The weekend in points
Long weekend. In sum:
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- some amazing horse racing, in both the Kentucky Oaks and the Kentucky Derby. Though whoever texted me right after the Derby to comment on the race, don't ever do that again, as you shouldn't talk about race results before you are sure the other party has seen the race! I appreciated that in the Derby broadcast there was some discussion of the issues facing horse racing--drugs, track surfaces, breeding, etc--and both what steps have already been taken and what needs to be done. It sounds like there is at least some industry support for a national commissioner of horse racing, much like baseball has, to provide consistent regulation across the country. Good!
- Had fun as usual at Amira Jamal's student recital. Stressful getting there, thanks to closed subway stations, but we eventually got there. The Framingham space is really quite nice, nicer than the one at BU. I felt like my solo was okay, probably better in class the week before, but I was happy with my connecting with people in the audience. That Ranya Renee has changed my life, I tell you. Our Rakset Kitty... well, we had fun, hopefully the audience was somewhat entertained. As was commented later, it looked like we all knew most of the choreography, but we all knew it with our own interpretation and didn't look like a cohesive group. There was also the point where P and I found ourselves face to face, when we both should have been facing the same direction--all we could do was laugh and keep on going. The video should be amusing.
- Stayed up too late on Saturday night drinking mint juleps and then absinthe. Oops! Highlight of the evening was driving with M and fudjo doing impersonations of the B-52s' Fred Schneider singing Nine Inch Nails and Ministry songs. Seriously, the man really ought to make a "Fred Schneider's Greatest Industrial Hits" album, it would be brilliant.
- Had lots of fun at a bridal shower on Sunday eating too much cheese and chocolate and chips and watching the excellent movie Jadhaa Akbar.
- Later on Sunday, I caught a fantastic documentary on the PBS Independent Lens series, Na Kamalei: The Men of Hula. It was about a men's hula school/troupe that has been around for over 30 years. It was founded in the 70s when the native Hawaiian movement was starting to take off and native Hawaiians were reclaiming their own heritage from the Western and Japanese controlled tourist kitch it had been reduced to. At the same time, the men who wanted to dance were fighting stereotypes about men who dance, made even worse in the dominant cultures' eyes by the soft fluid gestures of hula. All that alone would have been fascinating, but the program also delved into what dance meant personally to the men who did it, especially since the troupe was made up of men of all different ages and sizes, not just the young and athletic types most other modern male troupes had. This should be sounding pretty familiar to the belly dancers on the flist. Beautiful program, I highly recommend it.
- Minor seizure by Ianto on Sunday morning :-( But I remind myself that the vet did say it would take a week for the new medication to become fully effective, and it won't have been a week until Wednesday night. And it was minor. I continue to watch and nurture, as always.
- Awful nightmare last night about finding a decapitated head inside my apartment's walls. It stared through me and slowly B L I N K E D. I closed up the walls and tried to pretend it wasn't there, but I knew it was a lie. My only hope was that it wouldn't notice we were there. Wolves were howling outside but it turned out to be the television.
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