nice weekend

On Saturday, Robert and I attended the Harvest Ball, the tenth annual such event put on by our home dance in Jamaica Plain. The evening in part recreates a dance program from about 150 years ago.

We started with an elegant pot luck dinner. The hall was decorated with many many tasteful white Christmas lights, jack o'lanterns, and candles set atop table-clothed tables. People brought extremely tasty dishes. I managed to circulate a bit and catch up with several friends.

The dancing was also elegant. Some people actually wore period costumes (there was one especially stunning pink Victorian ball gown made by the wear-er). Many men wore tuxedos, some period, some modern day, but all a far cry from the usual shorts and tee shirts we usually gravitate toward. I wore a black skirt (a skirt!!) and white shirt with lavender bow tie and cummerbund. There may be some blackmail-worthy pictures somewhere out there in etherland (which I'll share if I end up seeing them).

Our caller interspersed slower, more elegant contras with waltzes and other forms of dance. I found the pace a little easier on my creaky joints than modern contras. And as with English dancing, there was a lot of good opportunity for sexy flirtatious eye contact, at least with those who enjoy that sort of thing.

Sidenote: In contra, there's a lovely move called the "courtesy turn" in which one dancer receives another and uses both hands to scoop her around 180 degrees so that she's facing the couple across. There's a way to do that move with just eyes that can make you forget you're on the dance floor or that there are next steps or that other dancers are out there waiting for you. On Saturday night, a few other dancers carried that eyes-only move off with me -- ah, heaven.

And then, at the break, we had a dessert potluck. Oh my, but it was good. And so many senses engaged over the course of the evening -- heart, tongue, eyes, brain. Lovely.

Sunday, we had brunch with dear friends at our favorite airport cafe. It was a perfect day for flying and we got to see many takeoffs and landings. I had carrot cinamon pancakes with citrus butter and real maple syrup, oh, and fresh squeezed orange juice with pulp I had to scoop up with a spoon. Yum. (And it was good to see our friends too.)

And over the course of the weekend, I've been working on pictures from Greece. I haven't forgotten, but also haven't until recently had the energy to really work on them. Recovering from the latest round of tooth problems has taken more out of me than I realized, even as I was going through it. But now that I'm feeling better, I was able to make some progress. You can get a sneak preview of some of the pictures on my web albums site, but I'll make a more general announcement when they're all ready.