In which Lana finds she may be an adequate date...

"When it comes to cheating, duping, to thievery,
It is always good, upon my word
To have women with you."

~ from Bizet's Carmen, translated by http://www.aria-database.com/translations/carmen.txt

It's Wildrose weekend in Calgary; Darren, Christiana, Ryan, and others are competing. Meanwhile, Lana is headachy, driving in the downtown area with Angela looking for "Open House" and "For Sale" signs. Good news: there were lots. Bad News: I was skeptical and not in a good mood.

Not the best beginning to the highly anticipated evening at the opera with Jenn. But after going home, working on some grooming (3 piece suit!), emerged in a somewhat better mindset for the night. And that's when I got lost. Awfuly lost. Terribly, horribly lost. I only had to ask myself how many times I've been to her house and still not know the way to sink into a stupor. Finally I after circling the area too many times and still not seeing her house, I called. Jenn was good. She said she was going to step outside so I can see her. And that's when I struck out the second time by driving right past her.

I was loosing points fast: Compounding my lateness with complaining about my day (at least I remembered to compliment on how lovely she looked... but forgot to take a picture)

We had decided to try out Fiore's for dinner (I had a coupon!). The bread was nice with lots of grains and such, but they charged me for my hot water with lemon! The outrage! Overall the experience was o.k. but in no way better than Chianti's (which it had been marketed as being so).

We were making good time, and made it to the Jubilee in time with only one minor left-turn related mishap...

Jenn: Look out for the pedestrian!
Lana: Good call.

Once there, things went pretty well. Carmen - which Lidia was shocked to hear that I had not seen - was filled with recognisable songs including the one that I've identified forever with tango. The dialogue was hilarious. Though I'm not sure if it was intentional... or merely a new interpretation. The ending, was satisfactory in Jenn's eyes, was frustrating for me. I could only think that I was very proud of Carmen (she was never untrue to herself even in the face of death), but in the end I couldn't sympathize with her or with Don Jose. Anyway, it was good. There was also some nice intermission time for us to people-watch (guy in top hat!) and for me to stretch and dance in the aisles (you can take the girl out of the ball room...).

The show didn't end until past 11 p.m. so it was too late for dessert. I took Jenn home and joked about improving one's wardrobe with creative driving.

With an ice cream coupon in my wallet I managed to weasel in a second date! I guess the points balanced out. Her laughing at me helped.

"Like evil origami!" ~ Catherine, on my description of prions *laugh*

Janet caught me smiling at work again, and gives me this grin with eyebrows engaged, “So are you our closet pornographer? Because you can’t enjoy this job that much.” I burst out laughing. What she doesn’t know is that spoons can make me smile (yes, those would be in my slideshow too). Is porn then really necessary? In actuality, it was this fun little piece that caught my attention:

'What" will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Morbid? But wasn't that one of those exercises? What would you like them to write in your obituary? ... And then live the life to acheive it...

Anyway, there haven't been many things directly related to work that's been smile-worthy. Officially 3 people are leaving from the team, and we just had a meeting earlier this morning about Year End, which included an huge argument. Ack. Very impressed with our managers and how they kept calm. I was as usual... avoidant.

Wished Dad "Happy Birthday" on the weekend. This is an annual running joke, since the 7th day of the lunar new year is "the common man's birthday". So in effect, we're all a year older than we think we are (and it gets terribly confusing when people from my parents' hometown talk about age). I wonder if this is linked to a creation myth? Cool possibilities. Another little push of motivation to learn these stories from my heritage (possibly another sign of growing older?). Dad was in a good mood after that.

Finally got to see Sophie's place with her brunch on Sunday. It's so pretty with lots of colours (her curtains made me think of summer and watermelons), and interesting art. And of course she prepared a great spread. Crepes! Had lots of fun talking and meeting some of her friends (turns out everyone has a pen story at work), but had to rush off to OPDS. It was the first time I've gone to the new location. Felt very rusty. But it was also very exciting since I met up with Kenny. He's agreed to compete with me in the Bronze Latin category for the In-House competition! Ryan was there and very nicely gave us some pointers. Um... but should we be concerned? One look at our rumba routine and he blurts "Cucaracha?! Holy crap!" So this is what happens when Lana tries to cheorograph ;) I think we will end up cutting them out. Marching band people certainly have the right idea - a little music stand that clip to their instruments to keep thing handy while they're moving. For dancers, I propose *drumroll*: the magnetic dance routine bib. Worn by the lady, this addition can compliment any Latin costume. Though preliminary tests have shown that people will laugh (and very loudly and exerburantly at that, Ryan), at least Kenny (the lead) could track our routines.

Thought that Monday's TA class would be rough after such a long break, but it turned out o.k. Some of us discussed the upcoming UADC 50th Anniversary celebrations. And the talk turned to cheese. There would (could) be races and games with the Great Cheese Tradition. The Running of the Cheese where us dancers would run down a hill with large wheels of cheese rolling close behind... Cheese rolling - like log rolling, but with... um... yeah. Probably we'll stick to dancing, with cheese snacks on side. At least for this time around.

Without really knowing it, it's the 2007 Alberta Winter DanceSport Classic in Calgary this weekend! Good luck Team Edmonton! I expect lots of documentation (and hardware) from Darren and Ryan - go guys!

Love from Calgary

"It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time."
~ Tallulah Bankhead

When I went to Calgary for the Alberta Winter Classic, I made notes *blush*. Atleast have some reminders for what happened on the weekend :P Here's the long awaited play by play of the trip in various styles and non-styles:

Friday, 03-MAR-2006

Darren comes to pick me up at the allotted time... and I'm late again. After spending most of the night worrying and not being able to pack properly, I wake up early and continue the whole packing regime. All the while mom tries to hide bags of fresh fruit in my luggage.

We finally make it off to meet up with Christiana. She shows us the goods: home-baked Bailey's trail mix cookies! We head to her house to pick up her bags and then it was to meet up with the rest of our caravan. We share the lunch of champions:

Christiana confesses to a not-so-nutritous past (is a hamburger a day considered an addiction?) Final preparations with collaborating the walkie-talkies, and topping off the washer-fluid... And then we're off!

First leg of the trip we see a sign for Ponoka. Did everyone know that there was a psychiatric hospital there? We considered stopping for a visit, and maybe visiting the even bigger attraction: Tim Hortons! There was little chance of Lana ever using her bikini in Alberta (no tropical beaches) - but Ma-Me-O Beach was just around the corner - would that suffice? Christiana and Dexter deftly use the walkie-talkies. I was a slow learner: Press the button, pause, and then speak - who knew it was so complicated? :P Nova Scotia and Quebec license plates, flat snow covered fields, cows, horses, and then... ZOOM! D&D in their silver car pass by our cars (pausing of course to give us a wave). From then on they were code-named "Speeding Ticket". And it didn't seem to make too big of a difference - we all ended up meeting at Tim Hortons in Red Deer.

Armed with coffees and doughnuts we headed out again. On this next leg we passed two trucks transporting cows. The radio crackled: "Say moo!" And of course we all looked the window and made mooing noises at the cows. The truckers seemed highly amused, and smiled and waved as we passed by. Hm... were we and truckers on the same frequency? All this talk of cows must have influenced Dexter's thinking, because before long he was wondering outloud how much it would cost to buy a cow... and how great it would be to have fresh milk everyday... and what if we could genetically engineer a cow to not feel pain... then we wouldn't need to kill our cows and just slice steaks straight off, and let the cow regenerate... um... *pause* And a cow would also mean fresh milk everyday... Admittedly the car was filled with laughter. There were some good ideas there, and maybe some not so good ones. So the rest of us proceeded to be the wet blanket and dampened those ideas in Dexter's head. After deciding that we shouldn't pick up the hitchhiker, we reached Calgary!

Ah, the lovely Mariott, where the bellhops were cute (Christiana and I really need some help with the whole "tipping" thing) and bottled water was expensive.

We headed down to Milestones for dinner that night. And Dexter and I made off with a small farm of plastic animals (the drink favour variety).

After exploring a bit of the +15 pedway system, we decided to call it a night and go back to prepare for the competition.

*laugh* It's tough sharing a room with 3 other people. Christiana warned me early on that she kicks in her sleep... hm... that's not encouraging.


Saturday, 04-MAR-2006

A night of tossing and turning, waking up intermittedly to snoring, overheating, and general anxiety (but no kicking!)... the alarm rings. Christiana and I woke up extra early to start hair and makeup. Extra, extra early. (Thanks Christiana for going with me). Being semi-awake and highstrung, the two of us headed out to terriorize our teammates and meet up with Delphine for my appointment (the boys were just waking up).

After makeup and changing into costumes, and picking up the boys... it felt like a whole day already, but it wasn't even 9 a.m.! We made a stop at Starbucks (Christiana's coffee place of choice and right downstairs), and went to register and pick up our numbers.

The rest of the day was blurry. There were quarter finals for the Adult Standard Newcomer category - which was nearly unheard of. This meant Darren and I were dancing a lot more than what we anticipated, and we to the marshalling area again and again for our other dances.

It was an amazing experience. And I can see how someone could easily get addicted to the blaze of flashbulbs as in old Hollywood movies, the cheering, the excitement. And eventhough were competitors on the floor, it didn't matter - we were at first friends. We relied on each other as a team. You had to - With those fake nails, some of us couldn't even eat withough help! In the end, Team Edmonton made a grand sweep of the medals.

Tension all gone - headed back to the hotel room for a much needed shower - gel (and helmet head) be gone!

The whole team then headed out to Earl's for dinner before heading back to watch the pre-champ competition. Great, fun dancing, with just enough social dancing in the middle to keep things in perspective. I even got to salsa with Dominic! (Yes there were pictures for this, but better not shown). And I had my heart stolen away by the "Pirate" from the Calgary team :)

Now nearing midnight, we still weren't ready to rest. D&D bought us pizza for a job well done and we hung out in Lynn & Albert's hotel room. I headed back to write postcards. And soon it was time to call it night. Rumour has it though that at 4 a.m. the hotel manager had to get the remainder of the group to quiet down.

Sunday, 05-MAR-2006

Woke up, and yes, there were many pains. We packed up and headed out for Dim Sum. The question was then - where do we put the trophies! We can't just leave them in the car :P Dexter couldn't leave without sampling more of the fun fare and we picked up some more goodies from the Chinese sweets / junk food store - provisions for the way back.

We finally made it back on the road and headed back to Edmonton. Most of us fell asleep exhausted. Good job for the drivers who managed to stay awake and alert when all we could think to entertain them was singing over the walkie-talkies "99 Bottles of Beer on the wall", and my personal favourite the Arrogant Worms' "Rocks and trees... and trees and rocks..."

I fell asleep part way too, and didn't wake up until reaching Edmonton. And realised that we'd be late for Formation Practice! Yikes!

Yes, we're crazy :P But it was a great kind of crazy. And a great weekend of dance. Formation practice went as well as could expected when we had over half of the team travel-weary from Calgary.

Darren can hardly wait until the next one... I think I need another nap first.