Category: Miscellaneous

(Click to enlarge.)

Be envious, everybody.

Y’all know that I go square dancing, but this week I also went round dancing.

No really!

There is such a thing as round dance. The defining difference (though not the only difference) being that the couple aren’t arranged in a square but a ring (hence: "round").

I also went contra dancing, which despite its name is not a form of protest against the concept of dance but is itself a type of dance.

Lemme ‘splain:

In order for people to do square dancing, you (normally) need groups of eight people, consisting of four men and four women. These four couples form a square.

If you have eight people of the right genders, you can form one square. If you have sixteen people of the right genders you can do two squares. Twenty-four people of the right genders and you can do three squares, and so on.

But what if you don’t have the right number and mix of people?

If you’ve got less than you need for a single square then nobody gets to square dance.

If you’ve got between the number you need for a square and an additional square then some people will have to sit out and not dance.

Or you can get creative.

I’ve been in a situation where we had six couples, which was not the eight couples needed for two squares, and so the caller put us in a rectangle and we did a kind of "rectangle dance" using a subset of the square dance calls (since not all calls designed for a square will work with a rectangle).

There are other ways of getting creative, too. F’rinstance: Doing different forms of dance that are related to square dance. That’s where contra and round dancing come in.

Square dance evolved out of the same mix of dance types as English country dance, Morris dancing, quadrilles, and contra dance, so it uses many of the same moves.

This week when I showed up for square dancing, we didn’t have enough people for a whole square. We only had three couples–not the four you need for a full square–so instead the caller taught us a contra dance.

Contra dancing consists of couples in lines (meaning that, yes, it is a form of line dance), and since we had three couples we could do a dance with two lines of three persons each.

If you’ve seen Gone with the Wind, you’ve seen contra dancing. In one scene, Scarlett and Rhett participate in the Virginia Reel–a famous contra dance (also classified as an English country dance).

This week the caller didn’t teach us the Virginia Reel (though that would have been fun), but he walked us through the steps for a contra dance a couple of times using square dance terminology for the different moves, and then we were ready to do it on our own.

It was fun! (Simpler than square dancing, but fun.)

Then enough folks arrived for us to have a full square and we switched to square dancing.

And then more folks arrived.

Soon we had seven couples–one couple shy of the number we’d need for two squares.

Rather than have three couples sit out, the caller switched us to round dancing and taught us a round dance called the "pattycake polka."

It too was fun!

Buzz afterward among the dancers suggested the conclusion that it was energetic and fun, but simple.

Why’s that?

Well, you’ll notice that I said that the caller taught us a dance–not a move. After he walked us through the moves of the pattycake polka two or three times, we were ready to do the dance–the whole dance–without him calling it. At that point, we knew the dance. We might need to practice it a few times to do it good, but we knew it.

That’s not the way it works with square dancing. With square dancing you learn moves, not dances.

Square dancing is the most challenging form of folk dance on the planet since (after you’re past the beginner level) you have to be ready to perform any of a hundred-plus moves at a moment’s notice (don’t worry; they work you up to that level slowly, so you don’t even realize how many moves you’ve learned).

Square dance is improvisational. Not even the caller knows in advance what moves he’s going to call. He makes it up as he goes along.

So for an experienced group of square dancers, any normal set-form dance is going to be simple by comparison.

It took us two minutes to learn all there is to know about the pattycake polka.* After five minutes we were performing it fluidly as a group. That’s all there is to it!

It was energetic and fun–but simple.

So this week I not only went square dancing but also round dancing and contra dancing.

Incidentally, I found a video clip of some grade school students in Japan doing the pattycake polka (badly–but, hey, they’re grade students).

WATCH THE CLIP.

*: For the record, all there is to know about the pattycake polka is that it involves you and your partner doing these moves:

(Man’s left) HEEL–TOE–HEEL–TOE–slide LEFT–slide LEFT
(Man’s right) HEEL–TOE–HEEL–TOE–slide RIGHT–slide RIGHT
CLAP RIGHT HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP LEFT HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP BOTH HANDS (3x quickly)
CLAP YOUR KNEES (3x quickly)
RIGHT ARM TURN to a new partner
REPEAT (over and over again)!

See! Hours later and I still remember everything there is to know about the dance. Simple by comparison!

I didn’t plan on publishing this. It’s just a note that I sent to a family whom I’m helping thorough my parish’s Thanksgiving and Christmas program. But I thought printing it might encourage others to help families in their own areas during the holiday season.

So here goes. . . .

Dear Family of [Children’s Names Deleted]:

I wanted to send y’all a note and thank you for the one you
sent me. Thanks! I appreciate it! 

I know what it is like to need help financially. I have been
so poor that all I could afford to eat was 17-cent boxes of generic macaroni
and cheese. After a summer of that, I couldn’t stand to eat macaroni and cheese
for years, though it had been one of my favorite foods before that.

Later, when I was married, my wife and I were so poor that we had to search the cushions of the
couch for spare change to scrape together enough money to buy a pack of cheap hotdogs
and a can of generic lemonade to have food and drink for the day. We could only
buy the most inexpensive food possible.

My family later offered to help us, but they had no idea how
bad off we were. At one point the subject of cheese came up, and I said:
“Cheese? That’s rich person’s food!” We simply couldn’t afford it.

My family brought over a bunch of food, including several
blocks of cheese, and it was such a gift from God!

Now that Jesus has blessed me and I can help others, I want
to do so. I hope that y’all enjoy what I was able to buy for him and for you.

I tried to get everything that was on the list that the food
pantry suggested for a family of six—plus more—though I wasn’t able to get
marshmallows since the store was out of them. There are extra sweets for the kids in the box, though.

I also made sure that there were some additional things that
the food pantry didn’t suggest.

In particular: I made sure that there were several blocks of
cheese.

The love of Christ be with y’all!

—Jimmy

Parishioner at [My Parish] Catholic Church

If you can, please help the less fortunate in your area this Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Many parishes have programs to provide food and other items for needy families at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Thanksgiving is coming up this week and Christmas is next month.

May I suggest that those readers who would be able to participate in such programs do so, either by volunteering their time or by purchasing items for distribution to the needy?

I’m occasionally asked by folks if they can make donations to support the blog. I am very grateful for such offers, though to this point I have not gone in that direction.

May I suggest that if you find the blog valuable and if you are able that you consider helping the less fortunate in some way this holiday season? I would appreciate it, and I know that those in need of help would as well.

Thanks, God bless, and (early) Merry Christmas, y’all!

Recently I had the chance to view things from an angel’s perspective.

No, I haven’t received any divine visions. This was the viewpoint of an entirely earthly angel.

Lemme ‘splain:

I go square dancing.

At least, I do sometimes, though it’s been a while. I decided to brush up my skills, though, by re-taking a class.

This involves more than you might think, because Modern Western Square Dancing is THE MOST SOPHISTICATED form of folkdance on planet Earth. It’s a ton of fun, but it also takes a good while to learn.

To help beginners along, square dance clubs typically include experienced members in the dances for beginning classes. It makes it MUCH, MUCH easier for the beginners to figure out what to do if they’re dancing with folks who already know what’s going on.

These more experienced dancers, in square dancing lingo, are called "angels."

And that’s what I’m currently serving as.

I’ve already been through a typical square dance program, so even though I’m a bit rusty, I can still be a help to beginners.

When I went this week, I was very pleasantly suprised at how reflexive it all still was for me.

Square dancing is a skill that is stored in a different part of the brain than where you keep propositional knowledge. Thus, as you learn how to do it, it becomes reflexive. You KNOW what to do instinctively, even if it would require you to think a bit to figure out how to put it into words.

After you’ve started to internalize it, it’s amazing to simply hear the caller name a particular move and you INSTICTIVELY start to do it, even if you’re not sure what the next part of the move is.

The closest analog I can think of is saying a prayer out loud as part of a group. Once you’ve internalized the prayer, you know how to say it even if you can’t (for the moment) remember what’s coming up in the prayer and even if you couldn’t say the prayer by yourself, only as part of a group.

That’s what square dancing is like.

If the caller says "Star through!" or "California twirl!" or "Send her back, Dixie style!" or "Sides face. . . . Grand square!" your body feels pulled to make the appropriate moves even if you could never articulate what those are and even don’t remember the later ones as you’re beginning the move.

It’s really surprising.

At least, that’s the way it works if you’re at angel-level. If you’re a beginner, you still have to think through the moves that the caller has just taught you. As you get more "floor time," the moves become reflexive–just as with any other skill.

It’s kind of like C. S. Lewis’s remark about how you at first have to learn your fixed prayers by rote memorization and it’s after you’ve done that that you’re truly liberated in prayer to think about the meaning instead of just the words.

If I remember correctly, Lewis may even have made an analogy to dancing and moving from the watching your feet stage to the experienced, graceful stage.

In the Doc Watson bluegrass classic "Way Downtown," there’s a stanza that goes:

It was late last night when Willie came home
I heard him a-rappin’ on the door
He’s a-slippin’ an’ a-slidin’ with his new shoes on
Mamma said Willie don’t you rap no more

The line in blue may not be overly meaningful to a lot of folks today since they don’t wear shoes with leather soles, but it’s instantly intelligible if you do.

The reason is that when you buy leather-soled shoes, the leather at first is slick. It’s cured in a way that toughens it up to serve as . . . well . . . shoe leather, and the process makes it quite smooth. As a result, when you first put on a new pair of leather-soled shoes, you really have to watch your step because you’ll go slipping and sliding if you’re not careful.

It takes a day or two of walking around (particularly on asphalt and rough concrete) to get the bottoms of your shoes scuffed up enough that the slipperiness goes away. After that, you’re all set.

(Until you wear through the shoe leather and it’s time to get your shoes re-soled.)

I was put in mind of all this because on my Arizona trip my boots finally wore out. I’d already had them re-soled, and the leather on the sides had cracked where my little toe is. I’d had that patched, but on the AZ trip I hiked around so much that the patches broke and the leather ruptured in a way that made it impossible ot patch them again without the patch being obvious.

So it was time for new boots.

It had been for a while anyway, and I’d planned on getting some new ones before the Catholic Answers cruise in a couple of weeks (wouldn’t do to be going to fancy dress dinners with worn out boots!), so I went out yesterday after work and bought some.

As a result, today I was in the period where I was a-slippin’ an’ a-sliding with my new boots on.

But that’ll be over by tomorrow at the latest.

Oh, and here’s a picture for any who are curious (figgered I’d better explain them or I’d get questions when I post the next footfall mystery photo).

An interesting article from WAPO (via the Seattle Times) reveals that for many immigrants to the U.S, using the automatic dishwasher in their home is the equivalent to Drinking The Kool-Aid.
Many – nay, most – simply won’t use the thing. It is seen as frivolous and unnecessary. According to the article;

If they have a dishwasher — and many do, because it is standard
equipment in most homes — it becomes a glorified dish rack, a
Tupperware storage cabinet or a snack-food bin. It’s never turned on.

Dishwashers are also seen as overly complicated and mysterious. Think about the way alot of Americans feel about programming the VCR (that’s what they had before DVD players, kiddos).
At bottom, though, many immigrants simply think that they can do a better job washing up than any old machine, thanks.

Graciela Andres laments that her daughter, son-in-law and three
grandchildren have abandoned washing by hand. "They do it the American
way: They put everything in the wash machine, no matter if it’s a
little spoon," said Andres, who emigrated from Bolivia in 1981.

You can almost feel the scorn and contempt, can’t you?
I say, good on ’em! "Go not gently…", and all that.
They should start an organization and print T-shirts with the slogan "They can take my dishes away when they pry them from my wet, soapy hands".
GET THE STORY.

In our ever more utopian society, not only are people eagerly seeking ways to cull out unproductive human beings from the herd and mark them for warehousing and death, but it is now seeking ways to make even the dead productive.  If you thought that the one blessing of being dead was that you would be safe from such designs, think again.

So, your mother, sister, uncle, grandfather, or child didn’t earn his or her keep and is now "departed this Earth"?  Or perhaps that person was someone you deeply loved who died a natural death and so you want to cling to his remains.  What do you do with the ashes?

If you’re Michael Schiavo, you bury them beneath a marker that acts as an eternal apologist for your agenda. But if you are the more sentimental sort, you might turn your relative’s ashes into jewelry:

"Laura Curtin falls silent as she slowly lifts the jewelry box lid.

"The 1.27-carat yellow diamond inside glistens brilliantly as it catches the sunlight through the funeral home window.

"Curtin’s eyes fill with tears.

"This isn’t just any diamond. It’s a tribute to her mother, created from her ashes."

GET THE STORY.  (Use BugMeNot.com to bypass the Evil Registration Requirement.)

SEE THE SITE OF LIFEGEM.COM.

(Nod to the friend who forwarded to me the links.)

Of course, in this particular case, Laura Curtin’s mother wasn’t particularly helpful to her daughter’s understanding of a dignified means of handling her remains. Curtin reports that when she asked her mother what she thought of the idea of becoming a cultured diamond, her mother said "That’s fine. I’ll be your problem then. You figure out what to do with me."

So, not only did this mother not request a dignified disposition of her body, but she equated the disposition of her remains with being her daughter’s "burden." Just such thinking is what spawns the quest to make human beings productive by any means possible.

Well, folks, I feel a somewhat responsible that Jimmy’s most excellent blog has been a little slow the last couple of days. Since inviting me and Michelle to jump in with him on JA.O I have been the least consistent of the three in getting posts up, but I have a good excuse this time; I am just coming back from a virus (the organic kind, not the digital kind) that has had me out of commission for the last week or so. Ordinarily I would keep that to myself, but this virus has been surprisingly, well, virulent and I am wondering if anyone else out there may have had it or seen it recently. This can be like our own very un-scientific study.

Here’s why I’m so curious: My brother and his family, who live three states away from us, have had a bug with a very similar M.O. at their house. His entire household has had the thing, as well as our whole family, though I dodged it for a week. This makes me think that it may be unusually contagious.

To help you to recognize this foul little beastie, look for the following:

• Really sore throat, followed by-
• Sinus infection
• Painful ear infection (my eardrum actually ruptured)
• Conjunctivitis (eye infection) with discharge (eewww!)

There are other symptoms I won’t go into here, but the above are the most characteristic. I don’t mind telling you that this thing turned me into a whimpering bag of protoplasm for a few days, fit only to hold down our sofa. I am crawling back to normalcy now, and hope to post something more interesting soon (my brain has always been slow to boot-up). Meanwhile, I am open to chicken soup recipes.

So, you want to see the scar from my operation…?

Last week a co-worker sent around an email with an evil .pdf file attachment of an amazing article from Sports Illustrated. Happily, I was able to find the article reproduced on the Internet. The world’s strongest dad, in case you were wondering, is not a muscle-bound Mr. Olympian who happens to have a couple of kids. He’s a 65-year-old Massachusetts man named Dick Hoyt who has spent the last quarter-century competing with his wheelchair-bound son in marathons, climbing mountains with his son on his back, and towing his son in a dinghy in swimming competitions:

"[A]fter a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out [on his computer], ‘Dad, I want to do that.’

"Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ‘porker’ who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ‘Then it was me who was handicapped,’ Dick says. ‘I was sore for two weeks.’

"That day changed Rick’s life. ‘Dad,’ he typed, ‘when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!’"

And so Hoyt kept giving his son that physically-liberating experience by continuing to take his son on sporting adventures. Rick Hoyt has given back to his father by keeping his dad in such great shape that the senior Hoyt survived a heart attack doctors told him he might not have survived without the strength he’d gained from exercising. Rick does have one wish though:

"’The thing I’d most like,’ Rick types, ‘is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.’"

GET THE (LIFE-AFFIRMING) STORY.

There are those who would say that Rick Hoyt’s severe physical disabilities meant that his life wasn’t worth living. Dick and Rick Hoyt have proved them wrong. And that’s how we’ll rebuild the Culture of Life:

One family at a time.