Take Back Your Mink, Take Back Your "Poils"...

..what makes you think I'm one of those "goils"?

Dear Madonna,

Cava-Karen is coming!!!  Did I tell you?  She'll be here in less than three weeks, and is staying for a nice long visit: two months - with trips planned to New York and Las Vegas while she's here.

We met in Kuwait, rehearsing to be Hot Box Dancers in an amateur production of Guys and Dolls.  My favourite part of the musical, as we performed it each night at the Ahmadi Little Theatre, was when we ripped off our gold dresses - in a country where many of the women are completely veiled!

(I'm third from the left in this pic; Cava-Karen is 8th from the left)

P.S. I'm 'taking back' my own "poils" - in a symbolic act of closure. Thanks, Dana!

House of Cards

Dear Madonna,

I do love the show, House, starring Hugh Laurie, now in its last season. In fact I have a huge crush on the British actor, having watched him interviewed on Inside the Actor's Studio. He's intelligent, funny, talented, - and hot. He also looks a bit like Jeff.

The actor who plays his much-abused friend, Wilson, reminds me so much of my late brother Mike.  Just his looks, but I've enjoyed watching him and feeling in some weird way like I'm connecting to Mike. Wilson is a cancer doc, and the plot for his end-game is his own personal battle with the Big C.

So, there's this superficial attachment I have with these make-believe characters, but they deal with real life stuff. And real death stuff.

And it all comes tumbling down.

Wedding Season

Dear Madonna,

Ain't love grand?  And when two people find each other it is, indeed, a reason to celebrate - and may-be be a little silly.

Celebrations took place this past week in the form of a stag for our OTP-buddy Clem who's getting married in a couple of weeks.  He was an amazingly good sport - going along with costuming (bathroom and plastic lei), party games (dancing blind-folded and having to "Name the Follower"), and a photo op that broke the bed in the hotel suite we had rented for the evening. Oops!

On a larger scale, Jesse & Alicia's "Pre-Wedding Bash" offered two separate rooms for dancing, buffet dinner for 100 people or more, cash bar, and a clever home-made photo booth to bring out the extrovert in all of us.

There's another wedding taking place this summer that I won't be attending, nor celebrating. As someone for whom marriage has never been (pun intended) the golden ring, I was surprised that Jeff's news affected me so much.

Timing is everything.

Having a Ball in Austin!

Dear Madonna,

I'm here in Austin to attend the inaugural Austin Swing Dance Championships ("Keeping Austin Weird and Swinging") but came in a couple of days early to hang out with my good friend Mike and his husband, Timo. They treated me to an amazing tour on my arrival: lunch at the Oasis, then a walk up Bonnell Mountain, a visit to an amazing costume store, a stop for a treat at Amy's Ice Cream, a dance at the famous Continental Club, and we were just going to grab a beer somewhere and happenend upon a live performance by Marcia Ball!

It was my brother, Mike, who introduced me to her music years ago, and it was one of my first visit's to New York that my friend, Kathy took me to Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Centre where - again by chance - she was playing. I remember some jerk asking me to dance and I found him impossible to follow. When the song ended he asked in a disgusted tone "Don't you West Coast?". At the time, I didn't - and I pretty much decided then and there that I didn't want to have anything to do with a dance that attracted such rude and igorant people.

My how times have changed!  Marcia was awesome, as always, and Mike and I got up to dance (me in my flip flops) - West Coast Swing :)

A Night To Remember

Dear Madonna.

It was sad when the great ship went down, and this "Titanic Week" has been full of stories and insights into the tragedy, and its ongoing place in our culture and imagination.

I remember watching the movie "A Night To Remember" on our way to Prince Edward Island. It was a summer vaction/family road trip, and we had stopped overnight at a motel in Bangor, Maine. We had adjoinging rooms: my parents in one, and my brothers and our baby-sitter, Margie, in the other. While the boys slept, Margie let me stay up to watch the movie with her.

There was a long line-up to catch the ferry to P.E.I. (this was long before the bridge was built), so by the time we boarded and got underway it was night-time. I remember the eerie feeling of walking on the deck, the images of a sinking ship so fresh in my mind.

Mom's Eggs

Dear Madonna,

It's Easter weekend and I can't stop thinking about eggs.  Not the chocolate kind - though they're everywhere - but the ones sitting a small bowl that NJ made.  They were Mom's, and they remind me so much of her: their colours, and how she would pick one up and enjoy the shape of it in her hand.

It was her birthday last Sunday.

When I got the news that I was going to have to get my appendix out - I cried, but I didn't tell the surgeon that my mother had had a stroke during a bypass operation, and had never woken up.

Thinking of Mom, and thinking of eggs and their potent symbolism of ressurection and new life.

Naval Gazing

Dear Madonna,

Yes, it's still all about the appendectomy recovery. The three little incisions are now three small scars, and the redness and bruising around my belly button has almost gone away.  I no longer "feel" it when I walk or sit or move around - in fact I was up dancing Zumba during a coffee break in Orlando last week before I even remembered - "Hey, I just had my appendix out..."

So it's time to get back into the gym, and I've signed up for a series of Pilates classes with my old Pilates teacher, Samantha.

Core. Coeur. Courage - I'm working on a theme, here.

Sorry I missed your FB chat last Saturday.