turkey and henna parties and other fun stuff

Here's a photo of the henna I did at my friend Diana's house on Saturday. The pattern is from Ganesha's Henna Garden.

We had a pretty fun time with it, painting our hands and hanging out. Diana had a few new videos of traditional Indian dancing, and we watched a really interesting movie called Baraka, which is more a series of images than a conventional film. She also got hold of a couple of bellydance instructional videos of....well....dubious quality at her work. I've actually seen a lot of recommendations and good things said about Amira Mor's Bellydance your way to your soul mate, but I honestly don't see any redeeming qualities except the amusement factor! Which is too bad, because the other video of hers that Diana brought home didn't look too bad.

Other than that, it's been a relatively uneventful, relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. Michael and I both had Thursday and Friday off, and while he worked Saturday and I work today, we are also both off on Monday. Maybe we will actually be able to go on that picnic we've been thinking about forever! We were at a friend's house for Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday, and spent a lazy day Friday hanging out at Starbucks. Saturday night we spent having dinner with another couple we met through work.

Weather remains too hot. Usually it cools down at least a little bit by this time, but we're not even into jeans weather yet! Counting the days till we travel to Edmonton ...

oh suzanna

Catching up on other areas of my life...I had the Suzanna del Vecchio workshop this past weekend. It was pretty good. I think I mentioned before that she does yoga as well as bellydance--one of the good things about the class is that there was a lot of attention to proper body alignment and what to do--and what to avoid--when performing certain moves. Most of the class was taken up by learning a 2 minute choreography. She built in time for us to sit and take notes on it, and I bought the CD that had the music we were using, so hopefully I will be able to reconstruct it later on! The music had a really nice, heavy Saiidi beat, which means I *really* want to adapt it for a cane. Along with the CD (called Sensual Goddess) I also bought Suzanna's instructional DVD on drum solos, called Lock, Roll, and Flutter, which I wasn't initially going to do, but hey, it was on sale, so....

Always interesting to see some of the people who come to a large workshop class like that--usually ends up being a huge mix of dancers of all levels and styles. Some were obviously professional dancers, some just starting out, and then the usual crowd of rank beginners who don't even know that street clothes are appropriate attire for a dance class. One woman even insisted on doing (well, attempting) the entire class in her skimpy kitten-heeled shoes held on by nothing but one slender strap low down across her toes! What are people like this thinking??? Weird. Another strange thing is seeing people who paid a fair amount of money to come participate in a class led by someone nationally renowned for her teaching get angry and cop an attitude when they're given any kind of instruction or correction. I mean, really, if you're not there for that then what are you there for? I just don't understand that mindset.

There was a bazaar in progress during the afternoon and throughout the evening show, so I got to have a lot of fun drooling over hugely expensive designer professional costumes dripping with fringe, beads, sequins, and other lovely details. I did buy one thing there--an abayah to use as a coverup for my dance costumes. Black with a few small turquoise crystal designs on the front, and a matching chiffon scarf. I also saw a really nice deep green beaded hip scarf that I think I may have convinced Michael to get me for Christmas :)

The show was really interesting--there were some really good dancers, and much of the dancing was in a style that I don't see very often. There were a lot of teachers there with large student troupes, doing these high-energy, almost Vegas showgirl-style routines--not my preferred style, but very fun and high energy. It would be neat to take some classes like that. The honored guest performer was Suzanna, of course, and then the night closed out with a really good singer from Washington (I can't remember her name right now), who got everyone up dancing for fun. I was exhausted at that point, having danced all day and been at the show all night, so Michael and I left sometime around midnight.

Other than those highlights...life this week has been pretty much same old same old. We are closed tomorrow and Friday for American Thanksgiving. Michael and I are going to a friends' house for dinner this year, instead of leaving town. I have Saturday off, too, but unfortunately I'll be back in the reference desk trenches on Sunday. The good news is my friend Diana and I are getting together on Saturday for Henna, Indian movies, and fun!

And just because I can...here's the first design I did for him a few weeks earlier. It was from a picture in Loretta Roome's book, Mehndi: the timeless art of henna painting.

Here's the henna design I did for Michael in Key West. We removed the paste at night, and took the picture in the morning--it got darker through the day. It's an original design that I made up as I went along. I think the shape of the pattern really looks good on his palm.

Post vacation letdown

Well, I seem to be quite the slacker girl lately. No blog entries for, what, close to three weeks? I know that my legions of adoring fans are breathless with anticipation, so here we go. I'll even break it up into separate posts to spare you reading fatigue as you navigate through!

Our trip earlier this month to Key West was great, though like most vacations it felt way too short. I wish we could have found a better place to stay...we were going to spring for a hotel this time, instead of staying at the cheap-but-dodgy youth hostel, but there was an airshow going on that weekend, so all the places we found were booked or had been jacked up to horrendous rates! Oh well. Not like we really spent any time there at all except to sleep. Anyway, overall it was a great vacation. We had breakfast at the french bakery every morning, hit the beach each afternoon, and travelled everywhere by bicycle. For once, the weather was perfect-warm but not hot, and low humidity--which meant we both had a lot more energy than usual. We usually hit a couple of attractions each time we're there--this time, we went to the Lighthouse and Keeper's Quarter's Museum, the Shipwreck Historium, and the East Martello Tower garden. It was interesting to learn a little bit more of the history of Key West as a place that grew rich on salvaging offshore wrecks. I also took some henna paste with us, so we could practice on the beach. I'll post some pictures later.

Of course, I it took so long for me to totally decompress, relax, and leave all the day to day stuff behind that by the time I started to feel human again, it was time to turn around and come back! So the week or so afterwards Darcy was pretty grumpy...

More later.

Retrench!

Well, Michael and I are headed off to Key West tomorrow for a four-day minibreak . I can hardly wait! Between the post-election depression and the latest round of stupid management decisions at work, I am going to be more than glad to eat pain au chocolat and cappuccino for breakfast, bike around town, shop for Christmas presents, and read and do henna at the beach.

I'm also excited to report that I am registered to go to the Suzanna del Vecchio workshop and performance in Miami on November 20th! Suzanna is a famous bellydancer, teacher, and yogini from Denver, CO. She's being brought in by a local dancer named Joharah. I am attending the afternoon class on my own, but Michael and a couple of friends will be coming with me to the show. I don't get to see professional performances often, so this will be a real treat!

I can't link to it now, because he's starting to reorganize his website post-election, but some interesting experiences were reported by voters on Michael Moore's website this past week. Many Floridians who wrote in said that when they went to the polls, the voting machines tried to change their presidential votes from Kerry to Bush! They would select Kerry, but on the final confirmation screen before their vote was submitted it would show up as a Bush vote. Most if not all of these people said that they found they had to correct their votes three or four times before it would register correctly! The response from the pollworkers? "Oh, yeah, the touchscreens are sensitive." Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it, about how many Jeb state voters didn't notice the switch in time, and had their vote changed? eta: found this interesting tidbit on Randy's pod bay door. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

after the fall

Well.....America drank the kool-aid. Four more years.

Though I was pretty sure that the election would go this way, I have to admit that in the past couple weeks I had allowed myself to hope for a different outcome. Working in a building that was also functioning as an early voting polling place, I saw the larger voter turnout here firsthand. People were waiting four hours or more to cast their votes, every day, and there was talk about large turnouts in the youth and first-time voter populations--groups who usually favour the challenger over the incumbent. However, I guess that living in one of the few Democratic areas in Florida skewed my perspective of the larger picture.

Watching the networks call state after state for Bush last night, I really felt a sense of despair. Our local "fair and balanced" Fox affiliate station was, of course, all but announcing a win for Bush by about 10 pm. Thank goodness I get better reception with my new rabbit ears and could switch over to ABC/Local 10 and Peter Jennings! I've never seen such biased coverage of an event--I was flipping between the two stations but when the Fox anchor prefaced the announcement of a new Bush state as "more good news!!!" I had to sign off in disgust--I'd rather sit through commercials than deal with that kind of biased garbage.

So. Here we are, having reaffirmed our isolationist America-rules-the-world unilateral attitude, spit in the face of the international community, and washed the States red with the blood of over 100 000 innocent Iraqi civilians. I really hoped that people were smart enough to see through Dick Cheney's "vote Bush or you'll be killed real dead" rhetoric; believed that the mainstream press exposure of the lies and manipulations and hidden agendas and brainwashing behind the invasion of Iraq was enough to convince even conservative voters that Bush was not working in the country's--or the world's--best interests; couldn't fathom how an experienced, decorated war veteran could really be seen as "softer on terror" and "less able as a commander in chief" than a drunkard who spent the term of his "service" avoiding duty in any way possible; thought that "nuanced thinking" trumped "sticking to your guns no matter how wrong you are." Stupid me. I come from Alberta: I should know how this works by now. The way you get elected is by pretending that you're "just folks" instead of a part of the highest, most priviledged social echelons; by pandering to the lowest common denominator possible; by putting on a rural accent, bragging about your lack of education and having one too many with the boys behind the woodshed.

Whatever.