Three difficult clients yesterday, then Jason came by my studio and I worked on his back a little bit, poor boy. We rode to the Castro and I deposited my receipts, ate dinner (mmm, the Cove has liver now, hooray!), read more of my book, and rode the F-Market to Laguna and walked home. I could get up the energy to go out and meet Will and Bruin at Chaps, though.
Today I am supposed to start the C1 class at Midnight Squares. I hope I can remember all the Advanced calls well enough to not be a complete tard.
Last night, after my evening client, I rode to Castro station, where Duke picked me up for our trek to the Ocean Avenue 24 Hour Fitness. We had never been to that one, and we wanted to check it out.
When we arrived, right around 21:15 or so, the place was packed with people. I went in with a sense of dismay that we would be able to use the machines we wanted without having to wait around too much. It was chest and triceps day, and we got the chest workout in fairly well, with only a little waiting, but the triceps workout was filled with intervals of standing around waiting for the necessary machines to become free. I was feeling overwhelmed by all the people, and I hadn’t eaten for several hours, so as soon as we were done, I told Duke that we had to get out of there.
We went to Orphan Andy’s and had a late supper.
Today’s work was nice, and when done, I headed to Midnight Squares to angel for their Advanced square dancing class. Didn’t do much dancing as there were ample people there, so mostly I socialized and made weird sound effects to the amusement of some of the dancers.
Duke worked out with his partner tonight while I was at class, though, so I have to figure out what to do about that instead.
It’s all crazy.
“Flip the Bacon,” El Camino Reelers’ Winter Dance was fun. I rode down with 
Big John in San Francisco to pick up Brandon at his place, then the three of us drove to Nancy (pearlymist)’s place to hop in her Prius for the ride to Palo Alto.
Darrin Gallina called reasonably easy tips all night. They had ECR Class Level tips, which were mainstream for the most part, full Plus, and both A1 and A2 tips. I mostly danced the A tips as I was trying to conserve my energy.
As the dance had a bacon theme, there were two notable dishes on the potluck table - one was some sort of a bacon-wrapped cheese puff, although I think it was actually vegetarian bacon but still tasty. The other was milk chocolate squares with bits of bacon blended in. One square was all that was necessary to sample this dish. I could see how bacon and chocolate could go rather well together, but this version didn’t do it.
When the dance was finished, we drove back to Nancy’s place and piled back into John’s car, dropped off Brandon back in Golden Gate Heights, and headed home.
My voice seems like it’s back today. The cold is over, except for getting rid of the phlegm that had built up, but a nice long hot shower should take care of the majority of that.
I have five hours of bodywork planned today in three sessions. Fortunately, I have two hours between the first two sessions and the third session, so I’ll be able to take a nap. I am slowly but surely getting my strength back from this dratted cold.
In other news, I went square dancing last night at Eureka Valley Rec Center with Midnight Squares for Advanced-level dancing with Gary Young (squaredancing) and lggriffiths calling. I was only able to dance three tips before I ran out of steam and had to sit out, which meant that the rest of the dancers all had to dance every tip since I couldn’t dance anymore and two other dancers left early. The two of them call very interesting and fun choreography.
The Inter-club Holiday Social, “Exchange the Boxes,” tonight at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center was a smashing success. Thanks to all the clubs, and especially to Big John in San Francisco for all his hard work in organizing it!
Congratulations to Michael (bibliocub) and Michael (sfleatherbear) - they got married last week up in Vancouver during a square dancing fly-in. Many years!
Sometimes I wonder if I have anything useful to say anymore. My life has been pretty good lately - Jason is visiting his family, work is good, and I’ve been square dancing again. My mouth seems to have healed from the recent wisdom tooth extraction.
There’s been a lot of square dancing this past week. On Tuesday, I went to Foggy City Dancers’ last mainstream class/club night. After last weekend’s non-drama about the FCD dance, on Wednesday I decided that I would head to Midnight Squares’ C1/2 Club Night at Eureka Valley Rec Center. While I don’t dance at that level, it was nice to sit and chat with the upper level dancers, and I gained some good insight into C1. I think I am ready to give it a try. Finally, on Thursday, I went to MNS’ Advanced class to check it out. It was fun, but they need more angels.
I bought a quart of paint from home depot, and painted a swatch on the wall in my office. I like it and am going to paint my office. Things are moving forward in that department. I have lots of appointments out to the rest of the year, and I’m even starting to book into January. Did you know you can book your own appointment with me? I make a terrific gift!
Wow, what an amazing time tonight. Foggy City Dancers’ 24th Anniversary Dance, along with their Mainstream class’ graduation celebration, as well as another hall of Challenge dancing with Midnight Squares. The place was full of people dancing and eating and socializing. Mike DeSisto called in the Foggy City hall, calling Mainstream, Plus, and one Advanced tip. Sandra Bryant called in the Midnight Squares hall, calling C1 and C2. She came over to the big hall to do a couple of joint tips.
Even though I feel very happy about dancing to them, I really wish there had been more Advanced dancing. Midnight Squares is an Advanced and Challenge club, yet there was only a single star tip in the Foggy City Hall. People were excitedly awaiting that single tip all night. I’m disappointed that no one at the last MNS meeting thought to include Advanced dancing on the schedule for tonight. And yes, I know… If one wants to propose something to the club, then come to the meeting. That’s easy for people who work Monday through Friday to say. As long as they are held on Sundays, to come to a Midnight Squares meeting would basically cost me $350.
It’s a cop-out, as well, when this sort of thing should be a no-brainer to a club that is struggling right now to get 16 dancers to show up to its Advanced class on Thursday nights. The goodwill that having the Advanced dancing would have caused would have had spilled over to angels showing up on Thursday, I wager.
Well, no matter, I’ll take what Advanced dancing I can get, when I can get it.
Happy Anniversary, Foggy City!
Congratulations to the new Mainstream Dancers!
I have pictures and video to sort through, too…
