Wakelyn and I joined them for our other piece, We Do What We're Told, also known as "the piece that makes small children cry, according to Travis." Danielle stenciled all sorts of commands on our shirts. The back of mine says "pay attention."We discovered that my arms were longest, so I took a lot of these pictures with everyone's cameras.
It's always nice to be done with a show! Now we just have to rehearse like mad for the next 2 months to have a full-length show ready for Oct. 9-10. Terrifying. . . Just like this picture:

(End of) summer reading

I don't read much for pleasure, and since I'm not in college anymore, I pretty much don't read much. I love reading, but I get too obsessed with novels (and I am too sensitive- much of what is out there makes me feel sick), and a lot of non-fiction doesn't hold my interest. The genre I like best is autobiographies, because they are like talking to a person, and I love talking to people and hearing their stories. Especially if those stories are exciting.
But I do get around to a book or two a month, and my current plans are The PAPA Prayer by Larry Crabb and For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn. PAPA prayer was recommended by my mom, who is always reading great books and giving them to people she cares about. If my mom thinks a book will be good, she will order several copies. Apparently this book describes what the publisher calls "a revolutionary conversational approach to talking with and enjoying God." Doesn't that sound great? I am all about having a radical relationship with God, learning to trust Him in radical ways and hoping in the extreme promises He has for me.
I heard about the other book on a blog I like, Simple Mom. I am not a mom, and I don't really practice simple living. In fact, I can't say I live up to anything near the way this woman lives. Making meal plans 8 weeks in advance? Writing a family mission statement with my husband? Those things are not likely to ever happen in my household. But I like dreaming of it. I guess it's my version of escapist fiction- a world in which, instead of getting home from rehearsal at 10:30pm and making a Stouffers Skillet meal to eat with my husband in front of the tv while he watches sports, I stay at home all day pressing linens while meat for the next 3 meals marinates in the perfectly organized fridge.

Anyway, I was reading the product description of this book from amazon.com, and my reactions (roughly) are in blue:
What's going on in there? Ever been totally confused by something your man has said or done? Always. Every day. Right now. Why is he watching SportsCenter recap the game we just watched?
Want to understand his secret desires and fears, his daily battles that you know nothing about? YES! Where can I sign up?
The premise sounds intriguing: the author interviewed lots of men in preparation for writing a novel with a male protagonist, and in the process came away with another book about the inner workings of men. I'm sure it won't be perfect. The first review of the book on Amazon was by a man who bought the book for his wife, and read it first. His reaction was mixed: he agreed (mostly) with the author's assessment of men's fears and desires, but he also felt that her solution for women was to become possibly too submissive to their husbands.
But I really want to know what Travis is thinking. All the time. And he almost never tells me.
Well he probably feels like all we ever do is talk about our feelings. But I still don't understand. For example, sportscenter: why watch the highlights after you've already seen them?

Good times, courtesy of tv

Sometimes commercials make Travis and me laugh out loud.

Wow.

The tableau that ends "Fool's Paradise," by Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company in NYC. I wish there was dance like that in my living room every evening.

Summer reading

We have a really smart president. I was excited to real this editorial by him in the NY Times this weekend. Here is the link to the original, but I've also pasted it below. (Also: even if you don't have time to read it, at least scroll down to the very end. You know how at the end of an editorial it will say something about the author like "William Mathers is a professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Michigan?" Well check out this one.)

By BARACK OBAMA

Published: August 15, 2009

OUR nation is now engaged in a great debate about the future of health care in America. And over the past few weeks, much of the media attention has been focused on the loudest voices. What we haven’t heard are the voices of the millions upon millions of Americans who quietly struggle every day with a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.

President Obama speaking at a town-hall-style meeting in Grand Junction, Colo., on Saturday.

These are people like Lori Hitchcock, whom I met in New Hampshire last week. Lori is currently self-employed and trying to start a business, but because she has hepatitis C, she cannot find an insurance company that will cover her. Another woman testified that an insurance company would not cover illnesses related to her internal organs because of an accident she had when she was 5 years old. A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn’t known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died.

I hear more and more stories like these every single day, and it is why we are acting so urgently to pass health-insurance reform this year. I don’t have to explain to the nearly 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance how important this is. But it’s just as important for Americans who do have health insurance.

There are four main ways the reform we’re proposing will provide more stability and security to every American.

First, if you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of high-quality, affordable coverage for yourself and your family — coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job.

Second, reform will finally bring skyrocketing health care costs under control, which will mean real savings for families, businesses and our government. We’ll cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits.

Third, by making Medicare more efficient, we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies. This will not only help provide today’s seniors with the benefits they’ve been promised; it will also ensure the long-term health of Medicare for tomorrow’s seniors. And our reforms will also reduce the amount our seniors pay for their prescription drugs.

Lastly, reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable. A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans in the previous three years because they had a pre-existing illness or condition. The companies either refused to cover the person, refused to cover a specific illness or condition or charged a higher premium.

We will put an end to these practices. Our reform will prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage because of your medical history. Nor will they be allowed to drop your coverage if you get sick. They will not be able to water down your coverage when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime. And we will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. No one in America should go broke because they get sick.

Most important, we will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups, preventive care and screening tests like mammograms and colonoscopies. There’s no reason that we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and prostate cancer on the front end. It makes sense, it saves lives and it can also save money.

This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies.

The long and vigorous debate about health care that’s been taking place over the past few months is a good thing. It’s what America’s all about.

But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

Despite what we’ve seen on television, I believe that serious debate is taking place at kitchen tables all across America. In the past few years, I’ve received countless letters and questions about health care. Some people are in favor of reform, and others have concerns. But almost everyone understands that something must be done. Almost everyone knows that we must start holding insurance companies accountable and give Americans a greater sense of stability and security when it comes to their health care.

I am confident that when all is said and done, we can forge the consensus we need to achieve this goal. We are already closer to achieving health-insurance reform than we have ever been. We have the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association on board, because our nation’s nurses and doctors know firsthand how badly we need reform. We have broad agreement in Congress on about 80 percent of what we’re trying to do. And we have an agreement from the drug companies to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors. The AARP supports this policy, and agrees with us that reform must happen this year.

In the coming weeks, the cynics and the naysayers will continue to exploit fear and concerns for political gain. But for all the scare tactics out there, what’s truly scary — truly risky — is the prospect of doing nothing. If we maintain the status quo, we will continue to see 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day. Premiums will continue to skyrocket. Our deficit will continue to grow. And insurance companies will continue to profit by discriminating against sick people.

That is not a future I want for my children, or for yours. And that is not a future I want for the United States of America.

In the end, this isn’t about politics. This is about people’s lives and livelihoods. This is about people’s businesses. This is about America’s future, and whether we will be able to look back years from now and say that this was the moment when we made the changes we needed, and gave our children a better life. I believe we can, and I believe we will.

Barack Obama is the president of the United States.

Bithday parties and PS 22!

On Sunday we went to Richard and Daniel's family birthday party! Richard and Daniel are our brothers. They are twins. They are awesome. They are 8! It is fun to be in the kind of family where you can have twin brothers that are almost the same age as your twin nieces.
The birthday boys (Daniel on the left, Richard on the right) with their new gloves. They are playing coach pitch, I think, this fall. Travis has already been giving lots of pointers.
Have I told Travis' family calls him Bubba? It is one of the 10,000 adorable and wonderful things about this family, and about Travis.
Crystal, Stephen, and I watched videos of the PS 22 chorus online. They are an elementary school choir from NYC, and they sing pop songs and classic rock. My favorite is their version of Don't Stop Believin'. Did I already share this? Well, here it is:

Okay and one more:

Now back to the party.
Richard shows off their new scooter-skateboards. I am totally a fan, because they are wider than a scooter, with bigger wheels than a skateboard, and a handlebar. My kind of ride.
Mad skillz!
Several grown men and teenage boys spend a significant portion of time trying to hit a ball out of a tree. It was fun to watch, because they were so into it. And they succeeded!
Did you know: Travis' brother Stephen can be seen (so I've heard) as an extra in the new movie Bandslam! He was also up for the part of Miley's love interest in the Hannah Montana movie. I think he's pretty great. And you should have seen Stephen and Travis at the party: Travis was in the front yard with a baseball glove, Stephen in the backyard with a tennis racket, and they were sending a tennis ball back and forth over the house. At one point is hit (and possibly broke) the neighbor's gutter. Jury is out on whether the gutter was already broken . . .
Sometimes I think I look more like Travis' family than he does! Also, Crystal: did district 9 totally scare you? I bet you were fine. I'm a total wimp :)
Baskin Robins ice cream cake! With a hot wheels launcher on it! This cake was awesome.
Travis is too focused on cake to look at the camera.
Getting stoked
I wish I got better pictures of this. I have never done a very good job of capturing the "blowing out the candles moment" at birtyhday parties. I 50% blame how it's always a little dark, and 50% blame myself for getting way too into singing to be amply prepared.
I try not to make this a blog full of just pictures of Travis, but you'll have to forgive me. I am a newlywed, and I just think he's so great!
And now, a video:

Confession

In most ways, I think I am a pretty good wife. I really love my husband, and pray for him, and communicate with him, and rub his head when it's sore.
But I am terrible at housework. Terrible. The kitchen is always clean, but I am about a month behind on folding laundry, filing mail, and cleaning the closet. Not to mention taking things to goodwill, and especially taking the recycling somewhere where it can be recycled (instead of the laundry room, where it currently takes up the entire space between the washer and dryer. Ironically, the recycling is housed in my reusable shopping bags, so now I keep having to get plastic shopping bags at the grocery store).
And Travis is so patient with me, but he already takes care of so many things, and I know he really needs me to at least keep these few things under control. This is how he feels about the pile of laundry on our couch (now moved to chair in bedroom): And maybe a little bit like this:At least I make good cookies :)

Remember that movie?

It is officially too hot to sleep in Texas. In February, when it started getting hot (and I don't mean warm. Hot.) we gave up on our so-thick-and-luxurious-that-you-could-lay-under-it-real-flat-and-no-one-would-be-able-to-tell-you-were-there comforter and bought a wimpy thin one at Target. And about a month ago we gave up on that one and started sleeping under the thin brown soft blanket that is usually reserved for being cozy on the couch. Maybe tomorrow night I'll try just a sheet, a la the Dominican Republic (all there is on almost any bed you'll find is a set of sheets. I don't think I ever quite got used to it). And now I am about to give up on sleeping. Our AC is working overtime here on the 3rd floor, and it's really not fair to it (or our budget) to push it any further.
Travis seems to be sleeping just fine. He really likes to fall asleep to SportsCenter, so the last few nights I have just stayed up and let him, and then gone in afterward and turned the TV off. I have never in my life fallen asleep while watching TV. I was always the one at sleepovers who realized, halfway through the movie, that they were the only one still awake. Even when the move was really exciting, like Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken*. That girl and her horse jumped off of platforms into pools, even after she was blind.

*This movie was really shown at my 8th birthday party.
p.s. My world has just been rocked. Guess who starred in Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken? Gabrielle Anwar, star of the best show on television, Burn Notice! Must netflix that move asap. The world is bigger and smaller and more beautiful than I thought.

More from John Tesh

Tonight I was listening to John Tesh (again), and he told me (and lots of other people) this (paraphrased):
There is a new iphone application where you can keep track of the things you are grateful for. Every day you add 5 things, and you can rate them on a star system. The creator of the ap got the idea after her husband passed away, and she figured that keeping track of the good things in her life might help. Turns out there is research that actually supports this: keeping a "gratefulness journal" corresponds with people feeling happier.
Which got me thinking. Two summers ago, I felt like I couldn't go back to Whitworth for my senior year. I felt especially like I couldn't do a senior project, couldn't throw myself into hundreds of hours of work on any one thing when life was shattered around me and I could barely stay in the lane driving. But God (and my mom) gave me an idea that I felt like I could do: create a bunch of dances about things for which I was thankful. It just felt more meaningful to be grateful for some things than mad about others. I found this quote a few months later, and put it in the program of my senior project, Thanksgiving:
"One act of thanksgiving made when things go wrong is worth a thousand when things go well."

- St. John of the Cross

That idea got me back to school, got me through senior year. Several hours a day for almost 9 months I spent thinking about the things for which I was grateful. My life was wrapped around the best things in my life: the time I had with my family, the way my friends could make me laugh till I cried, the hope I had for a future in which things would inexplicably and impossibly work out okay.
That idea, to make a "gratefulness journal" in dance (which is my language, way more than English is my language), was the gift of light in the darkness for almost a year. The woman who made that iphone ap must have felt similarly grateful for her idea, so grateful that she wanted to share it with as many people as possible (and maybe make some money of it, too). I don't ever ever ever want to write a book about grieving, but I do want there to be some way for people to know that it could help to keep track of the things they are thankful for. And if you can get totally absorbed in those things, all the better. So I'm glad John Tesh said that tonight. Well done.
p.s. I linked to the video of my senior project a while ago. It's not quite the same thing as it was in person, but I am thankful for it nonetheless. It is here.

This is NOT a blog about . . .

For the next month, I will try to refrain from writing much about work at the store, because it will invariably sound like this:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
That is to say, it's been a little busy. There is no time to think or use the restroom or panic, only ballet shoes, jazz shoes, and tap shoes. And the occasional ballroom shoe.

So, other things:
Today we Austin Dance Company teachers and staff had our headshots taken! They were done by Brenda Ladd in her home studio, which is beautiful. There is a little kitchen. If I ever get to build a dance studio at my home, remind me that I want a little kitchen. We each did individual shots, then a few group pictures, which were really fun. At one point Brenda opened the door behind her while she was taking pictures. And outside in the backyard were chickens! Little guys. So cute. So of course I yelled "there are chickens here!" and before I knew it, click: a picture of everyone perfectly and serenely posed around Carissa, me looking like a wild woman with my huge mouth all the way open, mid "chickens!"
Also present at the photo shoot were Carissa's adorable daughters, newborn Finley and 2-year-old Charlotte. Charlotte spent most of the evening playing with a bag of un-inflated balloons. She counted them for us: "One, two, three, four, nine, ten, eleven."
Oh, and we discovered that, rather than "one-two-three" click, dance teachers respond well to "five-six-seven-eight" click when being photographed.
After the photo session, I found my way to Waterloo Records downtown. This (finding the place without getting terribly lost) is really an achievement for me, since I never go downtown. I've had a gift certificate to Waterloo since March, but haven't had a single day when I've been anywhere nearby to stop in. But tonight I was already down South, and Travis was at frisbee anyway, so I went and browsed around and tried to find something to buy with my gift certificate that wouldn't make the record store salespeople scoff/snicker/cry. Because a lot of my music purchases are geared toward the 5-year-old dance class set, I usually go for things like "Disney's Super Sweet Summer Party Collection Volume 18!" It took at least an hour, but I came away with the new albums from Matt&Kim and Beirut. Neither of them contain songs called "Get up and Dance," "Butterfly Rock," or "Mickey's Hula," so I think I'm good. Maybe I should sell my song name ideas . . . I really think my students would love a song called "Butterfly Rock!" (If, of course, it lived up to the title)
Yesterday we went to Richard and Daniel's family party for their 8th birthday, which was on Saturday. Pictures to follow.
Okay, one story about work: today I was in the backroom, frantically rummaging around for shoes that would fit a customer with very wide feet, and I told Danielle I had just been on the phone with a customer who told me that her toes were numb from a pair of our ballroom shoes. My thought was that, yeah, that happens. You dance, you sacrifice your feet. They will get deformed and probably permanently damaged and you should sort of be proud of that. Danielle's response, however, was a little shorter: "I hate people . . ."
I kept waiting for the "who ____," but it never came. Just "I hate people." Awesome.
p.s. I love people, and I probably really love you!

For my gardeners

Victoria cruziana

Did you know about these water plants? They are called victoria or "giant water platter," and I find them stunning! The above photo is from Longwood Gardens (link is to their blog) in Pennsylvania, home to beautiful massive pools full of both genus (es?) of victoria, as well as a hybrid of the two:Victoria x Longwood Hybrid

Victoria amazonica

At Longwood gardens they are so serious about victoria that they are writing a book about them, and that they dye the water in their pools black so that the leaves and flowers will stand out.
Mom and Lisa: shouldn't we go to Longwood Gardens? Shouldn't we build a pool and fill it will victorias? Shouldn't we do this now?

They even have tulips!

Myths

I just read a really great article from Newsweek. Here in Texas, I hear a lot of arguments against public health care, and while some of them seem legitimate, others seem pretty unfounded and ridiculous (death panels, really?). This article highlights 7 myths that have been used in arguments for and against Obama's Health Care Bill. I wish everyone (especially everyone in Texas) could read this article and get a better understanding of the bill. People might not beg their representatives to vote against the bill if they knew it wouldn't ban private insurance, wouldn't cut medicare, wouldn't give the government the ability to deny anyone health care, and especially wouldn't require physicians to counsel the elderly to end their lives early. Oh and hey, all those people who can't afford proper care right now? They would receive the right to life that the constitution promises.
Okay, I'm done. But read it! Or at least skim.

TGI almost dinnertime!

Friday updates:

• Despite the face he's making in this picture, Travis is feeling much better today. His mouth is doing a lot better and tension headache is gone. He might have a broken foot, but that has nothing to do with his tooth surgery. In fact, we have no idea how it happened!
• When I was walking (more like trudging, what with all the dance bags and sore muscles and heat) up the stairs to our third floor apartment this evening, I heard a strange thumping noise. It sounded like it was coming from the roof. I walked in the apartment, and Travis was sitting on the couch, bouncing a tennis ball off the walls! We have pretty high vaulted ceilings in the living room, and now I know what they're good for!
• Travis is making me dinner :) I don't know much about cooking meat, so bbq pork ribs "a la Travis" will be a special treat!
• Today was the last day of the 2-week dance intensive I taught at ADC. I am tired and sore, but I think it went really well. This afternoon the families came to watch the dances their girls had learned, and I think they were impressed with how many pieces they'd learned in 2 weeks! Some of the pieces were just for fun (such as a hip hop combo Adele and I taught on Wednesday. Our 10-year-old ballerinas are so street, you don't even know), and others we'll continue to clean and prepare for competitions in the spring. Competitions aren't the focus at our studio- we'll only go to 2- but it's a fun way for the students to see their peers dance and get extra performance opportunities. So anyway, today's special topic, since we had a little performance at the end, was stage makeup. We went over the steps with the girls, and they all applied their own makeup (with mixed and sometimes hilarious results; keep in mind that some of these girls are 5). Miss Adele and I put on stage makeup as well. My students are always so shocked to see me in makeup! I wiped most of mine off in the car on the way home, but saved the eyes for a proper sink/soap/mirror makeup removal. Time to wash my face:
  

• Travis is going to pick up the computer monitor he found on craigslist for $30. I am looking forward to having a computer that doesn't emit a high pitched (and I mean really high-pitched, and loud) buzzing every 10 minutes until you turn it off. I'm also looknig forward to added desk space; our current monitor is giant. Fun Fact: We found this computer (not the monitor, but the tower, which is in great shape) in the dumpster between the theatre and the music building on the Whitworth campus. We were walking around campus late at night last summer, and some tables next to the dumpster drew our attention. The tables were no good, but there, perched right on top (above more tables, and totally clean) was a perfectly good computer tower! It needed to be recycled. In our home. (We didn't have a home yet, and it we weren't even dating yet, but it was a few hours after this happened, so I knew we would have a home someday. Travis was just stoked about free stuff!)
  

Let's go to the movies . . . or not. They're scary.

We just got back from seeing District 9. It's a very high quality movie, sure to win lots of awards. It was original and thought provoking and will probably discussed in college lectures about apartheid for the next 10 years (it's set in South Africa, so you can't help making the connections, and they're pretty obvious). The actors apparently improvised all the dialogue, and it felt natural and real.

That said, I don't recommend it unless you are way more tough than I am. You probably are, actually. I was surprised to find that I was the only person in the packed theater who was curled up next to the person next to them with their head buried in their neighbor's shoulder for half the movie (maybe more). I know I have always had a soft, sensitive heart, but how did everyone else get so tough? Travis earned 1000 wonderful points by patiently allowing me to find shelter in his armpit, asking how I was doing, and letting me know when it was okay to look again.

Ever since I was 4 or 5 I have repeated "flowers in a field" to myself to relax after a nightmare. Flowers in a field. Flowers in a field.

Update: just read this awesome review of the movie, which said what I was trying to say, but way more eloquently than I ever could have. I recommend the review, whether or not you plan on seeing the film.

Creation

Once I have a song selected (as long as it's a really good song), the dance is usually already there, and all I have to do is get it onto the bodies of some dancers before I get distracted by the next thing. But the process of selecting music (and a "concept," but that goes hand in hand with the music), for me, is well reflected in this quote that my best friend Amy put on her facebook last week:
Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds.
I'll often start with an artist whose music I'd like to explore. After some time on itunes and youtube, I'll drift to pandora.com and find similar music by new artists. Then I have to listen to all their stuff too.
Then a word or color or image in a music video will capture my attention and take me in a new direction, and the process starts over again.
And again and again.
I usually throw in a good amount of Sufjan Stevens and Regina Spektor too, just to remind myself to have high standards (and, hey, some very well-known choreographers go back to the same musicians time and time again to make their dances. Don't hate.)
And this is made all the more complicated when guidelines are imposed by an outside source (i.e. the owner of ADC asking me to choreograph a duet for two of my students, and wanting it to be lyrical). Guidelines are very helpful at times, but when my inspiration leads me down a path that doesn't fit (Ooh! Masks! Opposite forces! A scarf!) and I have to reign myself in, said well of inspiration can seem to dry up.
Right now, I really am selecting music for a lyrical duet, and I really am interested in having them portray some sort of opposites. If you saw them dance, it would make so much sense. One dances like a volcano (much like me), and the other is meek but very precise. I am open to suggestions.
And now, time to turn off the music and go see District 9! I am stoked, and terrified.

Pros and Cons

Today Travis had four teeth extracted, including a wisdom tooth. Intense tooth pain led to a dentist appointment yesterday morning, and the dentist recommended he have 3 teeth removed immediately. Turns out there was an infection, and today the oral surgeon decided to remove 4 teeth instead. (Travis called this yesterday. He told me "It's going to be four." Travis are you psychic? Can you tell me when I'm getting married?! Oh wait.) Now Travis is on four medications, and had to recover by staying home and watching the Rangers day game :) Another plus: an excuse to go to Jamba juice!
Anyway, prayers would be appreciated for Travis' recovery (an infection like this can be dangerous). The oral surgeon told Travis that they would need to wait at least 3 months before attempting to replace the teeth with implants, but we're hoping that it will be a possibility soon.
Right now Travis is in a lot of pain, but we're going to try distracting him by going to the midnight showing of District 9 tonight.
It was a hard decision. Cons: Staying up very late before work tomorrow, Travis just had oral surgery, it might be scary. Pros: This movie is supposed to be really good; midnight showings are fun because everyone is so stoked.
Ultimately fun won out.
And Travis just ate a piece of pizza! Yay Travis!

Tidbits

• I am completely enamored with miniature versions of normal things. I started cooing when I saw this little sunscreen in Travis' frisbee bag. Just look at it! Also, the SPF 50 is obviously mine.

• Also featured is one of our new stools, courtesy of my friend and co-worker Jessica. I am all about going without things like bar stools for years and years and years, because, really, who needs bar stools? But when I hear that a friend is giving away perfectly good furniture, well then I realize that I really need bar stools.
• Guess what? Travis has the most intense farmer's tan I've ever seen in my life. He always wears socks and shoes. Always. Proof:

Advice from John Tesh

This time last year I was getting ready to fly to Austin to meet Travis' family and find a place to get married. We had known each other for a little less than 3 months.
On the Jon Tesh Radio Show yesterday (The radio here is terrible. My cd player is broken. Don't judge.), Mr. Tesh was saying that for the first few months of a relationship people show only the best sides of themselves, so it's wise not to make any big commitments in the first 3 months. From an objective, rational standpoint, I think that's pretty good advice.
But I obviously didn't live it. The day after our first date, Travis and I had a bbq for some of our friends. Travis was moving to Tacoma the next day to be an intern at Marine View Presbyterian church, and I was staying in Spokane for the summer to nanny. Right before our friends started showing up, Travis asked me if we should define our relationship. I said that we should just wait and see what happened. I was being smart and cautious and taking things slow, trusting that God would reveal to us if and when we should start dating. Then our friends came over, and I started bringing plates of meat to Travis at the grill outside, and back to our friends inside. On one of those trips through the kitchen, surrounded by friends and holding a plate of food, I looked at Travis and realized that he was my husband. Not that he could be or that I wanted him to be, but that he was. It couldn't have been more clear if there were a booming voice from heaven. It was everything I could do the next week and a half (about the amount of time it took for him to have the same realization) not to accidentally blurt out that I loved him. I would have married him right there in the middle of that messy kitchen.
All that is to say that advice is great, until a miracle happens in your kitchen and you're suddenly handing a plate of salmon to the person who'll tie your shoelaces when you're too old to bend over.

If he had been wearing this sombrero, maybe I would have realized even sooner.

Things I Love

• Burn Notice. Seriously the best show on television. Michael, Fiona, and Sam are former spies, who use their spy skills to help people. They are so nice, and come up with awesome plans even though they don't have fancy gadgets or government support. If they were real people, I would want to have them as friends. Unfortunately, it's on hiatus until "this winter." Fortunately, that gives you time to catch up.

• The Bad Astronomy blog. This guy is a real astronomer, and he explains all sorts of real cool space and science stuff. There are lots of beautiful pictures, and I learn so much! I am trying to keep up with Travis, since he knows all about space.
• Pandora Radio. If you haven't tried it yet, go to Pandora.com right now and type in the name of your favorite song or artist. It makes you a radio station of music similar to that, then you can further customize it by telling it which songs you do and don't like. You can pause or skip songs, and make as many stations as you like. It's a great way to discover new music to choreograph to, and it's how I've found some of my favorite songs and artists.
• Teaching dance. My students never fail to entertain and intrigue me. And they work so hard. How many 6-year-olds do you know who will do an ab workout (of their own accord) while you step out to use the restroom?
  

Wedding memory

Some pictures are worth more than 1000 words.

So. Much. Dancing.

I'm not complaining, but my life this week has been full of dancing, dancing, and more dancing. Between teaching the dance intensive at ADC, choreographing the two competition pieces I'm teaching tomorrow, and rehearsing with Borealis, I think I've spent almost 12 hours every day in a leotard. And I don't know how, but my friend and co-worker Adele is doing all that and dancing with another company.
My favorite kid quote so far from camp happened when Adele was leading a discussion about our favorite styles of dance during snack. Everyone went around saying their favorite style of dance, the style of dance they are best at, and the style that is most difficult for them. After several girls said that tap was the hardest style, one of my students raised her hand and said "the hardest style of dance for me is Miss Jeannie's warm up!"
At which point the students who had already spoken all changed their answers to "Miss Jeannie's warm up."
Awesome.

Date night with the Mariners

The night before the game. Travis is wearing his "Los Rangers de Texas" shirt and washing his Rangers hat.
Even a flat tire will not deter us from seeing the Mariners! (Okay some of us were more interested in the Rangers)
Even the air pumps in Texas are red, white, and blue. And they don't just sing the National Anthem at the game, but also "God Bless America" and "Deep in the Heart of Texas."
Sitting in the sun for the first 30 min or so of the game. Once the shade (and a light breeze) reached us, it was a lot more pleasant. After the overpowering heat of the afternoon at Six Flags, 91 degrees felt just right. We couldn't find me a Mariners shirt anywhere in Texas, though Travis made a valiant effort, going to I think every team store in Central Texas. Next time we're in Seattle I'm getting one, preferably with Ichiro on it.My picture of the Mariners pitchers on their way to the bullpen with their pink backpack.

No comment.
This is the "my team just won" half smile.
The "I'm willing to rise above circumstances and have a good evening even though the Mariners were robbed" smile.