random thoughts – Day 2,268 (Tuesday) – explosions

Rhododendron explosion.

The rhododendrons in front of the house are exploding with big pink puffs of color. I love them. I also can’t wait for them to be done so I can trim the overgrown beasts. They seem to have not been cut back for ages – much like the one at the house in Lowell when I moved there. That’s where I learned about the timing of the buds setting. You know, after I had cut them all off with my major late summer trimming and then had no flowers the first spring I was there. Oops.  Live and learn. At least I didn’t make that mistake again.

While pacing like a panther awaiting an update on the roofing project which I thought was happening today but then learned a few hours later was not, I decided to channel my impatience in a more productive manner. I had been seeing videos on FB of “The Long Lost Steps” of Cecchetti with Diana Byer, who has been resurrecting the technique with short reels.

When I was a teenage dancer with Marion Rice Studio of the Dance, part of our center work was the “Cecchetti Arms” series. The new reels feature the six port de bras (French for “carriage of the arms”) in the Cecchetti series, which I loved doing then and it turns out, love now. So, instead of pacing and to avert an outburst, I ran through all six sections of the arms series with the videos.

It worked and I felt less like my head would explode. It was so much better that I started doing final checks and tweaks on costume parts for the June 16 show. Unfortunately, this got me aggravated all over again. Tops I thought were finished are suddenly too loose. New adjustments done today kept falling short. Others just caused new problems.

Duo and I were having a day.

The length on one top was fixed, but now the neckline is doesn't sit right. The straps on another top were checked, rechecked, trimmed shorter, and had Velcro added for the closure, and after all that, they are still too long and need more work. Another top that just needed a bit of velcro for a more secure closure is suddenly too big. Even one of my tops in Sunday's show suddenly wasn't fitting right after being perfect a week earlier. 

So frustrating! Seriously, what the blankety bank? The icon for the  Duolingo app had an expression that matched what I was feeling, so that was at least amusing. 

Tonight, while dressing to go to dance class, a toe cap on my least old pair Converse All Stars was chipping off. Another pair that is several years older does not have this problem.  I took the top and overlay for one of the dances to class to give it a real-world test drive. It was not good. I really need a class in alterations because this has become too much. 

In a veil sequence that is part of a large group number, despite my best effort to not step on my veil, it kept happening. Any minor foot movement seemed to suck the veil under my foot and the corresponding arm movement would rip the veil from my hand. 

To my credit, I did not actually explode as a result of any of the noted and still unspoken annoyances of the day. I will take that as a win and move one.