Holiday

It's been a good break. I did some shopping on Wednesday and caught some early sales, as I needed to buy some new pants and a couple shirts. I may have saved a few dollars more going on friday, but it just isn't worth it. I went dancing that night, which was a frustrating exoerience. The floor was so packed there wasn't room to really dance. I figured things would clear out later, and they did, but then the dj decided to play slow songs and a few charleston numbers, and no swing music. I gave up and left a little after 11. I made it out to the beach on Thanksgiving and caught a few waves before eating dinner with Mike and his family at his grandmother's house. I've still got some leftovers in my fridge.

People tell me that when you hit 30 you're body starts to slow down. I'm still waiting for it to happen. Friday afternoon I went and worked on solos with my partner for our saturday gig, then went to the gym, and then went dancing for several hours more. Saturday we had a gig at the Jazz festival in San Diego. We did 4 numbers, with a one song break between 2 and 3 for a costume change, and then between 3 and 4 as the band got set-up as our other numbers were from a cd. After the last, I was so hyper I couldn't stop jumping around. They had bands playing in 7 rooms, so we hit every room, dancing one song and then moving on to the next, except in one where the band leader was watching us and told us we had to stay for a faster number. I got to listen to a dixieland band play with a line-up consisting of a washtub bass, washboard, piano, and 2 banjos. I caught an all female band that played big band tunes with a small brass combo plus pianist. There were some other dancers there and I fell in love with one of the girls because she danced so stinking cute. The band's set ended before I got a chance to dance with her. A few of us went to catch another dixieland band. During their first song, we realized that their style would fit great with a line dance called the shim sham, so the next song we hit the floor and danced it. After realizing a bunch of other people on the team were in the hallway outside, we pulled them in and danced a few more. The crowd loved it, and the band leader jokingly claimed us as the "buck creek dancers" as the name of the band was buck creek. A band member from another group told us in the hallway afterward that playing for dancers is much more fun than just playing to people in chairs because of the participation factor. And there's just something about dancing to live bands instead of prerecorded music. It's a feedback mechanism, where both groups can feed of each other.

So that ended my fun at the jazz festival. We had dinner at the cheesecake factory, where I proved I can still eat most people under the table without even trying. Hey, after a day of little food and a lot of dancing, I needed to refill the tank.