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Really FallO suns and skies and clouds of June, |
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Thursday, October 1, 1998
One year ago: Season of Mists
October already! This year is going very quickly.
I left a little later than usual yesterday, so I decided to take my "secret" route and drive down West Lake Sammammish Parkway to I-90. Too bad they were doing construction where those roads meet, and I didn't know about it! I was pretty well trapped in the backup, and what should have taken 45 minutes ended up taking twice as long. This was a good exercise in actually putting into practice that patience and calmness that I like to think of myself as possessing. Once it was inevitable that I was going to be late, I did settle back and listen to the radio. Since we were creeping along so slowly, it was a good chance to look carefully at the houses along that road. It's an interesting mix of fancy newer houses, and people's old boat shacks and summer cottages.
I missed my first dance class of the night, since I didn't get to my neighborhood until seven thirty, and the class started at seven! So I walked down the hill and got a sandwich at the cafe attached to the Century Ballroom, instead of jumping into class when there were only a few minutes left. The Ballroom finally has its own website, so you can see the beautiful place I've been talking about for so long.
Our class (the eight o'clock class that I was in time for, intermediate lindy hop) was a no-shoes class! This was because the floors had just been refinished, and Hallie, the proprietor and teacher, wanted to keep them shiny for the photo shoot that was planned for that evening. The new finish also made the floors slightly tacky. I was used to it by the end of the evening, though.
Hallie had warned us about the photo shoot ahead of time, so many folks arrived for the dance in their finest vintage clothes. I was wearing my short crinkle-rayon dress of black, purple and teal tie-dye, not because of that, but just because I like it. I did get filmed while dancing with Greg, not for the photos but for a documentary someone is doing about a breast-cancer survivor who danced at the Century during her treatment. Interesting to see if any of that footage actually appears in the final product!
I had fun dancing with Adam, who is still improving as a swing dancer and lindy hopper. While we were dancing, he told me that someone had criticized him as being too stiff. I think I got a droll look on my face, and I couldn't contradict that person. Indeed, I think I even said something (teasing!) about "removing the stick." Adam is studying swing and lindy at a ballroom dancing studio, and the characteristic posture of ballroom dance is upright, lifted up. The normal posture for lindy and swing is bent-knees, balanced over your feet, and the general feeling is "down". It's certainly possible to be good at both kinds of dance, and more besides. Learning both at once might be confusing, though.
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Notes on this month's look: I based this on my September 1997 design, using an image from my big cd-rom archive of clip art and images from Costco. The font is Mead Bold, but I don't know where it came from. The large banner on the index was done with Microsoft Image Composer's Insert Button command.
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I left the Russian Center directly after my dance class tonight, since I have a list of about seven things I need to take care of. Of these, I accomplished two: I managed to get the Seattle Cacophony Society page updated with our October events, and I took care of a personal care task that needed doing. The apartment maintenance will have to wait until tomorrow when I get home, but it needs to be done, since I might have someone coming over.
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