random thoughts – Day 2,091 (Sunday) – dancing and shopping

Dance troupe season 2025 is finished, after our performance at a benefit for Home for Little Wanderers at the Middle East in Cambridge. The day was fun. The other dancers in the show were amazing, and the costumes were all impressive. So much beading! Gorgeous colors! Veils, fan veils, and zills! Our troupe had seven dancers today and we adapted to the smallest space we’ve ever performed in. If there had been all nine of us, it would really have been a spectacle.

Turkey wants in.

Three of us carpooled. The traffic didn’t seem too bad, but I wasn’t driving so that might be inaccurate. At a red light near Boston University we saw a turkey walking on a patch of grass, and then it started following a woman as if to try and enter a building marked “Administrative Offices.” She managed to slip in and shut the door behind her to keep the turkey out, and it stayed there looking through the glass. Or maybe it was admiring its reflection in the glass. Who knows. It was amusing either way.

We arrived at the performance site early enough to walk around and grab some lunch before we had to check in. The energy on Mass Ave was invigorating. There were lots of people on the sidewalks including many sporting runners bibs and many restaurants were crowded but we found one with open seats. My lunch/late breakfast of scrambled eggs and coffee was energizing. Restaurant scrambled eggs are almost always better than what I make at home and I don’t have to deal with eggs stuck on a pan. Spending casual time walking with two dance sisters was good for my soul.

After the show we visited Goodwill, conveniently located on the way back to the garage. I found a light blue and gold lace patterned dressy turtleneck top (if there is such a thing as a dressy turtleneck) that I don’t know what I’ll wear with, but also knew I might regret not buying. 

Dance and street shoes crammed in a shop.

A few doors down the street, my eye was caught by a window full of shoes including those worn for ballroom and salsa, and sky-high platform stripper shoes, and when I spotted the jazz flats and pointe shoes and we saw some costumes it registered it was a dancewear shop. The small shop was crammed with everything dance – and we’re talking all kinds of dance, including a couple dresses perfect for some styles of belly dance. What a find.

This was our busiest performance year with appearances at events new to us including some in New Hampshire and the Natick Dance Showcase. Now we will relax for a few weeks before beginning rehearsals in January for a performance in February.

I won’t have much time to collect any rust though. There are a couple weeks still left in the Tuesday night dance group classes where we are working on some fun dances. The coming year looks like it will be another good one for dancing.