His Legs Flail About As If Independent From His Body

This is from one of my favorite episodes of FRIENDS (The One with the Embryos):
Ross - What, according to Chandler, scares 'the bejeezus' out of him?
Monica - Michael Flatley. Lord of the Dance!!
Joey - The Irish Jig Guy?!
Chandler - His legs flail about as if independent from his body!

Ok, so if you couldn't tell from my sudden increase in blog entries, fall semester is over and I actually have some free time again. Soon I'll be back to reading scientific papers and my Radar for Meteorologists book, but for now I have been enjoying catching up on my YouTube videos and streaming online TV shows. This is also necessary because I am away from my DVR and missing new episodes of those few shows not yet affected by the writers strike (*twitch twitch*).

Anywho, a friend informed me that on a recent episode of 'Dancing with the Stars' (don't worry, not a show I ever watch), the aforementioned Mr. Flatley made a special appearance. Excited as could be, I hopped online to see what the Lord of modern Irish Dance had come up with now. I sat through Jennie Garth, a Spice Girl, some racecar driver, and Marie Osmond worrying about their chances to make it to the finals of the main show until 'ol Mike and his troop performed.

A small aside - I was so interested in 'the irish jig guy' because I am a former Irish Step Dancer. Really the only reason I have not fully gone back to it is because there was no dance school where I went to college and there isn't one where I live now. I got started in about the 6th grade and got really good. I moved up quickly and was dancing with the most advanced class a couple years later. Some of the girls I was in classes with have recently competed at the Worlds competition in Ireland. But just as I was starting high school, I lost focus during practice for a competition and basically broke my ankle while doing my rocks (those moves where the dancer is up on their toes and then look like they roll over from one side to the other on them). To make a long story short (too late!) the only time I have been able to return to this old love was when I lived on the East Coast for a semester and found an AWESOME school. I miss it a lot and hope that one day I'll get to dance to that lovely accordian music again.


Now back to our regular programming - so they started the irish dance number, which was a great acapella hardshoe number...and then I realized: This wasn't from the newest show that they were touting ('Celtic Tiger') but rather from the previous show - Lord of the Dance. They just put the people in new costumes and completely reused old choreography! This really got me worried. Had they just pulled and repeated choreography for this 'new' show? A little investigation online and I was able to catch most of the premiere of 'Celtic Tiger'. While no full numbers were repeated in this new show (they must've just like that old choreography better for the ABC appearance), there were a few things that bothered me.

- He hasn't lost his signature moves. These include the main line wave. In both Riverdance and Lord of the Dance these can be seen in the final numbers. The chorus is in one long line and Michael directs a wave effect of stomps with a head turn. In this one, we have a wave of salutes. Also, Flatley still parades in front of the chorus. It really bothers me because it seems so pompous. Yes, I tip my hat to this man for all he has done to bring what so many people call 'Riverdancing' into the mainstream. (For future reference NEVER, EVER!!! call it that. Please, call it 'Irish dance' or 'Irish Step dance'. Consider yourself officially informed that this irks true dancers beyond all get-out.) He is also extremely talented, I give him that. But for Lord's sake, don't strut. You seem like a prize idiot when you should be leading your cast by dancing with them instead.


- He has GOT to be a horrible womanizer. I overlooked in Lord of the Dance when the girls in one number strip off their regular dresses and do a powerful hardshoe dance in basically a black sports bra, biker shorts, and tights. But in this show there is just gratouitous skimpiness in the costuming of the girls. One girl even spends half the show strutting around the stage in an American Flag sparkling bikini. Considering he is choreographer, lead dancer, and mastermind of the entire thing, I'm sure that's his doing. The way he grabs some of the lead girls in the finale number also just make me think he's probably a big talented jerk.

- Hi-tech doesn't necessarily mean better. The backdrop of the stage is one big video screen, basically. It's really distracting from the dance at many times because there is too much going on behind them. If, on a video, I am having trouble focusing in on the movement of the dancers' legs, I can't imagine what it is like being in the audience and sitting any further back than about 15 rows.

At the same time, though, there were some great points to this show. The Capone number, Freedom (where they showcase the variety of dance styles that make up American culture), and Dancing in the Dark are particularly well done.

No matter what I get annoyed by with Flatley and his shows, I still can't help but practice some of my old steps after I watch them. Almost any dancer I know still gets that bug and hears their old teachers in their head as they one-two-three down the hallway or tap on that hardwood floor in the kitchen. It's an infectious love of culture and tradition that has also gotten all the non-dancers in the world interested in Irish Dance since the infamous interval at the Eurovision song contest that started the phenomena of Riverdance over 13 years ago. So thank you Mr. Flatley, from the bottom of my heart for bringing your crazy version of irish dance to the world. Farewell for now...I'm going to go practice my leap-2-3s, trebles, and fishies for awhile, in hopes that I'll find a new school soon.

Christmas quiz

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? I sometimes resort to bags, but I think it is so much more fun to be able to tear into the wrapping paper.

2. Real tree or Artificial? I have an artificial one - but I had a blast helping some friends go and cut down their own tree this year. It ended up being a very Martha Stewart kinda day: decorating their self-cut tree, preparing cider on the stove, a fire crackling in the fireplace, and shopping online for presents while we watched a Christmas movie. Ok, so maybe that last part isn't so much Martha Stewart...which probably isn't helped by the fact that the movie was Christmas Vacation.

3. When do you put up the tree? Weekend after Thanksgiving

4. When do you take the tree down? Sometime in Mid-January. I'm reluctant to let it go.

5. Do you like egg nog? Never had any.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Probably my Barbie doll house. It was the huge one, almost as tall as I am.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? One under the tree and one in my bedroom.

8. Hardest person to buy for? my friend Tim

9. Easiest person to buy for? my friend Kayce

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Haven't gotten around to that yet...how about a Christmas blog?

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I guess I'd have to go with the Year of the Skunk. My grandparents lived in out in the country and somehow a skunk got under their house a week or so before Christmas and died. The smell got all over the place, including in our Christmas presents, which were already wrapped. I got a porcelain doll that year. Mom and I had to wash her little outfit about a million times and then we tried to Soft Scrub the doll itself. Too bad Febreeze wasn't around yet.

It's kinda funny, though because now I can't tell you how many of my friends now know the story about that Christmas. Anytime I am driving somewhere and smell that skunk smell, I say, 'Awww...Christmas!' Usually everybody in the car laughs at me and then asks for an explanation. They find the story thoroughly amusing, too.

12. Favorite Christmas movie? White Christmas, Muppet Family Christmas and the Charlie Brown Christmas Special


13. When do you start shopping for Christmas ? Usually I start the hardcore shopping in late October/early November - I like to be done by Thanksgiving. Only ONCE have I been shopping on Christmas Eve Day. We usually help Dad with his part of the shopping and one year he came to David and I the night before Christmas Eve and tells us about a few things he needs, including a silver or wooden ornament hangar. I was immediately confused because he said it was for mom. Mom only really has gold decorations in house. Well, Dad said, the ornament I got was more of a silver-toned one. Alright...so Dave & I head out to do our shopping on Christmas Eve (yuck). We spent almost ALL afternoon searching for this darned hangar. At one point Dave even suggested that we give up, but I was determined that Mom have something nice to open the next morning. I don't even know how many stores we went to, but we finally found one at Johnny Brocks. Blah blah blah, Christmas Eve comes and goes, and we next pick up our story at Christmas morning. I open up one of my presents and guess what's inside? That darned silver ornament hangar!

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not that I know of

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? It used to be those Snowflake cream cheese cookies (we usually colored them green or reddish pink). But I was making them one year, got distracted, and forgot to put in the sugar. I tasted them at the end and instead of delicious cookie dough, I basically tasted play-doh. Kinda lost my taste for them now.

Ummm...gingerbread cookies are probably my favorite now.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear

17. Favorite Christmas song? Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Travel

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen & Rudolph

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Right now I have a ghetto little star I made out of a toilet paper roll and aluminum foil. And no, I did not make it when I was little...it was only about 2 years ago. The top of my tree looked bare and I still haven't been able to find a nice topper I like - star OR angel!

21. Do you open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Major present opening is both Christmas Even and Christmas Day. Although, we've started to transition to opening immediate family presents Christmas Eve because we've all gotten to the age where we would rather sleep in more on Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? When people start complaining about Christmas stuff being up so early. It's the Christmas season - JUST LEARN TO ENJOY IT!!! (I understand about people who work in the stores being a little more grumpy about it...but it's only for a month or so out of the entire year - embrace the holiday fun!)

23. What are you looking forward to during this month? Being back in Missouri with family and friends and snow...although the downsides to that are: I have to deal with the cold and I'm not going to see my friends from grad school for a few weeks.

24. What do you want for Christmas this year? Peace of mind for me about a few things, a red rider BB gun, and whirled peas.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

So here's today's date:

And here's what I wore today:

Aaand the view in our living room:

Oh, and here's why:

In case you can't read that - yep, that's my car's thermometer reading 79 degrees F. As I write this, I am sitting on our porch, eating ice cream, drinking some ice water...and I'm still warm. (Who am I kidding - even if it was snowing outside I'd probably still be having ice cream.) Well, I guess this is one of the great things about living in the south! The low temperatures for the next week may eventually dip down into the 40s.
Remind me again, then, why I'm leaving this to go back to the cold of the midwest? Grandma and I are going to have to commisserate and bundle up together against that Missouri cold!