misc. hijinks

Thursday afternoon, I went to a Red Sox game, courtesy of my company, which has season tickets and raffles them off to employees. Red Sox tickets are increasingly difficult to come by, as the team improves its standing and the resellers snap up tickets faster than mere mortals can. So this was a real treat.

I was honored to take my friend, JCK, who is a baseball geek. She was able to explain some of the finer points and fill me on a little baseball gossip while we watched. We hadn't seen each other in months and spent some time catching up with each other, too.

We were under a cover, so we didn't even get wet in the passing showers, the sun was out for a lot of the afternoon and I, at least, was warm enough the entire time. So we neatly escaped the dangers of being outside during a spring afternoon -- too much heat, not enough, too much rain, and too much sun. Such a nice afternoon. Oh, and the Sox made some spectacular plays and then won, making the event a little sweeter.

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Then I came home and did a stupid stupid reply/all to the entire R&D department when I'd meant to forward a private comment to my boss. The message I sent out implicated my boss in revealing a secret to me early, so I feel even stupider, because I'm mortified that I might have somehow hurt her in the process. I apologized to my boss and to my boss' boss (the original sender of the message). I'll seek out my boss when I show up on Tuesday and attempt to apologize in person.

One person replied and was very very kind (we all do this; the last time I did it, it was intentional and I still feel bad - your move wasn't even intentional; don't worry about it - it will blow over). Robert heard an endless stream of how stupid I am, and did not even hear the more endless stream playing in my head. I avoided work email completely Friday and Saturday and just looked today so I would have time to recover from the abuse by Tuesday. Fortunately, not one other person responded. Phew. Maybe it will blow over as my unexpected ally claims it will. D'oh!

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Last night, we went to a lovely near-end-of-season contra dance, led by one of the sweetest, gentlest callers we know. The music was fantastic -- guitar, bodhran, and hot hot fiddling.

Before the dancing started, a friend I haven't seen for ages walked in. D had a heart attack last fall and has been on the mend ever since. We've talked a few times since then. He's been working hard at getting better and says he's about 80%. He let me feel the staples in his chest. (I was immediately reminded of finding Char's chest staples in her ashes, but didn't ruin the moment by articulating that thought. Still, it was great to feel staples in the chest of someone who's alive and well and breathing!). And I had the honor of the first dance with D. He seems as good as ever, at least to me. Hooray!

And also, four completely deaf people, brand new to dancing, came last night. When the first two showed up, I approached one of our regular dancers who's hearing but grew up in a deaf household (and went to Gallaudet). He immediately engaged them in conversation and started in on some teaching, with help from Robert. Sometime later, a friend of theirs who's hearing and signs came too.

Meanwhile, I found another dancer who signs and asked him to be on the lookout for other signers and to help welcome our newcomers. And it all just worked. The new dancers were *really* good -- they picked up the movements very quickly. They were incredibly attentive to cues from the other dancers. Those of us who don't sign (the unsigners, I guess) were able to pantomime the moves. And the caller told me that he quickly tossed some of the more "unstructured" dances he had planned and just stuck to dances that adhered well to the beat.

Midway through the evening, I sat out a dance and watched -- the new dancers were fairly indistinguishable from folks who've been with us for a while. Wow.

Part-way through the evening, the drummer leaned over to the caller and said that she couldn't think of one other dance community to which four brand new deaf people could show up, be welcomed, taught, and integrated into the group. That felt very good and very exciting. I hope they come back!

It also got me thinking about the part of the dance experience that is auditory. We dance to gorgeous live music and we listen to the instruction provided by the caller. Those of us who are handicapped by our ability to hear need all the parts to make the dance work. We had to communicate what we take in by ear to people who couldn't hear it but who could feel it (through vibrations in the floor, at the very least).

Another part of the dance is coming together in community -- of relating to other dancers, people we come to care about over the course of an evening, or a couple of years, or even, as is now becoming the case, a couple of decades. And another part is the sheer joy and occasional humor in the dance. It all mixes together into an evening that works. And it is joyous when some of the parts are taken out and it still works. Lovely.

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This afternoon, we're off to a party at the house of good friends. They host on Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, and Thanksgiving. It's always fun and thoughtful and amusing and delightful. Looking forward to it.

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And yesterday, we finished the last bit of work on the cabinets. So they're now ready to be hung. If I had a Staples button, I'd push it for the satisfaction of hearing "That was easy." In lieu of that, here's an electronic version (sound required):



We have a little rewiring to do and a lot of packing up. But the packing can be fairly casual, since we're not actually moving anything, just storing it temporarily. We'll pack tomorrow and the person doing the construction will come by for some last-minute consultation. And perhaps soon we'll be working in our new (ish) kitchen!

Oh, and a friend is taking six of the eight old cabinets. The seventh will likely go to a neighbor, leaving just one last cabinet to get rid of. It's fairly nasty anyways, so I don't mind tossing it. That was also easy.