Monday, August 17, 2009

ginga arts (shameless promotion)

Friends of mine in LA run a capoeira program. M. just sent me an email saying:


Dear Friends of Ginga Arts,

I am writing you guys to ask you to support Ginga Arts on the web by voting for us at: http://www.nikebackyourblock.com/ApplicantProfile.aspx?ApplicantId=387a6c72-d96d-4b0a-817a-c5bc6d6362af

The Nike Back your Block project is a great opportunity for Ginga Arts
to get funding! All you have to do is follow the link and put in your
e-mail address. Also, be sure to send this to all your friends as the
organizations who receive the most votes get funded.


So, please, support a great organization if you can!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

six weeks of silence

Most of the bloggers I read have fallen into silence over the summer -- a few race reports, a few wonderful long posts of remembrance. A spurt of posting, and then a quiet spell. (There are exceptions, including one of my favorite runner's blog -- I wrote that as running blog, but she covers a much wider range than that.)

So perhaps I shouldn't feel sheepish at six weeks of silence. They've been busy weeks. Settling in to the new job -- sometimes it's packed with stuff to accomplish and sometimes I'm not at all sure what I'm supposed to be doing. But it's reasonable thus far. I don't know that it's where I want to be in 5 years, but that's then, not now.

And breathing trapeze. Not running enough, not nearly enough --twice in the month of July? Those were treasured runs, although labored -- and getting over the inertia to get out the door for them on my rare unscheduled evenings is perhaps the hardest part.

Three nights of trapeze a week is a lot, and it's hard to make the schedule work. I'm spending 8-10 hours a week in classes/training/working slowly on my act -- we've now choreographed the first 20-30 seconds of it. We keep trying different things; I think we managed to add one new move on my last session.

So it's been a busy six weeks or so -- we splurged in July with a trip to Teatro Zinzanni which really was a tremendous amount of fun. El Bandito the Magnificent volunteered for one of the segments (with a lot of vigorous prodding from his wife). The show was good; the highlights were definitely the dual trapeze act at the end, seeing my husband juggle a raw chicken, loaf of bread and a blob of margarine, and a pretty astounding hula hoop act.

And then we had a fabulous, extravagant anniversary dinner last week; the advantage of knowing a sous schef at an uber-fancy restaurant is that we got to say "just bring food" and have wonderful things appear in front of us. Spoiled. Absolutely Spoiled.

A new day job, trapeze, the rare run, and weekend hikes in the coastal hills (preparation for our nearly-yearly trip hiking in the Canadian Rockies)... to quote Calvin and Hobbes, "The days are just packed".