The Beat Goes On

March Madness has come and gone.

For me and three of my dearest dance friends, it was our very last.

Unseasonably warm temps made us all wish we'd be allowed to wear our summer costumes. As opposed to the obligatory long-sleeved winter ones. After all, as a rule, summer costumes are used for the first time of the season at A World A'Fair, a relentlessly musical multiculti extravaganza held each May. Period.
 

Last weekend, as a SPD warmup of sorts, we had three shows on a Sunday afternoon. A few of us also went to the local children's hospital and danced for some of the kids, a tradition. One of my friends was just enamored with those funny-looking face masks hanging outside every door. Which explains this...

Behind her would be a glass tank full of neat tropical fish. Plus another friend.

On one of the floors, a nurse told us that whoever painted the mural in the hall we were in hid a number of crosses in it. We wasted a good twenty minutes, the nurse too, trying to find at least one. We never did!
 

Like I told my friends, dancing at the hospital is an experience that doesn't tug at your heartstrings so much as yank them. Whatever I say is going to sound trite, but when we were done, and I was hauling my stuff back to the parking garage, all I could think was how lucky I am to be healthy and well and not in a hospital.

My own recent diagnoses are nothing life-threatening.

How fortunate I am.

How wrong my bitter mental reactions to my friends' conversation about college...

"Well, aren't they lucky. They know exactly where they're going and I'm stuck waiting for College B to make a move."

Maybe some of them will never get to go to college at all.
 

We brought joy to those kids! It was strange to see the smiles brought on by reel steps we've done countless times. Some simpler than others, but still. 

Counting your blessings is pretty humbling!
 

Speaking of which, it turns out College B is not going to work. But College D, a school even farther north than my sister's College C, has a very good Foreign Language Ed program. I have an official tour this weekend, which just happens to coincide with a close(ish) quilting event my mother's got ants in her pants to see. It does sound fairly impressive...120 different stores under one roof.
Stay tuned!