Dancing Queen Looks Back at Week

• No wonder I was tired Friday. Last week I :Had 11 people at my house for a working lunch. Much vacuuming hauling groceries, hulling strawberries -  whew! - but fine once we got down to our work. We are all board members of the only organization I’ve ever been part of where no one ever interrupts anyone else and people listen so kindly and carefully whenever anybody speaks. Nice time.Took Uncle Ed out twice. Very nice, though he can hardly walk now. He is mighty in the upper body though, even at 91, and heaves himself into my van which is good and tall and has a grab bar for him to do his trapeze tricks with. We bought two coffees with espresso shots and a sack of hot drooly burgers and spent an hour time-travelling back to 1925. (Amazing journey those!)Went back to the Y for the first time in more than a month on Monday,  Thursday and Friday and made my heart race for a solid hour each time. Nice in a stress-test kind of way. Had forgotten that I laugh all the way through Thursday’s Cardio Hip Hop, seeing Old Dog in  mirror doing that New Trick.After High Lo Aerobics, saw a small child sobbing in the glassed-in child care room, parked there while his grownup worked out somewhere else in building. When he caught my eye he cried out “He-e-e-e-e-l-p! Get me out of here!” at which point matching tears sprang to my own eyes and I had to rush out to the parking lot.Got bangs cut – finally - so as to look a LITTLE less like that girly dog Peg in Disney's Lady and the Tramp.Jumped on the scales for the first time in a month. Jumped off again fast.Made a vat of the Weight Watcher Fresh Vegetable Soup recipe. Polished the whole pot off singlehandedly within 24 hours,  and finally….Sat for two hours with a high school senior as he read aloud to me the 8 long essays he had composed for the Gates Foundation Award and that was the best thing of all.I mean what’s nicer than listening to the thoughts of a young person who, in the miraculous way of all the young people we know and love, is at the same time completely and utterly the same as he was when you knew him as child and yet utterly, utterly different, with a clear sure voice all his own. Ah!

Now here’s my Hip Hop dance class just to get you going on a Sunday. I’m the one on the left.  :-)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlgNAo3AnaA&feature=fvsr]

Hit Man?

A reader commented the other day that I could probably kill someone and still be forgiven by my readers. Therefore he was sending me a "list" ha ha. Now I’m trying to think if there have actually been people I would like to see “taken care of,” as Tony Soprano would say.Hmmmm... Well for two whole years after my sister pulled down my pants in front of the neighborhood boys I prayed we would move to a different town so I wouldn’t have to see them ever again. I was only seven and no, I didn’t wish them dead but maybe wishing to wipe them forever from your radar isn't much better.Here’s the thing: generally the people you want to 'wipe' are the ones who stir up anxious feelings in you, not so much because they have hurt you but because you have hurt them; because you have done them some kind of wrong that you’re reminded of every time you see them. I once caused a student of mine to be permanently removed from my classroom. This poor kid  just hated me, she couldn’t disguise the fact and her perpetual side-of-the-mouth remarks were poisoning things for everyone else.  I explained all this to her guidance counselor who simply switched her to another English class that met the same period. I remember that she cried when she heard the news and begged to be allowed to stay. It did kind of feel like I'd put out a contract on her.Sending her away like that was a failure on my part I now feel. For sure my veteran-teacher-wisewoman sister-in-law Miriam (pictured above) would have found a way release the child from this bondage of hatred but I was young and lacked the skills to effect that kind of turnaround..Speaking of awesome Miriam, take a look at this project for which she was the faculty adviser: the whole Medford (MA) Class of 2011 made a video to raise funds for cancer research in which as far as I can tell every senior, teacher, guidance counselor and staff member participated. I bet you know the song! Click here  and then press the 'Play' symbol to see the cutest tribute video ever with the voice of Taio Cruz and more spiffy pairs of gloves than are owned by Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy combined.