Friday, January 15, 2010

Bring Out the Flamingos!

Hi all,

Just a quickie (although they seem to grow when I say that...). My title refers to this evening's entertainment, but more on that after the rest of the day!

Today the other co-worker made pancakes for the first time. He was rather nervous, but did a good job. Have I mentioned lately how much I dislike porridge? I also discovered that some houses eat it EVERY morning. God Help Me - or them, rather.

It was a taxing day, as one of the family members (in an extended sense) is going through a rough patch and it's been taking a lot of patience to get through it. Luckily for me, I got to spend ALL day with them! Yeah. I was supposed to go into town today to take care of some things (bank account, small items I'd forgotten - I miss q-tips!) and just to get out for an hour on their Tues/Fri run. However, apparently you can call in to reserve a spot and yes, it was full. I was rather bitterly disappointed. I was upset, but held it together and realized that most of that feeling was due to the stress of settling in and constantly learning new things. I went upstairs to my room, and found a website to make me laugh. Supposedly crying helps, but I'd say I'm still a long, long way from that point. Plus it irritates the heck out of my eyes. Although, red is a good color on me... : p

The family (host mom/dad + kids) had their usual Friday evening out so I trooped down with the rest of the household (giving the other co-worker some free time) to the flamenco dancing performance. We'd tried to get in for the dinner beforehand, but shockingly (ie, par for the course) it was already full. So we had soup and bread. The soup was sweet again, but I will accept no blame/credit for tonight's soup!


There was a dancer and a guitarist/singer who performed. The dancer was very slight, but her control was amazing. I don't know much about the style, but I admire how it makes the women look so strong. Of course, if they're only dancing to get the attention of men that might change things. But it was still quite impressive. At points, the audience members would lose all inhibition, and I caught one peppery older woman hiking up her skirt and dancing around with a flower clenched between her teeth! Something purple and completely un-rose like. They played a song at the end for everyone to dance to (so my thing, right?) and I ended up in a ring of 4 females swaying. However, I think that my main charge was QUITE disappointed that the dancer wasn't wearing pink, and didn't have any feathers! (This was an ongoing discussion point, the last few days...)

Oh, and I also got called a penguin today.

Hope all is well,
Steph


4 comments:

sandi said...

Steph - each day after reading your post I appreciate even more the days we spent in jewelry class and wish I would have thought to call you a penguin. You are doing an amazing thing and later in life (I can say that being 25 years older than you) you will be glad you took on this assignment.

P.S. How's the chain maille for the wedding coming?

Steph said...

Luckily, penguins can't blush!
I burned myself out on the last one, so have only barely started the 2nd. Plus my clasps have gone missing (troubling...). Uphill battle, but I'll get going again! How's class?

sandi said...

I'm sadly not in jewelry class this semester. I just don't have it in me again to take on sanding and sanding and sanding. Maybe by next fall I'll have my head put back together. Right now my focus has become running a half marathon in Fargo in May. And doing some beadwork that I can be excited about rather than making the same three patterns repeatedly. I'm going to Milwaukee in June for the Bead & Button Show (lots of precious metal clay classes) so I need to practice a few stitches before that, too.

Funny thing - in the class catalog for Bead & Button, they have classes described as Soldering Mae Simple and in three hours they will teach you to solder using including soldering jump rings closed. All in only THREE HOURS!!! I had an extremely good laugh over that. :)

sandi said...

Dang, I wish I could type, too. It should have said,
...they have classes described as Soldering Made Simple and in three hours they will teach you to solder including soldering jump rings closed. All in only THREE HOURS!!! ...