Tangents

The subject line contains some of the items I encountered while volunteering with Cumberland River Compact Saturday morning (Station Camp Creek cleanup). The bones may have been those of a large dog or a small deer.

Thursday night, the Compact hosted the Nashville premiere of Hidden Rivers. I got kinda emotional watching the end, and some other people there openly admitted that they'd cried. Listening to Casper Cox is going to get a whole bunch of people into snorkeling around the Smokies, myself included. (I already had face time with the French Broad on my list...)

I hauled the paddleboard to Percy Priest on Saturday and Sunday. It started raining Saturday afternoon while I was about two miles out, but not too hard, and I enjoyed watching the drops pushing into the water. It reminded me of cushions(looks-wise) and of candlewicking (punching-wise).

Sunday -- much of it was glorious, with the sun high in the sky and bouncy-fun waves. (I didn't try standing up on most of those, though. It needs to be 30 degrees warmer for me to enjoy getting tossed into the water.) Some of it -- well. Note to self: the next time the wind blows you and your board sideways before you even launch, you need to stay in the cove so that you don't have to call Lyft to get back to your car.

Misadventure notwithstanding, I still made it to 3/4 of this afternoon's dance, which included the first-ever dance-through of "The Baker's Gift" (choreographed by Susan Kevra, the caller), and also Jenna Simpson's "Revelations," which was gorgeous with our live band (Southwind -- Emma Rushton, Jeff Rohrbough, and Anne Hoos) and had me humming snatches of Vaughan Williams all the way home, because windy days and heart-achingly beautiful old melodies are intertwined in my psyche.

Speaking of English country dancing, there are a number of videos from last month's Playford Ball, including these three:

Wa' is me, what mun I do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRfJ1t4a_EU
My moment is around 5:34 :)
This is one of my favorite of favorites -- I became obsessed with the melody when I first heard it, and I've since taught the dance twice in cavalcades and two or three times during lesson nights.
.
Hambleton's Round O
https://youtu.be/1aZxmAHCSrE
A good hair day! Though, watching it there are also quite a few points where I'm "OK, I need to work on that..."

Fandango
https://youtu.be/7EW4YTcSMYo

This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/152980.html.

During this afternoon's driving around, I caught part of the TED radio hour's rerun of a feature on a boiling river that didn't appear on any maps before a Texas grad student's aunt connected him to a shaman who has allowed him repeated access to it.

On a far more mundane level, my cabin at Splashdance didn't appear on the map. Finding it -- while hauling a tub and duffel with my weekend bedding and clothing -- was an adventure; I've never been so happy to wear a headlamp (originally purchased for night padddling) in my life.

The weekend was a blast. I would have liked to have arrived much sooner and much more rested (having been warned that the camp was off the grid, and wanting 48 hours away from redlines and deadlines anyhow, I worked more than 45 hours while fitting 14 hours of driving prior to reaching Flat Rock). But I had energy enough for exhilarating waltzes and frisky contras (with a bit of blues and some squares in the mix, along with my beloved English country figures), and I snuck in naps on the bleachers, on a paddleboard, and in a hammock (heartfelt thanks and apologies to Cameron, who was very gracious about my mistaking her hang for community property -- it was a revelation to snooze between and beneath the pines, and I've since added "camping hammock" to my wishlist). The 6 a.m. breakfast prep assignment was a perfect fit for me, as I spent half of the shift cracking dozens of eggs while chatting with a whitewater guide, and the other half scrambling them eggs. I loved getting dipped by Shep (a carpenter I first danced with at an Orange Peel waltz night a few years ago), and grinning at Bill every time he soulfully yet wholly unseriously clasped my hand between his palms, and enjoying a few more turns with Dan, one of my favorite partners during the July workshop at Brasstown we'd attended. I'm not yet much of a lead, but that workshop gave me enough confidence to ask more women to waltz, which resulted in some memorable conversations as well.


Posing in the photobooth during the Saturday night dance

It is fun to be a more confident dancer in general. I screwed up plenty of times, but there were also plenty of smiles and compliments. One I'm still glowing about: one partner's pleased murmur about how people were actually dancing to "Sapphire Sea," not merely walking their way through it.

The rest of the week was even more "wait-what-whoa-JESUS" than usual, although I managed to avoid bellowing "Sonnnnnn!" at anyone (which happened last week when a particularly hapless Carolina driver veered into my way. Sometimes the South just leaps from my mouth...). Though some of my Congresscritters (TM Marissa) and other so-called representatives need to be deluged with more than mere exasperated hollerin', but that's a rant for another time/venue.



Today's moment of culinary inspiration: making aioli with leftover anchovy oil. (That's galangal sprinkled onto the sauce. It didn't add much, but hey, points to me for experimenting.)

This entry was originally posted at https://zirconium.dreamwidth.org/149340.html.