Isaac Newton is in his grave, smiling.
(There are so many awesome photos here, I can hardly stand it.)
(There are so many awesome photos here, I can hardly stand it.)
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If it's not been readily apparent, I've kind of sucked at Camp Sweatshop this summer. I'm way too overloaded with work to plan anything when I don't have to entertain my children and then when they're home staring me in the face, I'm woefully unprepared. It was nice to take a few days off last week to go camping, but in order to do that, I had to work two weekend days and two holiday days just so I could take three days off later. I'm not so sure that makes taking a vacation worth it.
So for the last day of my ahem... "vacation," I took the kids on a road trip. We had to take The KnaveofHearts to the summer camp he's attending and The KingofHearts was in a training that couldn't be rescheduled. It was about a three and a half hour drive away, so I planned on bringing the shortlings, hitting a Waffle House because The Knave had never been to one before and wanted to see what all the fuss was about, dropping TheKnave off, then taking our time getting back. It'd be a girls' day trip. We'd see the countryside, stop and do some cool educational things along the way, like learn how people lived on the frontier, or pick our own fruit. It was a lovely image I had in my head of us all eating fresh peaches we'd just picked while driving along and pointing out cows and other animals and learning how to build a log cabin.
The reality was oh so different.
It rained like a mother dog almost the whole day. When we dropped off TheKnave, we had to walk to three separate buildings to register, check in, and settle him in the dorms and by the time that was done, we were all soaked from head to toe. The Dormouse looked like a wet noodle and The Caterpillar just kept walking around holding her arms away from the sides of her dress that was dripping puddles onto the floor. So when I went out to a discount store and waded through the three inches of water in the parking lot to purchase the sheets and towels that TheKnave had forgotten to pack, I also bought dry outfits for the girls. But by the time I got back to the dorm, the storm had gotten worse, so once I dressed them in the dry clothes, they lasted pretty much only as long as it took to walk out to the car once they were dressed. It was too wet and muddy to stop at any of the pick your own fruit farms we had seen on the way out. We did stop at the Frontier Culture Museum, that was my ace in the hole, but the gift shop people informed us that the entire contents of the museum were outside and didn't even encourage us to purchase tickets. "Oh no, you don't want to go out THERE!" As we drove back, the storm got even worse until I finally had to pull the car off the road because I couldn't see anything. But that was fine too because every ten minutes we had to stop SOMEwhere to find a bathroom for little girls who could not coordinate their bladder functions. So that bring us to a grand total of... oh... EVERY exit in the Commonwealth of Virgina that we've marked our territory at this week.
Pretty though.
So for the last day of my ahem... "vacation," I took the kids on a road trip. We had to take The KnaveofHearts to the summer camp he's attending and The KingofHearts was in a training that couldn't be rescheduled. It was about a three and a half hour drive away, so I planned on bringing the shortlings, hitting a Waffle House because The Knave had never been to one before and wanted to see what all the fuss was about, dropping TheKnave off, then taking our time getting back. It'd be a girls' day trip. We'd see the countryside, stop and do some cool educational things along the way, like learn how people lived on the frontier, or pick our own fruit. It was a lovely image I had in my head of us all eating fresh peaches we'd just picked while driving along and pointing out cows and other animals and learning how to build a log cabin.
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
The reality was oh so different.
It rained like a mother dog almost the whole day. When we dropped off TheKnave, we had to walk to three separate buildings to register, check in, and settle him in the dorms and by the time that was done, we were all soaked from head to toe. The Dormouse looked like a wet noodle and The Caterpillar just kept walking around holding her arms away from the sides of her dress that was dripping puddles onto the floor. So when I went out to a discount store and waded through the three inches of water in the parking lot to purchase the sheets and towels that TheKnave had forgotten to pack, I also bought dry outfits for the girls. But by the time I got back to the dorm, the storm had gotten worse, so once I dressed them in the dry clothes, they lasted pretty much only as long as it took to walk out to the car once they were dressed. It was too wet and muddy to stop at any of the pick your own fruit farms we had seen on the way out. We did stop at the Frontier Culture Museum, that was my ace in the hole, but the gift shop people informed us that the entire contents of the museum were outside and didn't even encourage us to purchase tickets. "Oh no, you don't want to go out THERE!" As we drove back, the storm got even worse until I finally had to pull the car off the road because I couldn't see anything. But that was fine too because every ten minutes we had to stop SOMEwhere to find a bathroom for little girls who could not coordinate their bladder functions. So that bring us to a grand total of... oh... EVERY exit in the Commonwealth of Virgina that we've marked our territory at this week.
Pretty though.
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Thirteen Things I Love about Camping:
- Getting up first thing in the morning and starting a fire
- Cooking over an open flame
- Sitting around the fire, throwing random things in to watch them burn
- Sleeping under the stars
- Roughing it
- Coming up with creative ways to keep children busy when they're bored: "Hey, everyone, let's do a Nature Scavenger Hunt"
- Bringing Elmo camping with us
- Enjoying nature and not worrying about getting dirty or wearing clean clothes
- Going to a place where there's no internet, phone calls, or email to answer
- Home made ice cream
- No television
- Sharing the woods with raccoons
- Learning about insects and other living creatures first hand
Thirteen Things I Hate about Camping:
- Smelling like a campfire three days after you get home
- Ingesting enough smoke to make a fire fighter wince
- Screaming at children every six and a half seconds for getting too close to the fire
- Getting up at 4:00 am and tripping over tent poles in the dark to put the rainslip on the tent because it started to rain
- Walking back and forth to the bathroom from the campsite approximately three thousand, six hundred and seventy-two times with children who cannot coordinate the functions of their bladders and/or bowels
- Huddling under a rain canopy and playing cards when it's too wet to do finish the scavenger hunt and they can't find "a nut"
- Trying to clean Elmo off at the end of the camping trip when you know you should just throw him away but if you were to do that, Hell on Earth would be unleashed
- Licking your finger, running across your children's foreheads, and leaving a clean spot
- Going to a place where there's no internet, phone calls or email to answer and then watching four teenagers and adults spend all their evenings calling girlfriends and playing on FaceBook (Also: being jealous because I do not also have an iPhone)
- S'mores
- No television
- Woodland creatures who come into the camp and steal your chocolate bars
- Pulling ticks out of your kids' hair
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Random person talking to me: "Are you an only child, or do you have siblings?"
Me: "I have one brother."
Dormouse: "What?!?" *yells* "YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU HAD A BROTHER!"
Me: "Well, what do you think Uncle Dan is, then?"
Dormouse: "Well, I DIDN'T know he was your BROTHER!" *huffs, walks away*
Me: "I have one brother."
Dormouse: "What?!?" *yells* "YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU HAD A BROTHER!"
Me: "Well, what do you think Uncle Dan is, then?"
Dormouse: "Well, I DIDN'T know he was your BROTHER!" *huffs, walks away*
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Today in Camp Sweatshop: We learned about gravity.
I gave them both a lecture on gravity, what it is, what it does for us and why we need it. We also talked about the first person to theorize about gravity and how it works.
Here, I'll let The Dormouse explain it to you:
"Gravity is a gas that keeps you from floating off the Earth. It was discovered by a man named Lewis Norton. You can't see gravity but you can taste it. The moon doesn't have any gravity. That's why there are no plants or trees."
Heavy sigh.
It's a darn good thing I'm only responsible for their education during the Summer, isn't it?
Seriously, I gave them a short, age appropriate lesson on the basic (and scientifically correct, I might add) story about Isaac Newton and then not five minutes later when I ask her to repeat it to me THAT'S what I get? I might as well have had her read about it on the internet. No wonder teachers think their job is so hard.
Anyway, we then enjoyed testing the limits of gravity and the tensile strength of latex.
Until these awful boys came and used up all our balloons.
Why yes, I did check to see if the water restrictions had been lifted before embarking on this activity. Why would you think otherwise?
I gave them both a lecture on gravity, what it is, what it does for us and why we need it. We also talked about the first person to theorize about gravity and how it works.
Here, I'll let The Dormouse explain it to you:
"Gravity is a gas that keeps you from floating off the Earth. It was discovered by a man named Lewis Norton. You can't see gravity but you can taste it. The moon doesn't have any gravity. That's why there are no plants or trees."
Heavy sigh.
It's a darn good thing I'm only responsible for their education during the Summer, isn't it?
Seriously, I gave them a short, age appropriate lesson on the basic (and scientifically correct, I might add) story about Isaac Newton and then not five minutes later when I ask her to repeat it to me THAT'S what I get? I might as well have had her read about it on the internet. No wonder teachers think their job is so hard.
Anyway, we then enjoyed testing the limits of gravity and the tensile strength of latex.
Until these awful boys came and used up all our balloons.
Why yes, I did check to see if the water restrictions had been lifted before embarking on this activity. Why would you think otherwise?
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Me: "Ahhh! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?"
Caterpillar: *matter-of-factly* "Putting bows on my legs. Duh."
Caterpillar: *matter-of-factly* "Putting bows on my legs. Duh."
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For Camp Sweatshop this week, we decided to teach the girls to... well... sweat. And sweat we did, because we took them to downtown D.C. for the Fourth of July where it was 97 degrees and sunny. Oh so sunny.
You might not assume this about me based on the pessimistic and cynical outlook I wear over my body like a blanket, but deep down I have a nationalist gene. I love my country and what it stands for and I get really, really excited about the Fourth of July. There's just something so wonderful about being in D.C. on Independence Day. I can't really describe it. I can't wait to take the kids to these historical places that I only read about in books when I was growing up and I almost always try to turn whatever the event we're at into some kind of educational opportunity that I'm sure they'll complain about when they're teenagers.
But you know what? I don't care. This is an awesome city and they can talk trash about me later, they're going to learn some history now. One day they can inflict the same kind of torture on their children.
One of my favorite things is to go downtown super early (if you get there before the birds come up, you can generally find a parking space and if you drive, you can bring things like lunch coolers and camp chairs and store them in your trunk until you need them) and sit on the steps of the national archives where they read the Declaration of Independence.
This was my view as we enjoyed the morning sun.
Not bad, huh?
The Dormouse's view was slightly different.
Perhaps we should have let her sleep in a little longer.
Thomas Jefferson was there to greet us. He asked what colony we were from, which confused The Dormouse, (apparently I need to have her attend a geography summer boot camp),
then he reprimanded us when the field band played our state anthem and we did not stand up. Note to self: find out what your state anthem is because this is the only state anthem I know - which is actually not a state anthem, but it should be.
The girls got to put their own signatures on a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence.
The Caterpillar needed a little bit of help.
The Continental Color Guard and Fife and Drum Corps played The Star Spangled Banner,
while this awesome ASL interpreter signed it.
I didn't get a picture of the baritone that sang it, but he pretty much didn't need a microphone. Never got his name and he's not listed on the website. Somebody's gonna be pissed. I also was inexplicably excited to see Maureen Bunyan as the emcee. The KoH and I argued about this but the Interweb confirms that she is indeed in her 60s. So if you believe the interweb, what that means is: she looks better at 60 than I ever did in my entire life. And that's kind of depressing.
Then came the reading, which was done by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, a Congressman from Missouri and some local charter school marketing director. If that doesn't prove that America is indeed a melting pot, I simply do not know what does.
Thomas Jefferson seems to have shaved a few years off his age from the first photo I took of him, doesn't he? Also: real hair.
Benjamin Franklin:
I'd have taken a photo of John Adams, but he was so short, I couldn't get anything but his bald spot. Poor John Adams. (He was actually the best of the readers.)
David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, gave a speech about the history of the copy of the Declaration of Independence that resides at the Archives. He was interesting and surprisingly funny. He talked about the location of the copy over the years and he was even brave enough to admit to all the conspiracy theorists that the Declaration hasn't always remained at the Archives. There was that time in 2004 when treasure hunter, Nicolas Cage stole the copy right out from under their noses during a party. But he gave it back after reading the map on the back and now it's where it belongs and they will be twice as vigilant now to make sure this never happens again.
Ferriero also talked about the Tiny Declaration contest, in which people were challenged to tweet the Declaration of Independence in one hundred and forty characters or less. Some of my favorites:
The Archives also hosted the opportunity to don a three-corner hat and "air your grievances" this amused me to no end and I'm really disappointed we had to miss it. But we had to make our way to the parade.
But first we stopped to relieve ourselves at the fountain.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
We fast forwarded through the parade, meaning we started at the beginning and walked backwards toward the end of it. This is the only way to watch a parade as far as I'm concerned. You get to see most of the floats and stuff and if you get to the end before the last group has started marching, you also get to see some pretty funny people half dressed and/or looking completely out of sorts, like these Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima Reenactment Float who were just hanging around, leaning on the flag and talking on mobile phones.
The Navy was looking pretty snazzy.
But that's probably because Madeline came to join the fray.
Not really sure what these period bicyclists had to do with declaring our independence in 1776. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't come around for another hundred years or so.
Finally, we made our way past the end of the parade and to the Capitol lawn, where we planned to stake out a shady spot, eat lunch and let the girls nap. But it turns out, it's been a few years since I've tried to do the Capitol Fourth concert, because at 11:00 am, we walked up to the Capitol to find security gates, which were closed... until 3:00 pm. The last time I went to this concert was before September 11, 2001, and there were not security checkpoints or closed grounds. You just could go find a spot on the lawn anytime you wanted and sleep there all afternoon. I feel like the terrorists have won.
So we did what any red blooded American would do: we got in line.
It was horribly hot and we kept slathering sunscreen on the girls. The people next to us had brought a sheet and fashioned a tent out of their spot in line to keep out of the sun. They shared some of their shade with The Dormouse and The Caterpillar so they could avoid looking like lobsters at the end of the day. And then they spent the next four hours being regaled by The Dormouse's stories, movie reviews, songs and television show updates.
Sometimes people are really nice.
And patient.
Oh so patient.
Once they finally opened the gates, we found a nice spot in the shade under the steps of the Capitol building,
and a mere five hours later, watched the sun set while listening to Gladys Knight (rocked the house), Darius Rucker (love me some Hootie), John Schneider (surprisingly good), David Archuleta (meh), Lang Lang (didn't know who he was before this but he played my favorite Rachmaninoff), and the National Symphony Orchestra (always a fan).
And then finished our celebration the way every good American should:
by blowing stuff up.
You might not assume this about me based on the pessimistic and cynical outlook I wear over my body like a blanket, but deep down I have a nationalist gene. I love my country and what it stands for and I get really, really excited about the Fourth of July. There's just something so wonderful about being in D.C. on Independence Day. I can't really describe it. I can't wait to take the kids to these historical places that I only read about in books when I was growing up and I almost always try to turn whatever the event we're at into some kind of educational opportunity that I'm sure they'll complain about when they're teenagers.
But you know what? I don't care. This is an awesome city and they can talk trash about me later, they're going to learn some history now. One day they can inflict the same kind of torture on their children.
One of my favorite things is to go downtown super early (if you get there before the birds come up, you can generally find a parking space and if you drive, you can bring things like lunch coolers and camp chairs and store them in your trunk until you need them) and sit on the steps of the national archives where they read the Declaration of Independence.
This was my view as we enjoyed the morning sun.
Not bad, huh?
The Dormouse's view was slightly different.
Perhaps we should have let her sleep in a little longer.
Thomas Jefferson was there to greet us. He asked what colony we were from, which confused The Dormouse, (apparently I need to have her attend a geography summer boot camp),
then he reprimanded us when the field band played our state anthem and we did not stand up. Note to self: find out what your state anthem is because this is the only state anthem I know - which is actually not a state anthem, but it should be.
The girls got to put their own signatures on a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence.
The Caterpillar needed a little bit of help.
The Continental Color Guard and Fife and Drum Corps played The Star Spangled Banner,
while this awesome ASL interpreter signed it.
I didn't get a picture of the baritone that sang it, but he pretty much didn't need a microphone. Never got his name and he's not listed on the website. Somebody's gonna be pissed. I also was inexplicably excited to see Maureen Bunyan as the emcee. The KoH and I argued about this but the Interweb confirms that she is indeed in her 60s. So if you believe the interweb, what that means is: she looks better at 60 than I ever did in my entire life. And that's kind of depressing.
Then came the reading, which was done by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, a Congressman from Missouri and some local charter school marketing director. If that doesn't prove that America is indeed a melting pot, I simply do not know what does.
Thomas Jefferson seems to have shaved a few years off his age from the first photo I took of him, doesn't he? Also: real hair.
Benjamin Franklin:
I'd have taken a photo of John Adams, but he was so short, I couldn't get anything but his bald spot. Poor John Adams. (He was actually the best of the readers.)
David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, gave a speech about the history of the copy of the Declaration of Independence that resides at the Archives. He was interesting and surprisingly funny. He talked about the location of the copy over the years and he was even brave enough to admit to all the conspiracy theorists that the Declaration hasn't always remained at the Archives. There was that time in 2004 when treasure hunter, Nicolas Cage stole the copy right out from under their noses during a party. But he gave it back after reading the map on the back and now it's where it belongs and they will be twice as vigilant now to make sure this never happens again.
Ferriero also talked about the Tiny Declaration contest, in which people were challenged to tweet the Declaration of Independence in one hundred and forty characters or less. Some of my favorites:
Don't tax me, bro.
Dear George, it's not you. It's U.S.
England: You're not the boss of me.
Self-evdnt truths: All created = w/inalienable rts: Life, Lib, Prsuit of :-). Govt frm ppl. L8r King!
Bye George, we've got it.
All peeps are equal. Sick and tired of your tyrannical BS. Seeking independence. Your permission requested, not required.
The Archives also hosted the opportunity to don a three-corner hat and "air your grievances" this amused me to no end and I'm really disappointed we had to miss it. But we had to make our way to the parade.
But first we stopped to relieve ourselves at the fountain.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
We fast forwarded through the parade, meaning we started at the beginning and walked backwards toward the end of it. This is the only way to watch a parade as far as I'm concerned. You get to see most of the floats and stuff and if you get to the end before the last group has started marching, you also get to see some pretty funny people half dressed and/or looking completely out of sorts, like these Raising the Flag at Iwo Jima Reenactment Float who were just hanging around, leaning on the flag and talking on mobile phones.
The Navy was looking pretty snazzy.
But that's probably because Madeline came to join the fray.
Not really sure what these period bicyclists had to do with declaring our independence in 1776. I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't come around for another hundred years or so.
Finally, we made our way past the end of the parade and to the Capitol lawn, where we planned to stake out a shady spot, eat lunch and let the girls nap. But it turns out, it's been a few years since I've tried to do the Capitol Fourth concert, because at 11:00 am, we walked up to the Capitol to find security gates, which were closed... until 3:00 pm. The last time I went to this concert was before September 11, 2001, and there were not security checkpoints or closed grounds. You just could go find a spot on the lawn anytime you wanted and sleep there all afternoon. I feel like the terrorists have won.
So we did what any red blooded American would do: we got in line.
It was horribly hot and we kept slathering sunscreen on the girls. The people next to us had brought a sheet and fashioned a tent out of their spot in line to keep out of the sun. They shared some of their shade with The Dormouse and The Caterpillar so they could avoid looking like lobsters at the end of the day. And then they spent the next four hours being regaled by The Dormouse's stories, movie reviews, songs and television show updates.
Sometimes people are really nice.
And patient.
Oh so patient.
Once they finally opened the gates, we found a nice spot in the shade under the steps of the Capitol building,
and a mere five hours later, watched the sun set while listening to Gladys Knight (rocked the house), Darius Rucker (love me some Hootie), John Schneider (surprisingly good), David Archuleta (meh), Lang Lang (didn't know who he was before this but he played my favorite Rachmaninoff), and the National Symphony Orchestra (always a fan).
And then finished our celebration the way every good American should:
by blowing stuff up.
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Last year I posted pictures at this fountain, highlighting the differences in personalities between my two ankle biters. I'm pleased to report that not much has changed in a year.
Also, I'm still in hopelessly in love with them both.
Enjoy your July 4th everyone!
Also, I'm still in hopelessly in love with them both.
Enjoy your July 4th everyone!
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KoH: "What did you say?"
Caterpillar: "...." *bursts into tears*
KoH: "THAT is not a word that you should say."
Caterpillar: *sobs*
KoH: "You do NOT say that word."
Caterpillar: *sobs louder*
Me: "Come here, honey. Give me a hug. It's okay. You don't have to cry. That's just not a very nice word. So you need to remember not to say it."
Caterpillar: *still sobbing* "OK, Momma."
Me: "I'm not mad at you. Daddy's not mad either. You just need to remember that we don't say words like that. And if you hear Momma and Daddy say that word, you can always remind us that we're not supposed to say it either."
Caterpillar: *through sobs* "O..." *breath* "K..."
Me: "Now, do you think you need to apologize for saying that word?"
Caterpillar: *nods*
Me: "OK, go ahead and apologize."
Caterpillar: *through even more sobs* "I'M SORRY FOR SAYING THAT DAMMIT WOOOOORD!"
She's going to be so much easier to discipline than her sister, but I question whether it'll be as effective.
Caterpillar: "...." *bursts into tears*
KoH: "THAT is not a word that you should say."
Caterpillar: *sobs*
KoH: "You do NOT say that word."
Caterpillar: *sobs louder*
Me: "Come here, honey. Give me a hug. It's okay. You don't have to cry. That's just not a very nice word. So you need to remember not to say it."
Caterpillar: *still sobbing* "OK, Momma."
Me: "I'm not mad at you. Daddy's not mad either. You just need to remember that we don't say words like that. And if you hear Momma and Daddy say that word, you can always remind us that we're not supposed to say it either."
Caterpillar: *through sobs* "O..." *breath* "K..."
Me: "Now, do you think you need to apologize for saying that word?"
Caterpillar: *nods*
Me: "OK, go ahead and apologize."
Caterpillar: *through even more sobs* "I'M SORRY FOR SAYING THAT DAMMIT WOOOOORD!"
She's going to be so much easier to discipline than her sister, but I question whether it'll be as effective.
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Hey everybody, remember this one?
No? Because if you don't, you are officially too young to read this blog. You make me feel ancient and I would appreciate your not rubbing it in anymore. Now, go play on the MyFace or whatever the kids are calling it these days.
It's not lost on me that Joanie's rival in this episode is Charlene Tilton... the actress who would later become Lucy Ewing on Dallas and who got to stand close enough to Patrick Duffy every week to give my twelve-year-old heart jealous pangs because I had watched him in The Man from Atlantis and had developed, shall we say... a bit of a crush. But that's another bit of pop culture trivia for another day.
The thing about this Happy Days episode that stood out for me in 1976, was the awesome Russian dance by Henry Winkler at the end (c'mon, who didn't love Fonzie?) and the fully satisfying triumph of sweet underdog, Joanie over Snotty Blond Girl With Attitude. Just another example of how television from the 80s programmed me to hate people with blond hair. Maybe Joanie was the snotty one. Maybe she put her fist through Charlene Tilton's locker one day and told her to stay away from her man Chachi. Maybe Charlene had a reason for hating Joanie, you even think of that, twelve-year-old-me? I didn't think so.
The thing about this episode that stands out for me now is the boredom of the extras, the band not being able to find a single song they haven't already played eight times, and the contest judges hoping against hope that it will all, for the love of everything good and holy in this world, Just. End. Soon.
I expected to see a lot of things on my resume by this point in my life and career, but I think I can easily say that "Judge and Official Photographer for a Dance Marathon Contest that Lasted Over Twelve hours" was not one of those things. However, that's indeed how I spent fourteen hours of my life last Friday and Saturday. I won't go into the details of how I came to be photographer and then final judge at a dance-a-thon, except to point out that I've written on this blog more than just a few times how varied my job responsibilities are and how I'm somewhat of a Jack-of-all-Trades and if you didn't believe me then, you really should now because I spent twelve hours of my life scrutinizing people's fancy footwork and determining an official ruling as to whether or not that swaying back and forth thing you're doing is considered "dancing." And other than a dance therapy class for one semester in college, I have basically no dance experience whatsoever.
It was a local business's brainstorm to have a dance-a-thon for charity as a community event and since my organization is based near that area, they chose us as the recipient of all the fun - and the matched donation at the end. But in order to hold the event they needed help and who better to ask for help from than the charity to whom you're going to give all that money? They can't just say, "no thanks, we really don't want to get involved, but 'preciate it and can we still have all the money?" In retrospect, maybe we should have; it was at least worth a try. My colleagues all chipped in and did not get paid overtime for the work, because how long can something like that go, right? We could all sacrifice a few hours in the name of charity... ours.
What I really wish I'd been doing was taking notes for my eventual masters thesis in psychology, because watching these people was fascinating. The dancing began at 6:00 pm at an outdoor venue. For the first several hours, people were exuberant. They were thrilled to be there. Children danced along with them. Adults held the children with smiles on their faces while they danced. Then as the night wore on, one by one, the smiles waned and the children dropped off. Teenagers were left who were fully convinced they were "going to win this thing... as long as I can be home by 9:30 so I don't get in trouble with my moms and dad." Around 11:00 pm, the teens started disappearing and only hard core adults remained dancing by midnight, smile-less (though inexplicably, many of the children were still there in the cheering section).
We fully expected everyone to be exhausted and done - or at least bored - by 2:00 am. My colleague was really the organizer of the whole thing on our end, but as others left to go home to bed, I promised myself I would not leave her there by herself in the middle of the night and so I was in it for the long haul. But as the hours wore on, the winner's pot grew bigger (the donating company increased the winning purse by $100 for each additional hour the dancers kept going) and that purse would be matched at the end in the form of a donation to our organization. So as I sat there watching seven people still plodding along and coming up on 3:00 in the morning, I started to wonder who the real whores for money were: the people who'd now been doing grueling physical activity for the last nine hours, or us, for sitting there watching these total strangers dance all night long, just so we can take home a grand or so that wasn't really ours.
The dancers could pretty much do what they wanted as long as they a) did not stop dancing and b) stayed inside the gated "Official Dancer Area." Local business provided food and drinks and every hour they got a ten minute rest/bathroom break. They could eat and drink anything they wanted, talk to anyone on the outside of the gated area -- one guy even talked on his cell phone for hours and later pulled out flash cards to study for a test -- but they had to keep dancing while doing it.
Finally, as I settled into my official judges' position (we rotated job responsibilities until the last volunteer went home) around 2:30 am until the end of the contest, it was pretty much me and the two other judges (event organizer people). We suddenly realized that we'd advertised that this could go twenty-four hours and none of us wanted THAT. We needing to start making the rules a little more stringent.
First we introduced the "if you are swaying from side to side, you are not dancing" rule and decreed that contestants must be picking feet up off the ground. If any footfall lasted longer than three seconds they would be disqualified. That wasn't enough to thin out the crowd so we introduced the "if you are just walking around in a circle, you are not dancing" rule. Also, the "you must vary your dance steps" rule. These totally-not-invented-because-the-judges-are-tired and so-was-in-the-contest-rulebook-UH-HUH! rules did serve to wear people out a bit more, but no one quit. Dammit. What they did do, was make the judging that much harder and we now had to sit there staring at people's feet and counting one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, etc. the rest of the morning. Backfire.
Then the DJ tried to trip everyone up by letting one song end and walking off the stage without starting another. We watched expectantly for people to stop dancing, bewildered and disoriented. No one took the bait and they all just kept dancing with no music at all.
We tried varying the tempos... playing several really slow songs and then a whole string of upbeat fast tempos. Then vice versa. No dice.
We tried playing to songs with conflicting-beats over top of each other to confuse them. Still nothing.
We shortened the ten minute hourly breaks to five minutes.
We started throwing in "two hour stretches" where the now-five-minute hourly break was eliminated every other hour.
By 4:00 am, we still had seven contestants. Two of them were grandparents and in their 60s. This, for me, had become an experiment in human endurance more than anything else. My boss and one remaining colleague generously offered many times to let me go home. (Bosslady wasn't worried because she had declared that if it went past 7:00 am, my colleague would be fired for getting us into this in the first place. I think she was only partly joking.) By this time, I simply was too curious to see how it would all play out to leave. And dammit, if a sixty-nine year old woman could be there dancing for eleven hours, I certainly could sit in a chair and taunt her for that long. Right? Right??? Right?
In a stroke of brilliance at 4 am, we introduced the No Shuffling rule. In other words, "if you are just shuffling side-to-side - even if you are picking up your feet - you are not dancing." Dancing, we decreed, must be a whole body experience. Ah, sweet, wonderful power. This eventually weeded the coterie down the from seven competitors to three. It was, in my opinion, kind of a crappy thing to do, because some of the people we disqualified on this basis had been doing exactly the same thing for the last ten hours. Just because you're not a good dancer, doesn't mean you're not dancing. In our defense, however, there were clearly people who were putting more of an aerobic workout into their efforts and that had to be acknowledged. For the most part, people were upset but good-natured about it when they were eliminated. They were all in it together.
Aside: OK, I get the dancing all night to win $1200 thing. I get the I came up with this idea so I gotta stay and run the event thing and I even get the I'm a part of the charity that benefits from this so I gotta stay too thing. What I simply do not get is the random people with no connections to the dancers who stayed until the sun came up to watch thing. WHAT is up with that?
Once it got down to three contestants, everything changed. There was clearly one of the three who was younger, stronger, a better dancer and either was an endurance runner in her spare time or was taking speed in the bathroom on the breaks. She never slowed down; she never looked tired; she never dropped a step. It became pretty obvious that she would clearly win this thing; it was just a matter of how long it would go. She also worked in the bar right across the square and when her workmates all got off work at 2:00 am, she had a giant cheering section that stayed all night. The other two women started to resent her. They criticized her dancing (which I still maintain was far superior to the other two - she had a whole body thing going on that was way harder to maintain than what they were doing). They hated that she had a cheering section. At one point, one of her workmates from the bar yelled that if she stayed in the contest, he would match whatever she won and discouraged her from taking a deal. Oh how the other two hated her for that, because they were trying to get everyone to agree to stop at the same time and split the prize money. The other two started plotting against her in the corner, Survivor-style, casually walking over to us judges and mentioning, "Oh it's ON!" It became the most hilarious thing I've seen in ages. Everyone wanted to stop, but no one could do it because they'd now been dancing for twelve hours and no one could admit defeat and go home with nothing after investing all that time.
Personally,
I believe that she had a plan. She had to work that morning. So she was going to let the dancing go as long as she could afford and still make her shift, then she'd agree to quit with the others and they'd all split the money. We, The Judges had decreed that they could work out whatever deal they wanted to split the total pot, but it had to be a unanimous decision. But she was smart enough not to let the other two in on her master plan, lest they give up and she get even more money.
In the end, the other two couldn't wait that long. So they worked out a scheme where one would drop out and get second prize (theater tickets), then the two remaining would quit at the same time and split the now $1200 purse. The number two person then made a side agreement with the number three person who would quit first to give her half of her $600 and the person who quit would give number two person half of the tickets. And so, at ten minutes to seven, after twelve and a half hours of dancing, the whole thing ended the way it started, with two people and an empty street.
I'm not sure exactly how to wrap this all up. I guess this post's ending is as anti-climactic as the contest's. Everyone went home exhausted, as I'm sure you will be if you've continued reading this far. At best, it makes for a good story.
Hey, remember that time I judged a dance contest?
No? Because if you don't, you are officially too young to read this blog. You make me feel ancient and I would appreciate your not rubbing it in anymore. Now, go play on the MyFace or whatever the kids are calling it these days.
It's not lost on me that Joanie's rival in this episode is Charlene Tilton... the actress who would later become Lucy Ewing on Dallas and who got to stand close enough to Patrick Duffy every week to give my twelve-year-old heart jealous pangs because I had watched him in The Man from Atlantis and had developed, shall we say... a bit of a crush. But that's another bit of pop culture trivia for another day.
The thing about this Happy Days episode that stood out for me in 1976, was the awesome Russian dance by Henry Winkler at the end (c'mon, who didn't love Fonzie?) and the fully satisfying triumph of sweet underdog, Joanie over Snotty Blond Girl With Attitude. Just another example of how television from the 80s programmed me to hate people with blond hair. Maybe Joanie was the snotty one. Maybe she put her fist through Charlene Tilton's locker one day and told her to stay away from her man Chachi. Maybe Charlene had a reason for hating Joanie, you even think of that, twelve-year-old-me? I didn't think so.
The thing about this episode that stands out for me now is the boredom of the extras, the band not being able to find a single song they haven't already played eight times, and the contest judges hoping against hope that it will all, for the love of everything good and holy in this world, Just. End. Soon.
I expected to see a lot of things on my resume by this point in my life and career, but I think I can easily say that "Judge and Official Photographer for a Dance Marathon Contest that Lasted Over Twelve hours" was not one of those things. However, that's indeed how I spent fourteen hours of my life last Friday and Saturday. I won't go into the details of how I came to be photographer and then final judge at a dance-a-thon, except to point out that I've written on this blog more than just a few times how varied my job responsibilities are and how I'm somewhat of a Jack-of-all-Trades and if you didn't believe me then, you really should now because I spent twelve hours of my life scrutinizing people's fancy footwork and determining an official ruling as to whether or not that swaying back and forth thing you're doing is considered "dancing." And other than a dance therapy class for one semester in college, I have basically no dance experience whatsoever.
It was a local business's brainstorm to have a dance-a-thon for charity as a community event and since my organization is based near that area, they chose us as the recipient of all the fun - and the matched donation at the end. But in order to hold the event they needed help and who better to ask for help from than the charity to whom you're going to give all that money? They can't just say, "no thanks, we really don't want to get involved, but 'preciate it and can we still have all the money?" In retrospect, maybe we should have; it was at least worth a try. My colleagues all chipped in and did not get paid overtime for the work, because how long can something like that go, right? We could all sacrifice a few hours in the name of charity... ours.
What I really wish I'd been doing was taking notes for my eventual masters thesis in psychology, because watching these people was fascinating. The dancing began at 6:00 pm at an outdoor venue. For the first several hours, people were exuberant. They were thrilled to be there. Children danced along with them. Adults held the children with smiles on their faces while they danced. Then as the night wore on, one by one, the smiles waned and the children dropped off. Teenagers were left who were fully convinced they were "going to win this thing... as long as I can be home by 9:30 so I don't get in trouble with my moms and dad." Around 11:00 pm, the teens started disappearing and only hard core adults remained dancing by midnight, smile-less (though inexplicably, many of the children were still there in the cheering section).
We fully expected everyone to be exhausted and done - or at least bored - by 2:00 am. My colleague was really the organizer of the whole thing on our end, but as others left to go home to bed, I promised myself I would not leave her there by herself in the middle of the night and so I was in it for the long haul. But as the hours wore on, the winner's pot grew bigger (the donating company increased the winning purse by $100 for each additional hour the dancers kept going) and that purse would be matched at the end in the form of a donation to our organization. So as I sat there watching seven people still plodding along and coming up on 3:00 in the morning, I started to wonder who the real whores for money were: the people who'd now been doing grueling physical activity for the last nine hours, or us, for sitting there watching these total strangers dance all night long, just so we can take home a grand or so that wasn't really ours.
The dancers could pretty much do what they wanted as long as they a) did not stop dancing and b) stayed inside the gated "Official Dancer Area." Local business provided food and drinks and every hour they got a ten minute rest/bathroom break. They could eat and drink anything they wanted, talk to anyone on the outside of the gated area -- one guy even talked on his cell phone for hours and later pulled out flash cards to study for a test -- but they had to keep dancing while doing it.Finally, as I settled into my official judges' position (we rotated job responsibilities until the last volunteer went home) around 2:30 am until the end of the contest, it was pretty much me and the two other judges (event organizer people). We suddenly realized that we'd advertised that this could go twenty-four hours and none of us wanted THAT. We needing to start making the rules a little more stringent.
First we introduced the "if you are swaying from side to side, you are not dancing" rule and decreed that contestants must be picking feet up off the ground. If any footfall lasted longer than three seconds they would be disqualified. That wasn't enough to thin out the crowd so we introduced the "if you are just walking around in a circle, you are not dancing" rule. Also, the "you must vary your dance steps" rule. These totally-not-invented-because-the-judges-are-tired and so-was-in-the-contest-rulebook-UH-HUH! rules did serve to wear people out a bit more, but no one quit. Dammit. What they did do, was make the judging that much harder and we now had to sit there staring at people's feet and counting one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, etc. the rest of the morning. Backfire.Then the DJ tried to trip everyone up by letting one song end and walking off the stage without starting another. We watched expectantly for people to stop dancing, bewildered and disoriented. No one took the bait and they all just kept dancing with no music at all.
We tried varying the tempos... playing several really slow songs and then a whole string of upbeat fast tempos. Then vice versa. No dice.
We tried playing to songs with conflicting-beats over top of each other to confuse them. Still nothing.
We shortened the ten minute hourly breaks to five minutes.
We started throwing in "two hour stretches" where the now-five-minute hourly break was eliminated every other hour.
By 4:00 am, we still had seven contestants. Two of them were grandparents and in their 60s. This, for me, had become an experiment in human endurance more than anything else. My boss and one remaining colleague generously offered many times to let me go home. (Bosslady wasn't worried because she had declared that if it went past 7:00 am, my colleague would be fired for getting us into this in the first place. I think she was only partly joking.) By this time, I simply was too curious to see how it would all play out to leave. And dammit, if a sixty-nine year old woman could be there dancing for eleven hours, I certainly could sit in a chair and taunt her for that long. Right? Right??? Right?In a stroke of brilliance at 4 am, we introduced the No Shuffling rule. In other words, "if you are just shuffling side-to-side - even if you are picking up your feet - you are not dancing." Dancing, we decreed, must be a whole body experience. Ah, sweet, wonderful power. This eventually weeded the coterie down the from seven competitors to three. It was, in my opinion, kind of a crappy thing to do, because some of the people we disqualified on this basis had been doing exactly the same thing for the last ten hours. Just because you're not a good dancer, doesn't mean you're not dancing. In our defense, however, there were clearly people who were putting more of an aerobic workout into their efforts and that had to be acknowledged. For the most part, people were upset but good-natured about it when they were eliminated. They were all in it together.
Aside: OK, I get the dancing all night to win $1200 thing. I get the I came up with this idea so I gotta stay and run the event thing and I even get the I'm a part of the charity that benefits from this so I gotta stay too thing. What I simply do not get is the random people with no connections to the dancers who stayed until the sun came up to watch thing. WHAT is up with that?Once it got down to three contestants, everything changed. There was clearly one of the three who was younger, stronger, a better dancer and either was an endurance runner in her spare time or was taking speed in the bathroom on the breaks. She never slowed down; she never looked tired; she never dropped a step. It became pretty obvious that she would clearly win this thing; it was just a matter of how long it would go. She also worked in the bar right across the square and when her workmates all got off work at 2:00 am, she had a giant cheering section that stayed all night. The other two women started to resent her. They criticized her dancing (which I still maintain was far superior to the other two - she had a whole body thing going on that was way harder to maintain than what they were doing). They hated that she had a cheering section. At one point, one of her workmates from the bar yelled that if she stayed in the contest, he would match whatever she won and discouraged her from taking a deal. Oh how the other two hated her for that, because they were trying to get everyone to agree to stop at the same time and split the prize money. The other two started plotting against her in the corner, Survivor-style, casually walking over to us judges and mentioning, "Oh it's ON!" It became the most hilarious thing I've seen in ages. Everyone wanted to stop, but no one could do it because they'd now been dancing for twelve hours and no one could admit defeat and go home with nothing after investing all that time.
Personally,
I believe that she had a plan. She had to work that morning. So she was going to let the dancing go as long as she could afford and still make her shift, then she'd agree to quit with the others and they'd all split the money. We, The Judges had decreed that they could work out whatever deal they wanted to split the total pot, but it had to be a unanimous decision. But she was smart enough not to let the other two in on her master plan, lest they give up and she get even more money.In the end, the other two couldn't wait that long. So they worked out a scheme where one would drop out and get second prize (theater tickets), then the two remaining would quit at the same time and split the now $1200 purse. The number two person then made a side agreement with the number three person who would quit first to give her half of her $600 and the person who quit would give number two person half of the tickets. And so, at ten minutes to seven, after twelve and a half hours of dancing, the whole thing ended the way it started, with two people and an empty street.
I'm not sure exactly how to wrap this all up. I guess this post's ending is as anti-climactic as the contest's. Everyone went home exhausted, as I'm sure you will be if you've continued reading this far. At best, it makes for a good story.
Hey, remember that time I judged a dance contest?
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