Sunshine, Dresses and Diabolo
You know the adage "it's always in the last place you look?"
IT IS SO TRUE.
I spent a good portion of Saturday down at the Waterfront, looking for a plain white sundress for my Arumi costume (my previous one being lost, I believe sometime during the between-apartment shuffle). No luck. Every plain white dress was either covered with white embroidery or was a halter-top or crinkly or whatever. So Sunday I went to Monroeville Mall with Brian. The plan: start at Boscov's, then work our way through the mall, both floors. At Boscov's was an almost-perfect dress (it had a tie-back, but the rest of it was perfect). I kept it in mind as a fall-back, then I went through the mall towards Macy's. Second floor of the mall: nothing. Go down to first floor, pause for ice cream, then continue to check every clothing store I pass.
The LAST store before Boscov's again had exactly what I was looking for. O.o
*sigh* I content myself with knowing that even if I had started on the first floor, I would've checked the rest of the mall anyway to see if I could find something cheaper. Oh well, one thing off my to-do list!
Brian and I watched "Little Miss Sunshine" on Saturday night. If you have not seen this movie, I recommend it. It's a wonderful, sad, touching and ultimately heartwarming look at a dysfunctional family, if you can make it through the horrifying child pageant scene at the end. Oh God, girls that young should not be swathed in two inches of makeup and strutted around the stage in heels. O.o The movie also puts Murphy's Law on parade to the Nth degree. "Misadventures" doesn't even cover it. Even things that should not have conceivably been able to go wrong for the characters went wrong. But...yeah, it's a movie that's honest in its conflicts and subtle in its love.
This afternoon marks the first chance I've really had to go outside and earnestly practice on my diabolo since I got my new string. I spent a good portion of my lunch break outside in beautiful sunlight and shade, getting myself reacquainted with tricks I haven't practiced since maybe last fall. It was fun times, and while my lack of practice certainly showed, I think I made progress just remembering all the tricks I used to know.
The most pleasant surprise was relearning this trick called the half-sun. I know you all probably know very little about diabolos, so I'll leave out the jargon. Basically, the half-sun (according to the diabolo tricks website I frequent) is considered a fairly simple beginner move. It involves tossing the diabolo, catching it behind your back, and swinging it back over your head to the front starting position. But it gave me a really hard time when I first tried to learn it. I could catch it behind myself, but I wasn't swinging it over my head properly. I just wasn't getting the wrist movements correct. So the diabolo would go sailing off, or it would get horribly tangled in the strings, etc.
It took me a long time to get it down, because when I did do it right, I wasn't sure what I'd done correctly versus all the times I'd messed up. Ben at the juggling club helped a little, but it was still a long, slow haul before I got it down.
And today, after a couple of misfires before I remembered how to catch it behind my back, the half-sun came back to me almost intuitively. It was like my arms just knew what to do right, and had completely forgotten my early, faulty technique. I thought, "Holy, how did that happen?" It was just a pleasant surprise.
So, yeah...Half-Suns and Chinese Suicides have come back to me with surprising ease, Cat's Cradle and Redone Trapeze just need a little more polishing, and Whip Catch and Coffee Grinder need a lot of work.
IT IS SO TRUE.
I spent a good portion of Saturday down at the Waterfront, looking for a plain white sundress for my Arumi costume (my previous one being lost, I believe sometime during the between-apartment shuffle). No luck. Every plain white dress was either covered with white embroidery or was a halter-top or crinkly or whatever. So Sunday I went to Monroeville Mall with Brian. The plan: start at Boscov's, then work our way through the mall, both floors. At Boscov's was an almost-perfect dress (it had a tie-back, but the rest of it was perfect). I kept it in mind as a fall-back, then I went through the mall towards Macy's. Second floor of the mall: nothing. Go down to first floor, pause for ice cream, then continue to check every clothing store I pass.
The LAST store before Boscov's again had exactly what I was looking for. O.o
*sigh* I content myself with knowing that even if I had started on the first floor, I would've checked the rest of the mall anyway to see if I could find something cheaper. Oh well, one thing off my to-do list!
Brian and I watched "Little Miss Sunshine" on Saturday night. If you have not seen this movie, I recommend it. It's a wonderful, sad, touching and ultimately heartwarming look at a dysfunctional family, if you can make it through the horrifying child pageant scene at the end. Oh God, girls that young should not be swathed in two inches of makeup and strutted around the stage in heels. O.o The movie also puts Murphy's Law on parade to the Nth degree. "Misadventures" doesn't even cover it. Even things that should not have conceivably been able to go wrong for the characters went wrong. But...yeah, it's a movie that's honest in its conflicts and subtle in its love.
This afternoon marks the first chance I've really had to go outside and earnestly practice on my diabolo since I got my new string. I spent a good portion of my lunch break outside in beautiful sunlight and shade, getting myself reacquainted with tricks I haven't practiced since maybe last fall. It was fun times, and while my lack of practice certainly showed, I think I made progress just remembering all the tricks I used to know.
The most pleasant surprise was relearning this trick called the half-sun. I know you all probably know very little about diabolos, so I'll leave out the jargon. Basically, the half-sun (according to the diabolo tricks website I frequent) is considered a fairly simple beginner move. It involves tossing the diabolo, catching it behind your back, and swinging it back over your head to the front starting position. But it gave me a really hard time when I first tried to learn it. I could catch it behind myself, but I wasn't swinging it over my head properly. I just wasn't getting the wrist movements correct. So the diabolo would go sailing off, or it would get horribly tangled in the strings, etc.
It took me a long time to get it down, because when I did do it right, I wasn't sure what I'd done correctly versus all the times I'd messed up. Ben at the juggling club helped a little, but it was still a long, slow haul before I got it down.
And today, after a couple of misfires before I remembered how to catch it behind my back, the half-sun came back to me almost intuitively. It was like my arms just knew what to do right, and had completely forgotten my early, faulty technique. I thought, "Holy, how did that happen?" It was just a pleasant surprise.
So, yeah...Half-Suns and Chinese Suicides have come back to me with surprising ease, Cat's Cradle and Redone Trapeze just need a little more polishing, and Whip Catch and Coffee Grinder need a lot of work.