Dancing King

I already wrote a little while ago and said I didn't have anything to say, then proceeded to talk about germs and the flu. Well, since then, I have thought of something to write about!
I have a radio on my desk at work and it plays quietly all day long. I enjoy the variety of music and listen to a station that is work friendly, but stills plays current songs. Well, there is this one song that has been on for a while that I love. It's called..."Say Hey (I love you)" by Michael Franti and Spearhead. The song has a reggae beat to it and I love it. I find myself swaying and yes, even sometimes rolling my head, shaking my shoulders and even doing a bit of dancing in my chair. Now, my boss is in the next office and there is a door that separates us so he can't see me. I know one day I'm going to be caught in the full act of dancing! I can't help it, the beat is so great and I just can't seem to stop my body from moving. I've always been this way. I love music and love to dance. I'm not much into formal dancing but love to just move rapidly and with no inhibitions. While I was in college I took a ballroom dance class for one semester. I wasn't too thrilled with it. The moves were explicit and you had to hold your body tightly sometimes and the whole thing was rather stuffy to me. I enjoy dancing but that was not my particular forte. The next semester, wanting to continue experimenting, I signed up for a jazz dance class. I had found my niche! I loved it. I had so much fun learning the many moves and expression that go along with dancing like that. I had always wanted to be on Broadway and these were many of the moves I imagined were in the productions of "Cats", "A Chorus Line" and many others. It was exactly up my alley. Well, my instructor also owned a private dance studio in Orem and she was putting together a company to work on a cruise ship the upcoming Summer. Believe it or not, I tried out and made it. I think I made it because they needed men, but it was thrilled to me nonetheless. I rehearsed with them for several weeks and we were getting rather good but then I decided to "chicken" out and quit. I think I was afraid of not having or making enough money and there were a lot of individual costs that went into it. That has always been my biggest shortcoming - fear. I have always "feared" things - I think that's why I've never done anything with my life, but I digress.
Dancing was so much fun for me. The next Fall, the music theater program at school was auditioning for "Oklahoma". I had been taking vocal lessons along with my dance lessons and figured this might be a good chance to try my hand at musical theater. I made it to the final and was cut. To this day I think I was cut because I was blonde. Believe it or not, I had my hair frosted a week or two before the auditions and I was blonde - I mean Billy Idol blonde. It looked good but I think it made me stand out too much and I was going for the chorus. You have to blend in to be in the chorus. I was really disappointed after making it so far in the audition process. One of the directors warned us that we could be cut for something as minute as hair color, height or presence because they had a good cast to choose from. I was also preparing at that time to audition for the Young Ambassadors - that is a singing and dancing group from BYU. They were traveling to Europe for their yearly tour and I wanted to be a part of that so badly. I didn't make that either. What a time in my life. I was auditioning, singing and dancing right and left. No pun intended! I wanted to make sure I took advantage of what college had to offer so I would be a well-rounded actor/dancer/singer. I grew up watching old movies where it seemed that everyone sang and danced as well as acted. It seemed important to me to be, at the very least, acquainted with these various skills.
To look at me today you would never think I used to do all of those things but I was in rather good shape back then and did many other things to keep myself in shape. Aerobics was big with me, too. I loved moving around to the music in that work out genre. It was basically dancing to get in shape. BYU used to have these massive aerobics classes in the evenings in the Smith Fieldhouse. There had to be hundreds of people there moving to the music. I had so much fun doing those things. I think I should have just gone to an artists school rather than a four year college sometimes. ha.
So, dancing has been a big part of my life. Sometimes to this day I just cut loose and will dance to whatever is playing - Christmas music, rock, country - you name it. If it has a good beat, I'm there...'see that boy, watch that scene, dig in the dancing king!'

Rainy, wet and cold...

Cherie asked me to write something on our blog because she's tired of the one that is currently showing. So, here I am. It is a rainy Friday morning and I'm at work slaving away. Yeah, right! I'm not really sure what to "blog" about but I heard this morning that a young girl in our church has come down with the H1N1 Flu. Scary. It's hitting closer and closer to home. I don't know what is wrong with calling it "swine" flu? It was much easier to say and write. Do you ever wonder why we have to be so 'politically correct' all the time? Was or is it political correctness that switched the name? I'm not really sure, but it just seems so much more technical sounding. Maybe it's considered progression to use these types of names for things now? I'm not sure.
That really isn't what I wanted to write about but it was what was on my mind. We printed up a bunch of flyers to leave for families to pick up at church that list the various symptons of this flu. It also lists things to help prevent it. Basically, wash your hands! I do have to say that Cherie and I both are good hand washers. We are careful with a lot of things in our home because when you deal with someone with Alzheimer's who doesn't always, well, let's just say, isn't the most hygenic you begin to learn to be more careful. I have to say that one of my biggest issues is having sticky or dirty hands. I'm not sure where it comes from but anything on my hands that I can feel shouldn't be there bugs me. Growing up, our dad used Lysol on EVERYTHING! I mean EVERYTHING! I cannot stand the smell of the original Lysol spray. I'm not even sure they make it with that scent now? I'm glad. It was almost insulting the way he would spray the couch after someone had come for a visit. It was like they were filthy or germ-filled. I felt badly for them even though they had no idea. I don't think he's that way with it now, but I'm not sure.
The fact of the matter is, we live on this planet with lots and lots of germs. Some of them we need for our health or well-being and others like this virus can literally kill us. It's an amazing thing our planet and its defense systems. So, that's it. My blog today is about germs and the flu. Boy, wasn't that fun!