Moving Through Space

oh wow. yeah, step class is crazy business. i hope you had a wicked soundtrack. i took a class at Cheetah once called "Hot Bod", and i remember feeling much like an asshole. you go, Fancy Pants.

i hope everybody had cool thanksgivings. i just returned from the K-Thrilla, and it was nice. hangin out with my bro and my sis and my fam. good food and sing-alongs. i leave for Florida tomorrow. haaaaay! 2 weeks with LP, dancin it up. we got this awesome choreographic fellowship thing: i'm kinda nervous about the fact that i'll be a real professional dancer for 12 days. i hope i can deal. i hope i feel like Jodie Sawyer.

LP just performed at Harold Washington. it was so bittersweet, remembering our Raizel time there: Jenny running into the plate-glass window, the security guards yelling at us to get the hell out, Jenna wearing black underwear OVER tights, us thinking Jenny was going to have a robot-nose-brace for her wedding, us eating rice krispie treats on the stage and getting yelled at, the little kids asking, "why'd ya'll change clothes", katie talking in a Q&A about getting a pedicure, me eating saltines and gatorade for breakfast pretending like i didn't have a bday hangover during the saturday morning show.... what a blessed time that was. but for real, it made me want to fly around with an umbrella and skim forks on the floor. our LP show was waaay less cool- though 2 of my crazy Columbia students came to see it and asked me afterwards, "so ya'll was supposed to be aliens, right??" i can assure you that sadly we were not. must have been all of those martian dance moves i kept doing.....

now i have to read all of my NU papers about head-tail connection and sitz bones-heel connection and parallel and undercurve and juicy plies. dance is amazing.

love,
BT

The Day Step Class Kicked My Ass.....

Was a very sad day indeed. I took my first step class today, and not only was I dying by the end, but I had a hard time picking up the choreography. I mean, I haven't taken class in a while, so perhaps my learning skills need sharpening. However, this stuff was complicated, and there was the step platform to deal with. We were leaping over it, chasse-ing across it, doing grande battements off of it, drag turns around it, and even pirouette-ing on it. I mean, this stuff was out of control! The final combination was like a minute long. It beat me, and I felt like a goober.

Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving to you all! We're having Eric and Kim over for a turkey celebration on Saturday, and I'll be thinking of all of you!

By the way, y'all best step up the bloggin'.

Legs, Bums, & Tums

I'm still thinking of good petite allegros for you. To start let's just do....
glissade, jete, temps leve, temps leve, pas de bourre, pas de chat, assemble.
Both sides; add beats as you see fit (I'm expecting them at least on the assemble, ladies; I mean, come on!).

Anyways, I'll be in Chicago a few days around Christmas. If you're around, I'd love to hang out. We get in on the evening of the 20th (Saturday), and I'll be there until the evening of the 27th (also a Saturday). I'll be in Austin that next week, but then I come back on the 2nd and stay until the morning of the 4th of January. Let me know if anyone is going to be around - book your dates with me now, as they are going fast!

I can't believe you go to Pilates, Melissa! That's too hardcore for me. I'm going to a lovely class today called, you guessed it, Legs, Bums, and Tums! I am not sure what to expect, but I hope that it's like jazzercise. I miss jazzercise, and I think I'm going to revive it. I should go to this class today with some scrunched legwarmers, a high hipped leotard, and a belt. Also a sweatband. I'm ready for action!

hey! i'm on the blog!!! it's totally late at night and i should be sleeping!!

melissa, pilates studios are gross. i am glad you broke their dang stupid torture spring. there is nothing magic about that lame ass circle thing.

jenny, i feel you. if you can't find the dang 1, what the heck... i just make all of my combos in like 5's and 7's and then count them all off with "1, 2, 3, ready ready go!"

katie, please make up some petit allegros for us. my entrechat trois are getting crummy from all of this silly modern dance teaching.

in other news, the fall concert at NU was totally freaking great. on the real, i kid you not. there are some smart peeps there who are making cool shit and dancing it pretty darn well. i felt proud of my kids and also a little like, whoa i only made silly dances with pipe-cleaner glasses while i was here.... suz lee was, as per usual, in her blue rolling chair just inside of the ballroom door. they now pass out those camp chair things so you can have a back to your bleacher seat. it kind of makes you have swass and a weird trapped feeling, but i guess it's an upgrade.

i gotsta go to bed. i am feeling, despite the meditation music flowing from my ipod right now, some wicked anxiety. tomorrow's my last day of like everything before i go home for thanksgiving and then leave for florida with LPP on monday. crazy! it's super exciting and cool, but i have lots of administrative and teacherly tasks to finish before i head out of town. i haven't told my columbia kids that i'll be missing their last 4 classes yet, so i hope that goes over smoothly..... they will probably freak because that's what they do.

i hope you're all stretching your hamstrings twice daily and making up some new choreo and beating your pointe shoes with a mallet to soften the box.

wouldn't it be better if you weren't a bad teacher?

howinkle!

"wouldn't it be better if we all worked harder?" oh my god. who do these people think they are? they don't know us. they can't judge us. don't they know that some of us are (or were recently) really good dancers?

it kills me. i went to a modern class last week and the teacher had us doing a runner's stretch (runner stretch? runners' stretch? it's really weird to be typing such things out) and made a really big deal out of our head being totally aligned with the rest of the body. but then, she told us to look at our front foot and make sure everything was aligned there, too-- knee over ankle and all-- but then she came past me and scolded me for not keeping my head up! i was like... OH NO you did not.

and THEN, i took a modern class a few days later where the teacher couldn't find the 1. her phrases were all counted in 8s, but she could not-- for the life of her-- start the phrase at the proper place in the music. these people should have their teaching licenses revoked! oh, and the second time i went to her class she did all the exact same phrases, hadn't added anything onto anything, and couldn't even figure out the left sides. i was like, girlfriend... i see right through you, and i am not impressed.

did northwestern make us this way? or are we just a bunch of sharp-minded dancer ladies who happened to find each other?

anyway, melissa, i am proud of you for going to an insiders pilates class. if you ever feel awkward about being in a class ever again, just remind yourself that-- at the very least-- the class is in english. katie-- i think you should post petit allegros to the blog and we should all take videos of ourselves doing our interpretations and post them. and on that note, i go study my french. we have a tutor who comes to our house now and it's really intense. c'est tres intense. j'ai besoin d'etudier. hardcore.

BON NUIT

wouldn't it be better if we all work harder?

So I took a Pilates class tonight and I got the impression I had invaded a private exclusive class. I got there a little early and just followed along with what everyone else was doing. I took a big black mat and the pilates circle and the wooden bars and the padded rectangles. I had no idea what these things were. Any pilates class I've taken before was just a blue mat on the floor and maybe a circle. But I took all the parts to fit in. Turns out there weren't enough for everyone and there were regulars there that didn't get their equipment because of me, the new girl. Then I broke the spring on the clasp of the strap and I think the instructor was pissed. She also told me "isn't it better if you work harder so you have to do less repetitions?" I didn't realize I wasn't working hard enough. I just thought my legs were supposed to be at that angle!! I don't know. I need a lyrical jazz class I think.

Pants & Petite Allegro

I changed my name from "Adrift Housewife" to "Fancy Pants" for many reasons. First of all, "adrift" makes me think of boats, of which I have nothing to do. Also, despite the fact that I am a housewife, I don't like that title. I prefer "Domestic Engineer", which doesn't go with adrift. So, out with the old, and in with the new. People are always using "fancy" to mean "would you like", as in, "Fancy a cup of tea, love?" (Yes, they really talk like that here). This means that my name really means "Would you like pants", which is awesome because pants here is used to describe underpants. One can only refer to jeans/pants by saying trousers. Quite clever, right? I have too much time on my hands.

Now, on to the petite allegro bit. On Saturday night I found myself in a bar chatting with some friends. There was really loud techno music playing, and I realized that I was doing a lovely petite allegro in my head to the beat of the music without knowing. Mostly I was doing echappes (fourth to fifth, to second, to fifth, to the other fourth, etc. - one of my favorite enchainments). There were, however, some jetes thrown in for kicks, and I even found myself doing a brise vole (ladies, please correct my spelling). I was tapping out the patterns with my toes inside my shoes. Pretty dorky, right?

I joined a gym this weekend, complete with a personal trainer. I've got my second session today, and I can barely walk. Wish me luck!

The lady with the marvelous knickers

carnitas

well, here's a some photos of the carnitas i made-- in action, and in the pot. i used dave lebovitz's recipe-- i have his ice cream cookbook and have developed a trusting relationship with him.

recipe: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2007/09/carnitas.html

carnitas!

turducken

jenny, don't worry, i'm not slacking on this blog. i'm just waiting until the hilarity of the turducken for my first post! i mean, second post!!

houses

i'll admit it-- i am writing a new blog post because it is freaking cold here, and my laptop is so nice and warm.

so, we have been looking for a house here in montreal. the search is satisfying in many ways. first of all, shopping is fun. and it's basically the most intense form of shopping on the planet. second of all, it is a new thing to look at on the internet, and... I LOVE the internet. third of all, it gives me structure to my day. like, today, we're looking at a house at 2:30 when otherwise i wouldn't be doing anything. except i am going to a french modern class tonight because i just don't care anymore. and tonight is also pierogi night (the polish deli is open late on thursdays).

HOWEVER, shopping for houses in montreal can also be lame, and that is because they sell piece of crap rowhouses with crumbling foundations and a bathtub in the bedroom for like half a million dollars, which is because we live on an island in a river and so real estate is expensive if you want to live on that island anywhere near anything good. seriously though, a bathtub in the bedroom is a thing that they do here. they say the house is "renovated" but actually they just installed a bathtub in the bedroom. i just want to take these people by the shoulders and ask why. why.

so that's annoying. BUT. it is mostly fun. just 'cause it's still so cool that we can even pretend to be trying to buy a house. I AM JUST A KID! look at me, acting like i'm going to buy a house! "when was the roof last re-done?" "does the kitchen have a gas hook-up?" HA HA HA! look at me. but yeah, it'll just take a while to find something good that is a not a half million dollar sinking piece of junk. and lord knows, i've got time!

okay, well it's been fun blogging with you. (or FOR you, ahem ahem, no one has blogged except me.) i'm not mad, i'm just sayin.

jenny's moroccan pot pie

hey guys,
i thought i would kick this off with a kitchen creation. from my home to yours!

-dice up a large onion, 2 peeled russett potatoes, and a few large carrots. set aside.
-dice up a large chicken breast. toss it with 2 tsp cumin and paprika, plus 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and the juice and pulp of a large lemon
-heat up a large heavy pan with a few tbs butter, add the onion and saute for a moment
-add the potatoes and carrots. saute for a few minutes. add a cup or 2 of golden raisins.
-add the chicken. stir for a minute. stir in a few tbs of flour.
-add 2-ish cups of chicken broth
-cover and let simmer for an hour-ish, until everything is soft, but basically as long as you want.
-dump into a dish and put some store-bought refrigerated pie crust on top
-punch a few holes in the top
-bake at 425 until crust is brown and insides are bubbly (about 15-20 minutes)

fix it and forget it!