Just in case you were wondering..

Here are some dos and don'ts of  deciding to camp while attending a dance workshop on a blistery cold & windy weekend.

Yeah, go ahead and pack a really yummy healthy lunch. Some no-knead bread, a jar of carrot juice, maybe even some avocados.



And, sure, why not make a cozy fire to sit around.



Yes, of course use your new cast iron skillet skills for supper that night. You know, the ones you learned at this class. Only, try not to get a flat tire.



But do not.

I repeat, Do Not....



only pack skirts to wear, because you want to "look cute". You will freeze your ass off and you'll also get such a bad cold that it will threaten your Food Network getaway with a girlfriend the following weekend.

Just in case you were wondering, that is.

The Battle of Caaahrthage

We fought the battle and won, my friends.



You know, the "weekend spent with 3 sisters, a sister-in-law, and a mother all in the attic of a bed & breakfast during their wine festival without killing each other" battle.

Any time a night hasn't ended with a drink thrown in your face and the silent treatment, consider it a victory.

But it really wasn't hard. And we were tested. Oh yes, we were tested.



Try going to the bathroom in front of four people in a space with no partitions.

No amount of magazines will help that situation.



But, to be true, we won probably because I paced myself....



..or because of the $20 lipstick complete with a built in lighted mirror. You know, in case you go spelunking in a cave with some girlfriends and need to freshen up.

This little gem just might have been the saving grace.



After our freshening up, we stepped out onto the front lawn to have a lunch while sampling the local vendors.

I've often wondered if I couldn't sell at one of these events. With all the grapes left in the back of the fridge, some of them are bound to ferment, right?



After several moves around the lawn and a couple more samples, we hit the town.

Dancing? Why yes, but not us this time.



The Kansas City Marching Cobras happened to be in Carthage this particular weekend! My sister L looked on like a proud mother as she was the only one of us who had seen them before. She continually asked us if we were sure we wanted to go see them, and then afterwards thanked us all for coming as if she hosted the group in her living room.

The Marching Cobras was started up in KC as a way for inner city kids to have a positive outlet, while also having to maintain a certain gpa, etc. They were a nice addition to our weekend!



When we arrived back at the B&B, we convinced the owners to turn on the twinkle lights on the front porch. Oh, to have a spacious, stone front porch like this one.

I would invest in only white linen dresses, cinched at the waist and insist that my hair be pulled up in a loose bun. Sigh.

We sat around sampling more wines, shoving chinese food down our gullets,



while L put on more lipstick.

We talked around the table for a good couple hours before heading up to the attic where it felt like a scene from Little Women.

Why do I always have to play the role of Beth?



Unlike Beth, my heart did survive the night and the next morning we woke up to breakfast downstairs. This is the first time I've had to sit with the hosts and other guests at one table. It was awkward at first, since it felt a little intimate.

Luckily they were the talkative sort and kept up both their and my end of the conversation. Functional Introvert saved once again!

Mom had to wear her sunglasses because of the sun and I laughed inappropriately loud for so early in the morning. The host quickly served our first course after that loud guffaw.



A couple poems were read and some well-rehearsed stories were told by the hosts, then we parted ways from cute Carthage, MO.

Writing this post has made me realize that as soon as I do something, I need to write about it. I'm sure there were a ton of little nuances throughout the stay that made me come away with this feeling of having had such a good time, but for the life of me, I cannot recall them. But maybe that isn't true. Maybe it was just the feeling of being together that left a good mark on my memory. Kind of like reading a book on a crisp sunny afternoon that resulted in a more refreshed version of yourself than when you first sat down. Nothing in particular, but just the whole of the experience.

Thank you girlies!

Jane Austen Festival, Part One

We've only just arrived home from our trip to Regency England (aka, Louisville KY) and am enjoying reliving memories from it....

...Like my senior portraits from the graduating class of 1798. I was voted Least Likely To Die During Childbirth.

Thank you, birthing hips.

And then there was the Regency Ball...

I think I may have set my expectations a wee bit high that I'd be dancing until my slippers hurt and I blame it on the Contra dancing group from a couple weeks ago. They had explained to me that it is considered rude to dance with the same person the entire night, even if he/she is your date.... Especially if there are more females than males, or vice-versa.

This was not the case Saturday night for little Miss Carolyn. Sigh.

When we arrived, a nice lady did ask me to dance for one of the first songs and I had to endure feeling like Sasquatch next to her petit little thing.  She was exceedingly sweet, though, and I was grateful for helping me segway into a dancing mentality. I'm new to this whole dancing without caring thing. And since mom was out of commission due to a back injury, I was on my own.



Afterwards, I sat down and we eagerly waited to be asked for the next song. We waited. And waited. Ogled at pretty dresses... and waited.



Song number two came on, so I used this as an opportunity to get a snapshot because there would be like absolutely no time to do so when I dance the rest of the night away. Poor mom will be just so lonely having no one to talk to.



Song numbers three through six: Mom started to get worried. I was becoming convinced that the wallpaper behind me was also green with pink roses and therefore no one could find me even if they wanted to. So I stood up and paced for awhile until the song ended.



Song number seven: Mom is now despondent and almost irreconcilable.

I'd have given my right leg for someone to ask me. And I probably would've danced better without it, too. Maybe not as happily, but definitely with more rhythm. Instead, I sat gloomily feeling more like Mary Bennett than Elizabeth.

You know who Mary is.

Take a guess.

Looking back, why didn't I ask anyone? If I'd had a glass of champagne in my hand, then game on.

But (in case you've forgotten) I'm a functioning INTROVERT, people. No way am I going over to strangers under flourescent lighting and lead them to the dance floor. If I had been with someone more shy, then I would've mustered up the guts to do something.

Have you met my mom, though? She is decidedly unshy and tried to get every living creature in breeches and dresses that passed our way to dance with me. My god, you would've thought our family was on the brink of financial disaster and she needed me to throw myself at anyone in a cravat. Yet, still no luck.

So instead of acting as my dance pimp, she suggested I improve my countenance. "You know, people are more likely to ask you if you're smiling, Carolyn."

Okay, so like this?

"No," she said... "Try to add a touch of desperation to your smile. Dance partners love that."



And what d'ya know. Within two seconds of my face exploding from sheer force of countenance, a guy came over and lamented that I wasn't dancing.

Huzzah!!



He really acted the part too, which I appreciated. All gracefulness and toe-pointing.; I was taken aback by his unabashedness on the regency dance floor.

The night quickly ended, though, before I could come out of  my shell. But I was happy with the dances that I was able to experience.



One note of worthy, however. A lady came up and asked my age. She thought I was 19. Let me repeat that, Nuh-ineteen. That's for all my fellow gray-haired friends, you know which nursing home you are.

As for the dancing, this Saturday night is another contra night and I'm looking forward to sweating dancing in the rounds I missed out on at the Ball.

However, this time I won't wear white. Okay, yes I will. Maybe it will ensure me a dance partner.

The Fourth, in Fast Forward

I don't have nearly enough time. We have been busy moving, packing, playing cards, moving some more, packing some more, more cards and eating. In the middle of it all, we trekked down to Wichita to celebrate the fourth.

When I get back from a Regency-era adventure with my mom, I will sit down and write a proper blog post about the weekend.

Until then, here's a snippet of our weekend:

Bus Tour

Barn Dance

Lake Swim

Car Stuck

And, yes, the car is still stuck in Wichita as of today. Didn't even get to see a sparkler in action. Oh well, I got my barn dance in, so the weekend was still a success in my book.

I hear my parents on their way. A week in an RV with just the three of us.

Pray.... Hard.

Contra Twirling Fix

R really does have an adventurous spirit and game to try most anything. Thank goodness too, otherwise being bossy wouldn't be as much fun.

A co-worker had mentioned that she attends a contra dance once a month in Fayetteville and suggested I go. Well, it only took a few months to find the time to attend one, but last night R and I finally did.

My face positively hurts today from smiling so much. It was like my Jared Haase smile times a hundred. You remember the smile. It still haunts me.



I was pondering what to tell you to not do if attending a contra dance. Oh, how about wear an all white outfit with no second layering and then sweat like you're in a sauna. Everytime someone put their hand on my back, I felt them pull away like it'd just been burned.

So while learning the actual dance routine, a conversational routine started to emerge...

• [hand jerks away from my back]


• "I'm so sorry. I never sweat like this. I don't even have sweat glands."


• [he smiles apologetically for so obviously showing his repulsion, but then realizes that my sweat caused a one person wet t-shirt contest (which I STILL lost, damn genes) and returns hand to my lower back.]


• "it's okay, I know I'm disgusting. Please don't shut me up in an dungeon somewhere a la Buffalo Bill"


• [his eyes widen and then immediately twirls me over to the next victim whether it was time to or not]

And then it just repeats. Embarrasingly so.

I finally figured out how to stop that line of conversation.

And then the tale of the father-son duo.

They. were. awesome.

I first turned to dance with the son (in the photo below) who is half my age and literally half my size. I smiled sweetly at him, thinking that the more mammoth of the two of us would have to lead.

Um no.

He grabbed my hand, took hold of my back and twirled me like he was trying to start a fire on the floor. I have never. I repeat, never been spun so fast in my life. The first time I kind of just stared at the blurry faces going by and when he let go so I could dance to the middle of the circle with the rest of the girls, I literally stumbled over my left foot and skidded to the center.

No one made eye contact with me, which as everyone knows is much more embarrasing than if they had only laughed at me.

The next time I was more prepared and stared at his face the whole time. I noticed that he never quite looked back at me, but instead was watching the rest of the group and I finally realized it was so he knew when to spin me out to the next move. Professional. I was impressed.

Then the dad asked me to dance. Here we fricken go again. It doesn't look like we were going fast in the above photo, but I was hanging on for dear life. It was so much fun.

Notice the Jared Hasse grin. And sweaty face.



I managed to catch R in action too. He really improved by the end of the night. I think I just might make a dancer out of him after all.

We both agreed that we are going to insist that our sons know how to lead on the dance floor. Shouldn't that just be a basic skill learned by all men?





After three straight hours of dancing, we were exhausted. As we were putting the chairs away, the duo who were playing (a fiddle and a banjo -- loved it), played a nice waltz. I was asked to dance and, really, what better way to end the evening than with a slow waltz.

This is definitely going to happen again... because I'm already coming down off my twirling high.

Dancing Wedding

Dancing Weddiiiiing - Young and Sweet only seventeeeen. You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your li-i-ife.

Wow, this was a fun one. I've been to some where I stay for the meal and slip out the door; others where I sit at the table all night talking with friends without even so much as a glance to the dance floor; and still others where I play whiffle ball and serve guests bbq from a gas station.

Okay that last one  was my own wedding. Yikes.

But this one. This one will be the dancing wedding.

We all knew K & D loved to dance, for them to see this all night:



It must've just made their day.

It made mine too, because I'm re-entering the world of dancing without caring.

R thinks he's been duped. You see, in college our circle of friends would go to a place with a dinky dance floor. And while everyone else was bumping to the music, R and I would stand flat against a wall getting to know each other all the while avoiding drinks getting sloshed into our face by someone's bad dance move. It was fun. Kind of like dodgeball meets dating. So, he thought I didn't like to dance, which meant that there was no pressure on his end. And there wasn't. Truly!

Until recently. If there is a packed floor and good music on, then I'm psyching myself up to get out there if I'm in the mood.

And I don't care if I dance a little Elaine Benes-esque with my one-handed train conductor move, because if you can't hear... Journey's playing and it's time to move.



So when R went MIA after seeing a good dance crowd, I turned around to find my good ole standby. Mom.



Whaaaaat? What is she doing all. by. herSELF?

Something drastic needed to be done.



So I ran to the DJ and requested Backstreet Boys, stat. HURRY. This is an emergency, my mom is sitting all by herself because she's not really into House of Pain.

He gave me a sidelong glance and hesitated in the B section. "Are you sure it will go over well with this crowd?" I didn't care, we had to pump some dancing blood back into Momma Pat and this was the ticket.

As the song started, I ran away from him so no one would know who requested the song. No offense, mom. But could you believe that people gave a loud whoop and clapped?

I grabbed mom and drug her out with me.



She was only a little excited.

By the way, nice bra, Carolyn. Jeez. I'm the classy cousin at the wedding with my unmentionables hanging out in every photo. Sigh.



We slow danced... Still couldn't seem to find R, so had to make-do with taking photos of my sister and her husband.

And then there were dance-offs:

My nephew, W, partook in one and apparently won?



But grandma was cheering a bit too hard for little W, because the dance-off moved onto her:



And she was booty-ed off the dance floor. No one is safe during a dance off, my friends.



But not to be outdone, my brother-in-law (aka "roommate") had one out with a groomsmen.

I don't think anyone can compete with suspenders. Sorry N.



Oh, K & D. What a great wedding! I don't know who this girl is nor why I took the photo, but I think it had to do with the drawing. Does it seem familiar to this old blog post? Click here.

Discuss.

And Dance. Discuss and dance. That's pretty much how life goes anyway.

Do you think he'll remember this?

or this?



I hope so. My cousin's wedding was a blast. It was the first time I danced all night without needing to be three sheets to the wind. Quite freeing.

It helped that the dance floor was absolutely packed, though. Most times it's just kids out there, but not this crowd. They were ready to dance. And so was I.