Back To The Dance

Ah, dancing at the local community center feels like home. Some of the same people are there this session from the last one. A man in the class is a man who had attended the beginner's class infrequently at best; he's always dressed so dapper with really shiny shoes and he writes down the steps and the dance names as we go along.

S and I walked in to see lifeguard training happening on the other side of the windows in the little room. This was going to be one of those interesting nights during which the lifeguards-in-training kind of watch us dance and we kind of pretend they aren't there.

The core group of dance women from the beach and from Jean's past classes were there. They had helped Jean teach 200 girl scouts how to dance and were retelling the tale as if it had been a non-voluntary community service assignment to avoid jail time. The girls were crazy and the parents were worse. The blonde said this is why she doesn't have kids. Yup, that's why. S and I wouldn't know what it was like because we weren't asked :)

One of the women in the core group noted that since the weather was bad, none of the old people were going to show up. Later on, S told me to go over to the piano and read the sign on it. I did and it said: This piano is old. So I go, it made it to class tonight. S was like, yes even though it's old.

Back also to dance were two of the older Asian women. Other than that, everyone was new, at least to us. Two women were sporting mullets, not something you see every day in these parts. One made friends with me quickly when someone mentioned dancing at Jones Beach, S asked me something about a dance we learned there, and then Mullet 1 asking all about it. I told her I didn't know if it would still happen this summer but she insisted on knowing where to park.

Another Asian woman was in the class. She followed S and I for a lot of the dances. At one point, she almost fell over. She tried to do a sidestep and tripped over her own foot and really almost went down hard.

Another woman was also having problems keeping up. She decided the best course of action was to get the best view of Jean no matter where Jean was in the room. That also meant no matter where anyone else may have been standing. Which meant she got in my way. A lot. I'm pretty sure she also farted during the dancing.

I smelled something and it was bad. I turned and looked at S. She was like, What? I shrugged. A few seconds later, she was like, Did you fart? I answered, Good, now you smell it. She was like, it's bad. I was like, I would own it if it were mine, but I've got an idea of who the culprit may be.

I had no proof of course and perhaps the woman's getting in my way without regard for other people's personal dance space was clouding my judgement. Her disregard, however, also almost pushed the dapper man out of the room. We were doing Mango Smoothie and there's a full turn and a back shuffle, and that's when the woman moved in front of me (which had been behind me a few seconds previously) and that made me move closer to the door which was now behind me and I turned and saw DapperDon almost in the hallway. I spoke up--He's almost out the door; that's not right! No one really moved out of the way, but at least he knew S and I knew he needed room.

Mango Smoothie almost caused some injury. That's when the New Asian almost fell over herself.

At some point during the beginning of class, a woman walked in who was new to us but Jean knew her from some circle in which they know common people because the following conversation occured in front of the whole class:

Jean: Did you hear about Sheila?

Woman behind me: Sheila? No.

Jean: Her son.

Woman behind me: No, what?

Jean: Yeah, he died last week. Sheila's son. He died.

Woman behind me: [Gasping] No, I didn't hear that. Last week?

Jean: Yeah. Mmm. Okay, anyway, yeay, Mango Smoothie!

I shit you not.

The new dance we learned was the wonderland waltz to a very creepy song from Alice In Wonderland. I had some trouble with it, but I caught on better after Jean practically danced with me. Aw, Jean.



*NOTE: Neither of these women are any of the Asian women in our class. Plus, we do not have outdoor lawn chairs in our dance room.

We also danced some other songs we knew. We did Hello, Dolly. We did a dance to a Michael Buble song that we did when we were in the beginner class. We're in an intermediate class now and people were still having problems with it. It's going to be an interesting session.