Dancing on very big boats

Cairo Caravan and we Rawked the house!

My students are awesome and did a fantastic job. They stepped up and showed the crowd their funky groove thing. I was thrilled and honored to have them on that stage representing the music so well. The audience seemed to love it and I feel that, even though I may have had a melt-down a couple of weeks before the show, they will mostly remember this as a positive experience. I hope. ( I hate getting so keyed up )

I saw a lot of familiar faces and some old friends too. Katerina did a fabu job and her students really did a fine job of representing too. They did a very classic tribal piece infused with some flamenco and a touch of Asian spice. Really quite lovely.

My general feelings regarding the whole event was that it could have been scaled down a bit and made more cohesive by placing the thing in the main ballroom/salon on the Promenade deck. Because the event was held on the Queen Mary the experience was overshadowed by this huge boat. I think the QM has a tendancy to swallow energy.

There may be less opportunities to dance if they choose to use the ballroom, as there is only one stage, but I bet the "energy" would feel warmer,. the boat itself is so large we need to make a more cozy space. Additionally, the whole environment would have been warmer by far. The lighting in the space where we were (centeral hold) was harsh and made everyone look tired and depressed. The space had no natural or warm incandescent lights...just fluorescent that washed everyone with a dismal pall. Going upstairs to experience the grace of the ship was a stark contrast to the metallic hold we were in. Overall, the entire experience was a bit fractured and I hope that next year they choose to make that move if possible.

How to eat like an animal

I am reading and studying raw food.

Those who know me know I am far from a vegetarian and most certainly love to cook, but the attraction of the raw diet keeps me coming back for more: questioning, experimenting, making colossal blunders and the occasional success.

What I see in raw food theory that attracts me is the promise of a healthier body, clearer mind and a more vitalized life. And fundamentally, it seems mighty easy as far as eating styles go. The tricky parts seem to be when you try to emulate “cooked” food and find yourself missing the real thing.

I plan on making a hamburger patty for my husband tonight. He asked this morning if I was going to force him to eat the way I was choosing to. I told him no and I hoped he’d try to support my choices, whatever they are.I will contemplate if I will join him or not in a beef patty tonight.

I have not made a commitment to raw food as a 100% way of eating, but I am currently writing as the dehydrator hums in the kitchen, making a variety of snaky foods to munch on through out the day. This is contrast to the peanut butter , chocolate dipped cookies from the $.99 store that JA like to eat for breakfast. I sometimes worry about this...it seems like an awful lot of sugar and processed food to be digesting.

I don’t want to judge...I want a healthy happy man in my life. If peanut butter chocolate cookies keep him happy, that’s half of the equation. I hope he’ll be healthy for many, many decades to come. I want to be there keeping up with him...step by step.