All She Wants to Do is

DANCE, DANCE, DANCE!

This pic was posted on the Facebook wall of a friend I'd made while working at Arthur Murray, a year ago. It was part of a collage, celebrating her Danciversary, and I loved it on So. Many. Levels.

Did you know that I love ballroom dancing? Do you know when I fell in love with ballroom dancing?

MANY years ago, I was married to a dude who'd been a good husband and good father to his daughter from his previous marriage. He let the little girl slip away in a custody NON-battle, "in her best interests", but which led to her biological mother beating her, and when custody was granted to us, we had no clue how to raise a completely broken child, and so the ex-wife killed our marriage.

While we were drifting apart, I was working in a very corporate environment, and there was a corporate Christmas party that my spouse had no plans to attend. So I invited my baby brother to be my date, because I knew he'd had ballroom dance lessons and would often participate in his own neighborhood dance events. He was, basically, the best dancer I knew, and if he wanted to attend, I knew I'd have a good time in spite of my marital woes.

Boy, howdy, did he EVER want to attend! Free dinner? Free drinks (even if it was a two-drink maximum)? DANCING? You betcha! So he drove the distance from his home a state away, and we went to my company party.

I was inappropriately dressed. I had the wrong shoes, and my skirt was either too tight or too short or both. Didn't matter. Baby bro led me as if I knew how to follow. We didn't dance EVERY dance together (he danced with whomever he did/I danced as much as I was able), but we both had a good time, and he planted the "ballroom dance fever" seed in my brain.

Fast-forward almost a decade, and Mommy has just died in a horrible car accident. I'm in Los Angeles, making my film life work for me, and while I have some debt, none of it is particularly unmanageable. What's the one thing I could do with my portion of the small insurance settlement we've received? Who is the One Person who would love to see me dance? Who is the One Person my brother had danced with more often than any other, up until she died? What would She want me to spend that insurance money on?

You guessed it, kids. I paid for an intro package at Arthur Murray, because Mommy made it possible. After the intro package, I paid for more lessons. I took lessons at Arthur Murray for almost three years, advancing through the skill levels, figuring out which were my fave dances (TANGO, waltz, foxtrot...) and which were my not-so-faves (salsa and East Coast swing, primarily because of lazy partners who just spin you 'til you puke). I competed ONCE, after which I realized that I'm just not competitive.

Last year, I got that job as an admin at Arthur Murray. It was a good gig, and I got to dance with the students quite a bit. Prior to that gig, I'd shifted to group classes at the Y, when I had a membership. Then we moved across the country a couple of times, and before I got the gig at Arthur Murray, I was trying to figure out how/when/where to dance.

Now that it's 2016, I think Stephen and I are going to check out a dance hall a couple times per month. We gotta get him comfortable enough to let someone other than me back-lead him occasionally, and if we get friends to join us, that should do. It's not exactly a short drive from here, but really, what is? Do I wanna DANCE? Or not?

go ahead and play this in the background - there's no actual video here, just THE SONG

What is "All YOU Want to Do" for 2016?

Rainy Days and Mondays

always get me down. It's raining today, as it did yesterday. We need the rain, but I personally don't like it. I stepped out long enough to check the mail. Still waiting for a paycheck, but I did get more SAG screeners, so that's nice. I do appreciate receiving screeners in the mail. And there are more we'll be able to stream digitally, once we set that up. We tried to watch "Black Mass" but the rain is probably having an effect on our ability to stream (or else everyone was trying to stream it at the same time). I will vote for Best Actors and Actresses, once I've watched 'em all.

received so far. Still waiting for "Carol", "Room", and "Spotlight".

Just finished watching "The Danish Girl" screener that I'd received earlier. The other day, we watched "Steve Jobs" with high hopes.

So here are my reviews, so far.

Steve Jobs: confusing film. Great performances by Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet. Not quite worth the two hours lost, though, I'm afraid. And certainly not a positive advert for Apple. You may disagree with me; that is your right.

The Danish Girl: made me cry. Eddie Redmayne may very well be this generation's Meryl Streep, if he wins again this year. I have to get through the rest of the screeners to see if he's my pick, but he is, at the moment, my front-runner for Best Actor. Haven't yet seen a Best Actress or Best Supporting. Again, I have a few to watch still.

Currently watching "Beasts of No Nation" - will review in a couple hours (and then update).

UPDATE - Beasts of No Nation: HEAVY film. A few funny moments, but more than anything, HEAVY/SERIOUS. Performances were good, but nothing/no one I'll be voting for. And besides all the HEAVY, we could not help but notice that Idris Elba's head looks funny. Seriously. Looks great in a beret; not so much sans chapeau.

What did YOU do today?

I went to bed at a "reasonable" hour last night (11-ish). This is what my TODAY looked like:

• 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. (I mean, really, without actually opening your eyes and focusing on the clock, who the fuck knows what time it really was?) - I pound three times on the bedroom wall and shout "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" at the neighbors, who are having another fight in their bedroom, and have awakened me again. Yeah, I'm sure the pounding on the wall may have done the trick, but I was asleep, so are you going to hold the obscenities against me? Possibly the other occupants of this particular apartment may hold it against me; after all, I didn't check to see if the screaming awakened anyone other than me. Sorry, kids.
• 6:29 a.m. - my "preliminary" alarm goes off. I shut it down, which really only snoozes it, which means I know the real thing's happening in a minute.
• 6:30 a.m. - the first real alarm goes off, and I awaken enough to shut it down for good. I have nowhere to be today, so my plan is to sleep in long enough to see if they need me at Warner Bros.
• 6:30 - 9:30 a.m. - it RAINS in Los Angeles, kids. Enough to get me sleepin' in but good.
• 10:45-ish a.m. - Stephen heads into the bedroom to let me know he's heading out for work (because of the rain), so I make him wait five minutes to see if I can't schedule a recall appointment for my car at the dealership, and thus have a reason to drive him in. They don't have the needed part in stock, so he leaves, and I go back to doing whatever online crap my phone will allow while I linger in the comfy bed. The cats are keeping me company, so my life so far this morning is pretty good, other than the noisy-neighbors incident.
• 1:00 p.m. - I finally drag my ass outta bed to stuff cereal down my gullet and re-load the dishwasher. Stephen's already told me that it's ready to run, but that he wasn't running it because I "like to reload it". No, honey, I'm sorry, I do NOT "like" to reload it. I'm just better at loading it the first time than you are. I eat my cereal, run the dishwasher, and open my laptop (while my phone is charging in the other room).
• 2:00-ish p.m. - laptop's about outta juice, so I turn on the t.v. and look in the dvr. Oooh - there's Spiderman 2; I can watch that without doing "anything else". After that was over, I checked the mail (nothing good), and came back to two episodes of "Telenovela". It's so silly stupid and looks like so much fun, and I would really love to book a day or twelve on set. So I sent a quick email to my service to see if they can't get me on at any point. There are one or two blondes I could stand in for, or I could easily be a blonde Miami tourist in one of the peripheral scenes. Whatevs. 
• 6:30-ish p.m. - laptop's got juice again, but I'm not quite ready to give up just chillin' on the couch, so I watch "Horrible Bosses 2". I know it'll probably still be on by the time Stephen gets home, but I'll keep it in the queue for when he's ready (as I do all of the stuff I watch without him, JIC), and I discover that it's actually Pretty. Damn. Funny. (whether you actually remember the finer details of the first film or not - I don't).
• 8:55 p.m. - Stephen walks in the door, on the phone, and since my movie's still on, he heads into the bedroom to finish his convo while I finish my movie. He notices when I turn mine off and pokes his head out, JIC, to make sure that mine is actually over and I haven't turned it off on his account. Thanks, honey. His phone call ends shortly thereafter, and we settle down to watch another episode of Gilmore Girls. Unfortunately, I'm now in the middle of blogging, which means I can't devote any attention to it, even though he's saying things like "Oh, My." and "Wow." and "Uh-oh".
• 9:45 p.m. - wrappin' this up so I can watch season 7 in peace. Did you know that Netflix is bringing us Four. More. 90. Minute. Episodes. this spring? I'm so excited. I never watched this show before I started at Warner Bros., and it is my current "favorite". Back in the day, I had no interest. Who knew?

...so I'm finishing up My day, and asking you What have you done that was of any interest today, or are you still (like me) in something of a "holiday" mode?

When should I go grocery shopping?

Not on the first Sunday evening of a New Year, THAT'S for sure!

I had a few things to pick up yesterday evening after work. Of Course, I went to Trader Joe's! I ALWAYS go to Trader Joe's! I LOVE Trader Joe's! (You knew all this already).

It was a madhouse.

I enjoyed it, because what good does it do to complain about a reality, whether expected or not? The reality is that everyone who travels out of town for a holiday period is going to return to an empty refrigerator and freezer. Sure, there may be some food in the pantry, but there's not going to be fresh cream for your coffee, or eggs or bacon or anything else that's going to help get you out the door for work on Monday morning.  So you go to Trader Joe's, because they've got everything! You don't go to pick up just the eggs, bacon, and cream, though. You gotta pick up EVERYTHING you're out of.

Which means you're going to stand in a line that wraps around the entire produce section, or freezer section, or extends all the way to the demo stand! Yowza!

Good thing I wasn't there to pick up MEAT (or milk or eggs or bread, since those shelves were equally depleted). Take me to wine-n-chocolate!

I was able to get the wine. Today, my (dark) chocolate (peanut butter cups) were back on the shelf, and the crowds had thinned a bit. Hallelujah!

When did YOU shop last, and have you found this situation to be true in YOUR fave store?

NOT a Resolution

Just a goal, sorta.

Got off the phone with Daddy last night and realized while I was helping him set a goal for this year, that I had already set a goal for myself.

I'm not much of a "goals oriented" person. I've always hated when motivational speakers tell you that you have to create an action plan before you can take action; that you have to have goals to achieve before you can really achieve anything.

I'm one of those "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions" people, meaning, I'm not letting my good intentions get in the way of me doing stuff.

But I did realize that I had already set a goal for myself, for the year 2016. I want to post something here, on my blog, Every. Day. I want my post list to number 366 on the 31st of December. I know that some of those posts will likely be written ahead of time (as this one is actually being written "last night", since I already posted "yesterday"). I know that some of these posts may even stack up, so that I write more than one post in a day, so I can "get ahead" in my goal achievement. I'm okay with that.

The goal is to POST something worth reading Every. Single. Day. of 2016.

Whether I succeed or fail is immaterial. If I succeed, then I imagine I will have accomplished something worlds beyond writing 100,000 words (or however many words that results in). I will have accomplished something worlds beyond a monthly (or more frequent) Friday Fictioneers or Photo Phriday or a completely green map in my stats. I will have disciplined myself to carry out a goal. That will be an amazing accomplishment.

If I fail, but I keep this goal in a little pocket in a corner of my brain, then I will still succeed. If I fail outright, without keeping the goal in mind, then I will have succeeded in weeding out a stupid goal. No matter what, I WIN.

So, do you have resolutions or goals of any kind for 2016? Are you willing to share them in the comments below? Do you feel the way I do, in that, whether you succeed or fail, you will still WIN? Can we keep each other accountable here?

Hop-n-John for a Happy New Year!

Stephen's first attempt EVAH.

Mommy always made Hop-n-John for New Year's Day dinner (or whatever meal it was). I've always loved Hop-n-John, but my hubby never seemed to care for it (or never really had it), primarily because, as far as he knew, he never liked black-eye peas. He figured enough time had passed since the last time he'd tried black-eye peas, that he would give 'em a second chance. So he threw all the parts into the crockpot, baked a great cornbread, and when I got home from some personal assisting/bookkeeping, we ate.

It was great. Even Stephen liked it!

Happy New Year!

Welcome, South Korea and Finland!

Today is a good day for a first visit. Thanks for dropping by. I blogged about half as much in 2015 as I did in 2014, so you ought to be able to drift through the archives fairly quickly to get "caught up" if you so desire.

Happy New Year, and Welcome to the Ideas I'm Kickin' Around! Feel free to comment any time.