movement of c

Last night I was teaching at Center Stage, working with my top tier munchkins. My brother Jonny is 11, and he has grown up in the studio dancing with a group of students who are, to say the least, very advanced for their age. This is the 3rd year in a row that I have been teaching their Ballet and Jazz classes, and these kids have that edge. They just want to get better, and it’s always a pleasure to work with students who have the drive and understanding of what it means to progress in dance.

This year I stepped up the level of their classes a lot. The past couple of years there have been a few different levels mixed in the class, and to play it safe my choreography generally reflected the weaker dancers. I didn’t want to risk having a number look bad in a show, so I made the dances somewhat easier than what the more advanced students could actually handle. This year, the first day of class I gave them “a talk.” Dance teachers, I know you know what this means.

We’ve extended the barre in ballet class to include everything from plies, to frappes, to ronde de jambe en l’aire. Really, their execution of technique has just sky rocketed. Every week we discuss the meaning of pulling the heel forward, and now when they are doing their fondu coupes, I don’t see anymore sickles! (or as anatomists might call it, a supination of the foot).

Supination is ultimately an inversion of the foot, so when a foot is supinated, the sole is rotated medially. This puts strain on the outer muscle of our foreleg, and in dance can both cause cause cramping in the sole and also look very ugly.

This is a supination, see the angle?

Pronation is what we are going for in ballet. When the foot is pronated it is everted so that the sole of the foot is turned laterally and it is fully stretched. Think of it as an extension of the foreleg, as opposed to a branch that sticks off.

Pronation. Doesn’t that look better?

Anyway, that’s my lesson in anatomy for the day. I really want to go back to school for physical therapy, because this stuff just fascinates me. I loved anatomy in high school. All of the terms and just connecting the whole body in a physical sense really aids in awareness of the self, especially as a dancer. And also, I love working with people’s bodies. When I’m teaching these classes that I’ve been talking about, I am literally kneeling on the floor next to their feet and legs, and moving and rotating for them to help them to FEEL the difference between certain technical aspects of dance. Usually once they really feel it, they smile and look at me, as if to say, “I’ve never felt anything like that before!”. I love it!

Choreography is moving along quite smoothly so far, getting ready for this year’s recital in June. This year our theme is “In the News.” My mother and I designed the show to be categorized like sections of the newspaper, so all of our songs fit in to these sections. My classes are spread throughout the show in sections such as “Health and Fitness”, “Classifieds”, “Sports”, “Weather”, and “Current Events.”

Newspapers have been a big part of life, but have slowly grown to dissuade me from reading them. In college I majored in Journalism, and I chose this major even before I was involved in The Student Underground. Then after college I just kind of lost the drive to be writing for a newspaper. I do like reading them sometimes, but I guess it’s all part of my attempt to escape what some call reality and create my own a little bit more. I like writing though, and that’s why I have this blog.

I do appreciate good articles though, and especially would never diss the New York Times for 3 reasons.

1. Ari pays for a weekend subscription of the Times, and I must admit, I like it sometimes.

2. Art might disown me.

3. Sometimes friends get talked about in the NYT, like today!

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty, though his dreams have lost some grandeur…Coming true there’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty, before the last revolving year is through. And the seasons they go round and round. And the painted ponies go up and down. We’re captive on the carousel of time. We can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came. And go round and round and round in the circle game…”

Ever since I was young I’ve known this song. My mother, having the entire Joni Mitchell album collection on vinyl, introduced me to these poetic words at a young age. This is the last of three verses, and as she follows the child from his innocence through his years of joy and struggle she always comes back to the “carousel of time”. But Joni, I’ve got to say that I’m not so sure about the captive part, and I’m not so sure about the time part either.

I have been watching the 1950s musical, “Carousel” over the past two days. Taking notes, and watching the intricate, awe-inspiring choreography inspired by the great Agnes De Mille.

I’m on an Agnes De Mille kick this year. In addition to choreographing “Carousel”, I’m using a medley of Arthur Fiedler orchestrated pieces that are all “American”- orchestrated themes, with a touch of hoe-down, country, even Oklahoma!, the first Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. Basically, Agnes De Mille is a huge iconic figure among modern ballet dancers that are not subject and imprisoned by the confines of classical ballet. Actually, Agnes De Mille once said something to degree of, “Other dancers have kicked higher or turned more, but that’s no substitute for passion!”

When I was young, even though I knew better, I was convinced that my Ballet teacher, Miranda Sugarman, was Agnes De Mille. She came from Russia (Agnes didn’t), and had a wonderful and strong accent. With strict ballet teachers, Russian accents make everything more dramatic. She had the most amazing choreography, and was trained in Character dancing, a mix mash of different Hungarian, Russian, and Czech folk dances that ranged from Czardas (char-dish) which is slow, controlled, 2/4 or 6/8 tempo to other insane fast Russian folk songs that were fashioned after the Trepak dances. So, yes, I thought she was Agnes De Mille in some sort weird way, or atleast, she was my Agnes De Mille.

So I’m taking this knowledge, and trying to learn more to put some fabulous choreography forward starting this week. Carousel is fantastically cheesy, dramatic, and so far my favorite part is when they have the first clam bake of the year….(oh yea, did I mention that the story takes place in “New England” - I think it might be the Cape). Basically, everyone stuffs themselves silly with lobsters and clams, and then they sing a song about it. Click here to listen, it’ll open in a new window.

The Carousel play is different than the movie in detail, but really the driving point throughout both is that time is so precious and we shouldn’t take what we have for granted. Much like a Carousel, we could waste hours going round and round in circles without ever really getting anywhere. However, the Carousel also stands for such positive things like utopian freedom, and carelessness. But, moreso, the issue of time. As of late, time hasn’t seemed to be on anyone’s side.

I started using a cucumber and aloe extract eye gel every morning and night, because I think I might be getting those little crows feet on the corner’s of my eyes. In some kind of effort to be preventative, I started a routine of application, and actually it feels really great, and smooth, and cool on my eyes. My boyfriend Eliot is working so hard at making things happen. And because he’s making things happen, he’s helping to make things happen for other people too. The other night he was setting up the new sprayer backend for 3rdarm.biz, and working with WP 2.0 he ran in to a couple of obstacles with the image upload directory feature and he was able to code hack and make it workable. He posted the fixes on his website, Fleshout.org . My housemate Art has been running back and forth between Connecticut and the East Coast Grille for the past 4 days. Despite the fact he has three arms, he is still almost human, and time doesn’t slow down, even for the IIIs.

More on time in the future. For now, feast your eyes on this.

200 type is now 8-bit binary. It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m home resting between performances. This morning was the first performance of Melrose Youth Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker, directed by my dear friend, Jaclyn Capozzi.

The 10am show was home to about 650 school kids, on a field trip to see the show. The Pope John High School kids were my favorite. They started the day off with a loud stomping of the feet (you know, the real enthusiastic kind?). It was great! Then off in the distance I could see these little munchkins wearing funny little hats. I think they had paper Nutcrackers sticking out of their domes! They ran about 8 inches high, which might explain why they were sitting in the back row.

Just to make things clear, I’ll give you a short synopsis of my history with Melrose Youth Ballet, and my involvement in this year’s Nutcracker production. I started dancing with MYB in 1996. I was 12 years old, and it was their first year as a non-profits arts organization. From that year on, I auditioned, performed, and worked my way up from playing the role of an Angel to being in the Corps de Ballet and performing some of the lead solo roles of the play.

Jaclyn, who is my long-life dance partner and confidant extrordinaire, also performed with the company. We were asked back as guest artists while we were in college, and continued our connection to the Nutcracker through the years. This year the position for Artistic Director was open. Jaclyn’s mother who is a close friend of one of the board member’s got a tip that the position was open, and Lori, the board member called Jaclyn to tell her to send in her resume.

Sometimes I wonder if she had the job before she “got” it. Either way, Jaclyn has done a fantastic job, and I am playing the role of Clara’s mother in the opening scene of The Nutcracker. My brother Jonny plays the frisky brother, named Fritz. My two sisters are also in the show, one playing the role of “Rat” and “Flower” and the other playing the role of “Maid”, “Russian” and “Snowflake”. If you know the story of The Nutcracker, these names might have more of a context.

We have four more shows this weekend. We’re performing Friday night at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 2pm.

Highlights of today’s show included:

• Paul McGowan, “my husband” in the play couldn’t get my necklace on while we were on stage.
• The “scary” rat scene got a few laughs from the audience.
• I barely made it off stage while striking the 30-second scene change before the curtain opened.

Good times! There are some real characters in the Nutcracker. The man who plays “Drosselmyer”, who is a drama student from Saugus High, was in my dream last night. Drosselmyer’s character is Clara’s Uncle, who is full of tricks and tribes. He brings the non-living to life several times throughout the night. In my dream he was just a normal guy behind the counter. I don’t remember much else from the dream, but I do know that when magic Uncles start appearing in my dreams, there is too much Nutcracker in my life! According to his biography, he’s written over 100 screenplays. Hmm….maybe he can work some magic, cause I don’t know about that one.

It’s been a struggle playing the role of a woman who is so primp and proper, but it’s getting to be more natural and lots of fun. Only a dancer, performer, or a stage crew rookie would understand that the stress and absurdity of performing and putting on productions is really what keeps us going. We’re insane, and we love it. And to the people in my life who have to deal with the insanity that stems from this masochistic lifestyle, I love you and it will all be over soon. For now, feast your eyes on this!

Me and Paul in the Party Scene at dress rehearsal on Thursday.

Nikki doing a crazy leap in The Russian Trepak, choreographed by moi.

One of these senoritas is my student at CSDS!

Me and Joie, (the senorita) at the last tech rehearsal before today’s show.

Tired, anyone???

“You can turn the clock to zero, honey
I’ll sell the stock, we’ll spend all the money
We’re starting up a brand new day…”
~buzz buzz….sting!

He said it best, except for the turning the clock to zero part. What would zero actually feel like? The closest I’ve ever gotten is when someone refers to the time as: “0: 100 hours captain.” Actually, to be perfectly honest, yesterday was the starting of a brand new day for me. I made a pact with a loved one, that this was the fresh start, the spring chicken, the “ready set go!” of all days.

Why yesterday of all days? The question really is why not. With all of the hulabaloo of life, work, dance, family and friends reeling in the ears, a girl has got to start somewhere. If not, it’s crash and burrn time. This morning was the first morning in many mornings that I returned to one of my favorite activities in life. I was drinking coffee (in my oversized “daughter” mug that my mom gave me a long time ago) on my bed within my sunny cove that is my bedroom. With morning talk shows in the foreground, I caught up on emails, did some coding for the world wide web, and accepted the position as Choreographer for the bi-annual Spring musical at Temple Beth Avodah.

This year the troupe is producing Carousel, a Rodgers and Hammerstein classic set in the 1870s filled with creepy carnies and flamboyant dance numbers! This should be very exciting. I told my family about the position at dinner tonight, and they asked me how I keep running in to these Jewish organizations that offer really fantastic teaching jobs in the field of dance. Well, Ari said it best: “You love the Jews!”.

But honestly, most of this has fallen in to my lap. It all started when I met Eliot, a nice Jewish boy from Northern Connecticut. Little did I know that having this tidbit of Judaism in my life would lead me down a very fulfilling path. In an effort to learn more about the traditions and culture that he and his sister, my housemate and out-of-wedlock sister-in-law, Ari grew up in I interviewed for a teaching position at the Leventhal-Sidman JCC in Newton. (This was post- my first Passover). I got the job at the JCC and have since schmoozed with parents, and taught many little munchkins that love to say Shalom Miss Christina! when they walk in the door. No joke.

In fact, a couple of weeks ago I was teaching my 3 year old class at the JCC. The week before I had taught them to do a “chasse”. In ballet, this word means, “to slide”. As a ballet teacher, even with young munchkins, I invest a lot of time in teaching the terminology of ballet. It helps to interpret movements in to a language we can understand, and adds an element of excitement for children because they are learning a lot of words from another language (even if it is all action verbs in their simple form). Anyway, I asked the girls,

“Does anyone remember what our sliding step is called?”

:::blank stares:::

“It starts like, ’shaaaaa’…

“Lom!”

Close enough. Shalom, Chasse. Smart little whipper-snappers!

From my little experience in the Jewish arts community, I’ve encountered that it’s all who you know. I suppose this is true in any field or community, but within the Jewish community I’ve found more loyalty, respect, and trust when someone reccomends someone for a position, a favor, a reference, or just someone to talk to. It’s a place that I feel comfortable, and I think that people can sense my interest and open mindedness toward integrating myself more. It’s nice to see a community that really belongs to eachother and itself, and works toward progressing that community as a whole.

Here’s a shot of the movie poster for Carousel, for a sneak peak of where I’ll be venturing in the months ahead!

A soda can rattles in the gutter above my head, as I sit in wonder of this 70 degree weather on this fine Halloween afternoon. Only 48 hours ago it was snowing, and pedestrians were shuffling dangerously amongst cars in the parking lot of Microcenter. The weather is crazy in New England, but luckily you only have to wait a day for it to change if it’s not to your liking.

It’s Monday afternoon, and I’m getting ready to head over to Newton to teach some Baby Ballerinas. It’s been 4 weeks since I last saw these kids, since the place I teach is a Jewish Community Center and High Holidays called for the cancellation of all October classes. 3 year old kids have short attention spans, and even shorter memories. It’s going to be like starting from scratch. But luckily, it’s Halloween today so our class will be filled with ghoulish games to suit the day.

Life has been lovely lately, and I’m so grateful to say so. My new students have warmed up to me, seeing that we’ve known eachother for 6 weeks now. I entered the mini-munchkin world with little knowledge, but have learned fast to grab their attention and run it until it can’t run anymore. The key to this success has mostly been animals.

Last week I did Jungle themes in all of my pre-school classes. Engaging the children’s knowledge of animals and different environments, I ultimately let them set up the scene. By setting up “stations” for each part of the jungle, the kids get to use their creativity and imagination rather than copy-catting me and just mimicking ideas that I may come up with.

The imagination of a 3 year old child is much greater than mine, and it’s been quite a trip seeing what these kids come up with. A friend of mine who also teaches children’s movement classes gave me a great idea recently. Bring in some pots and pans, and each child put in their own “ingredient”. Each ingredient is a type of movement that the child comes up with and when we mix them all together, it’s a wild amalgum of gyrating, sloping, and jumping. This is really fun. I mean, how often do you just let your body go wild and shake out every piece of pent up energy in your limbs?

If you don’t do this often, I strongly suggest you give it a try next time you’re in your bedroom. It’s good for the soul.

Gotta make this short. I’m on a mission today to find my sister a wig for her Halloween costume. She’s being Napolean Dynamite (along with every other teenager in Massachusetts, considering that every party store is sold out of wigs that look remotely like this). iParty has one that’s too long, so I’m going to have to do some wig-cutting this afternoon. Should be fun.

It reminds me of the time that I dressed up as Austin Powers for a dance in our recital three years ago. No stores had a wig that looked like his, so I bought a “Dorothy”-style wig (Wizard of Oz) and hacked it to look like a bumbling 70s Brit. Can you guess which one is me???

Hehe…

My right knee is a little blown out right now. It hasn’t been this bad in a few years, and it brings me back to when I was 16 and I got my first serious knee injury…on stage at a recital. Both of my knees suffer from Chondromalacia Patella - or easier said, continuously deteriorating cartilage. My left knee has sustained injury rather well. At the onset of the injury, my right knee blew first. About 6 months later my left knee blew, but recovered well. My right knee was worse, and within the next 3 years it failed to stay in its socket about 3 times.

What’s happening now is that my right patella (the little round kneecap) is coming in direct contact with the vertical surfaces of my femur that encapsulates the front of the joint. This result is a well-known “Snap Krackle Pop” upon bending. I’m avoiding another serious injury by taking it easy in my dance classes, and adopting a somewhat different style of teaching until I’m fully recovered.

Not being able to bend my knee more than inch or so with weight on it, I can’t demonstrate most of the steps that I review and/or am trying to teach. This week I decided not to teach too much new material, because it wouldn’t be fair to my students not to able to explain and demonstrate new concepts properly. We focused on reviewing and drilling a lot of the technique work and choreography that has been set over the past few weeks.

I realized over these past couple of days that I have developed a teaching style that relies heavily on demonstration. I’ve worked really hard over these past 5 years to be sure not teach in a copy-cat style. I always take the time to verbally explain dance concepts and steps in addition to showing. I use the chalkboard a lot when teacher Ballet, because learning the terminology and the translations of words like “plie”, “tendu”, “rond de jambe” are really helpful for young kids executing these steps. (Plie = to bend, Tendu=to stretch, Rond de Jambe=circle of the leg).

Ballet is the most verbal of all the dance forms for a couple reasons. The first is that it is spoken en Francais. This gives an element of poetry to the class, learning the French words, understanding their English meaning and working to execute the movement based on the meaning of the words. Ballet is a beautiful verbal art form. When we execute a combination of steps we speak a poetic line such as, “Tendu coup, pas de bouree…chasse releve pique plie.” or “Tombe pas de bourree…soutenu….balance balance, glissade saut de chat.”

Teaching jazz has been harder. My students tonite were pretty disoriented without my ability to demonstrate steps full out. It kind of hit me that teaching jazz all these years, I’ve relied heavily on my ability to demonstrate steps, and have worked to teach this form of dance on a very aesthetic level. I mean, it’s worked in a lot of ways, but it’s not something to rely on so heavily in the future. My jazz dancers are good dancers, and understand more than just copy-cat learning for sure. But it was a really amazing learning experience to have to implement different styles of teaching.

I’m a very vocal teacher, and felt as though my students would have been more receptive to this approach but was a little bit disappointed when I saw their turnout and grasp of the concepts we were reviewing. Focusing more on their success in listening is something to be more aware of in the future of teaching, knee injury or not.

During my last semester at BU, I took an English Folk Dance class with Tony Barrand. He has Multiple Sclerosis, uses a scooter to get around, and taught a class of 45 students the intricate and age-old dance forms of England, specifically, Morris Dancing. It hit me last year that this was a foreign method. It is a gift to be able to teach the techniques through verbal explanation, drawing on physical metaphor and explanation that could translate in to comprehensive and intricate movement. I had been trained as a dancer since I was three years old, and never had a teacher that was disabled. It was a new learning experience for me that I took a lot from at the time. I’ve seen fallen in to the easier route of demonstration as my main source of communication in my classes. Right now, though my level of disability is severely minor, I have some very valuable lessons to take from Tony Barrand.

It’s been years since I’ve taken the chance to flush out any thoughts on this here blog. My world has been spinning, like a neon colored top the past couple of weeks. I’ve estimated that the amount of new names logged to my brain is roughly 73, maybe 86. These names are important, considering these little buggers are all under the age of 5. Oh wait, little Alastair turned 5 on Monday. What a thing. A lot of the time that I teaching is spent thinking about what these kids will go on to do, to be, to say, to feel. It’s amazing how much character shows through someone’s face and words at such a young age.

I watched bits and pieces of No Direction Home, the Scorsece-directed Bob Dylan special, shown exclusively on PBS, our good Northeast public broadcasting friend. Last night, in part I he said that we aren’t built on our past, something to the degree that we are only what is happening now. What’s happening now is all we know.

This thought in some ways is admirable, but I instinctively feel something differently. Maybe it’s just a thought, inside my own head, but I feel very built on my past. I feel like I can give something to what will someday be a child’s past. Without carrying the risk of a self-absorbed “teacher” teacher, I feel like I am moving towards something when I work with the munchkins. If nothing else, I’m teaching about the magic of movement. It’s a special thing to appreciate the bodies we are and the mobility we have.

A nice little boy joined my class at the JCC last week. His mother was a little weary of a class of 7 girls dressed in pink tutus. Don’t get me started. This whole “boy” thing in dance class is getting ridiculous. There are teachers who have really just reinforced and pounded in this feminine ideal in to dance. During registrationg at Center Stage a woman came in with 3 kids. Here youngest was a 4 year old boy who really wanted to take a dance class. He had grown up seeing his sisters going to their recitals…what little sibling wouldn’t want to be a part of the magic?

She came to our studio because she heard, “we have boys”. This is true, we have 3 boys in our studio, which is 3 more than a lot of the studios in surrounding areas. But she didn’t sign him up because there weren’t any other boys in the class he’d fit in to. I work hard at making my classes non-gender specific. What is dancing all about? As I’ve hinted, it’s about using our natural mobility and maxing it out to make shapes, ideas, and concepts. So, little boy L at the JCC had a great class. We jumped, and meowed, and made flowers, suns and triangles with our bodies. He wants to dance like a beaver next week. I’m going to take some time to learn about the movement of beavers for our dear little L. Maybe I should bring in some logs…

Richard Landes the Great runs the Center for Millenial Studies at BU. Why is Millenialism such a hot topic? He says….

“Western culture is especially interested (one might even say obsessed) with timekeeping. The tradition of commemorations held in honor of a chronologically round number (e.g. the bicentennial) is more widespread here than in any culture in world history. So large a number leads many, often completely secular, people to reflect on the previous and the coming era, an activity one cannot do without some thinking.”

We are obsessed with time, but any sane person would be. I often feel a race against time, my list of tasks continues to grow, and as I cross one off, 5 more tend to appear. This is my engine fuel, and sometimes it is expensive, but because I am learning to use organically grown energy more efficiently, my time is becoming less of a threat.

Some fear aging, and the time lost in one’s life to experience the beauty of living. This is the beauty for me, and sure one has to sit down and ask the question, “What am I doing this for?” sometimes, but if you’ve truly got your belt on straight, you will know what you’re doing and why you are doing it.

I start teaching in Lexington tonight. I’ve made some serious decisions regarding the quality and content of my dance classes this season. It may be idealistic, but I want to establish a trust fund of sorts. I’m going to bring in a jar and little pieces of paper on the second week of classes. (This week there are too many logistics to figure out.). Each student has the opporunity to drop a note or thought in the jar every week. The first week I am going to ask them to write down one thing that defines them as a person. I can develop a better sense of my students from this, and even form some curriculum ideas based on them as individual human beings, and not just bodies to be trained in a technique.

As time goes on, they can use the jar to express a thought, concern, desire, or issue they might be having with something in our class. Last year I had my students write down their goal for the year in dance class, and I formulated my class curriculums based on the things my students really wanted to achieve that year. It was very great, and at the end of the year I reminded them of their goals. Aside from physical attributes (like a child with a hip bone structure that doesn’t allow them to ever reach their toes), everyone achieved their goals in some form or another.

Teaching dance to me is no longer about the technique, or the precision. For a long time I quoted Matt Mattox to my students. He is one of the founders of technique-based jazz dance, trained by Jack Cole, danced with Bob Fosse, and the greats. He once said, “The body is like an instrument to be fine tuned.” He was not talking about fitness (though this is inherent), but rather the technique that should be formed when a dancer is trained in ballet and jazz.

Without going in to a diatribe about ballet and its indigenous values to the world we live in and our bodies in general, I will just say this. Our bodies are not built to be constricted, tightened, and warped in to complete horizontal planes. We walk on two legs, and we swing our arms in opposition for momentum and balance. My training for my students this year will be a reversal of values. A re-evaluation of the way our bodies move. Let’s work with our natural inclinations to move and expand on them.

It’s getting late, and I have a lot of preparing to do. While the sun beats down on this hot September 14th, I will only remind you of the rare and unique neon green and electric pink grasshopper (about .25′ long) that graced me this morning on the back porch with my coffee and cigarette. He visited my 15.4 inch widescreen, and lingered for a good 2 minutes. I’ve never seen anything like it before. If anyone has any information on this insect, some input would be greatly appreciated. So far, I haven’t come up with anything.

Today I must have acquired atleast 32 megabytes of cell phone bandwidth in my dome. My ping was off the charts. It all started with a call to the JCC, my new job teaching 3, 4, and 5 year-old minituars. Settle one thing, move on to another, and I started mapping out my weekly schedule on a sheet of looseleaf. The tight squeeze gives me all the vitamin C I need to move swiftly.

CSDS had its last day of open house registration today. It was very busy, and we acquired many new students and some returning ones also. There seems to be an influx of 7 year old munchkins who are completely in love with dance class. Taking 3, sometimes 4 classes a piece! This is a good thing for children, especially those with Cystic Fibrosis.
My phone started ringing about 4:30pm. It was my new employer, stating that nobody had shown up to a preschool in Jamaica Plain to teach their weekly “Infant Yoga” class. I pressed #1 on the keypad. “Did she really just say Infant Yoga?” It’s becoming to sound more familiar to me now, but at the time I was baffled. What in the world is this? Well, apparently it’s a popular thing with the XL33tY generation. Baby Om. I can go along with this. After 3 or so phonecalls many apologies were made, and a crisis was averted.

The solution lay in the low-talking Restauran Equipment Salesman coming to the studio to drop of a “load of equipment.” In my mind this would include CDs, musical instruments, maybe a parachute or two. Boy, was I wrong. Being led down this dark tunnel that is called Jump For Joy, I’ve entered in to a realm of triangular squishies (8′ x 4′), atleast 1500 hula hoops, and many strange tubular cylinders which may be used for….holding the lung tract open while babies conduct Infant Yoga???

I’m officially self-employed people. It’s about high time I jump for joy. Cambridge may be flat, but the road ahead holds many hills!