After yesterday’s post, a few friends from my Fame-like high school responded to me in one way or another. One former classmate, now current friend, said she could only vaguely remembers me dancing and must’ve blocked my smooth moves from her memory. Gee, you think she’s jealous much? I don’t think she actually remembers anything at all because she was a year behind me following in MY footsteps at this junior and senior level school, and I don’t think I danced that year. By then, I had tippy-toed onto other things. She got me going on something here though, and I thought about the little plaque that hangs by my closet. It says, “One shoe can change your life.” I had this back at the old house, but it carries new significance with all of the changes and little creature friends now at this castle.

I grew up dancing – ballet, tap, jazz, modern. My first teacher was an inspiration and that inspiration came from her panties. Hear me out here. She was a BEAUTIFUL woman and as eccentric as she was beautiful. She used to complain about the humidity here messing with her hair and how she would probably have been better suited for a drier climate. When she wasn’t wearing flowers in her hair or a turban of some sort, she was actually known to wear a pair of panties on her head for rehearsals. She claimed that the inspiration went in one hole and the perspiration went out the other. I have GREAT hair, but I think I picked up a thing or two from her. My panties are worn in the proper place however, thankyouverymuch!

My sisters grew up dancing as well, and my mom spent hours a week on the road between the dance studio and the house since we were there every day of the week and usually weekends as well. One year we TOTALLY dominated the Christmas Rudolph performance. It was a Sister Act because from beginning to end, at least one of us was in every scene and surely as entertaining as Whoopi herself. My most memorable performance however was Cinderella. I got to perform a pas de deux as one of the Autumn Fairies with my friend. As only I would do, I found myself chatting it up backstage with one of the cute stage hands and missed my cue. What made me realize that I had missed my grand entrance you ask? Well, it was the giant THUD that came with the landing of Cinderella’s pumpkin. My partner was performing and tossed the big orange ball into the air blindly behind her expecting me to be there to catch it as rehearsed. Guess what. I was not. MORTIFIED, I galloped onto the stage and attempted to save the show. Remember the big Saturday Night Live performance when Ashley Simpson got cold busted lip syncing and did that bizarre little thumbs-out-wiggle attempting to save face and then blamed her BAND? I guess my scene unfolded a little like that. I flew in from the wings and faced the BACKDROP. And CRIED. But I still SMILED through the tears at NOBODY and MADE UP a bizarre little ditty like some comedic poltergeist had taken over my body while my teacher stared in total HORROR. I couldn’t even look at her. Eventually her voice broke through my fog, and I finished the second half of the dance as choreographed. God! It was like watching an awkward Ben Stiller movie, I’m sure. Picture him now in pink tights and a tutu and pointe shoes pirouetting. Not a pretty sight, but back to my point. Not a soul could cushion the fall from grace in those pink soles. I call that vivid memory, The Great Pumpkin Dance. And the first sounds of my teachers instructions were garbled like the Teacher from Charlie Brown. God, what a nightmare. Boy, I bet she misses me now, huh? If I have you on overload with my wordsmithing here, then tough. My brain works like that Bing! commercial and this is MY blog so you can keep up or step away. (more…)