Funny!

We have several local professional dance companies. Two years ago one of them they started an intensive program for older teenagers, meaning high schoolers. The kids go after school four days a week and on Saturday. They train in ballet, modern, hip hop, and tap, 18 hours a week, with a big performance at year end. The first year the program had about 15 kids. The second year, which just finished, it grew to 23 kids.

About a third of the kids are my son's classmates from his arts middle school, where he concentrated on dance and theatre. During the year, when high school wasn't so great, his dance program kept him in touch with his middle school friends. He wasn't isolated in high school, actually he was reunited there with his friends from elementary school, but freshman year is just tough and I'm glad he had something going on outside of school.

Of the 23 kids, there are five boys and 18 girls. It is good for the boys to work and hang out with the girls. Socialization, you know. Many of the girls are very pretty. His best friend in the program is the prettiest, I think, but they've been buddies since 6 y/o and seem to be firmly in "friend mode". That's her in the photo.

I've got a video of a dress rehearsal. I'll find the URL and post later.

LOL! Folk dance might be good for the body, but studio dance, not so much. Torn ligaments, crooked toes, broken wrist, screwed up knee cartiledge, stress fractures, not to mention semi-permanently purple knees, shin splints, minor sprains, bloody noses, blisters, etc. And that's just me...

L, you might find some interest if you started talking to people of a similar age and interest to you. Also, if there's any kind of studio at all, you can talk to the owner about adult dance possibilities. There are also some very good videos out there. I have a ballet class dvd that kicks my butt and some great bollywood ones that are just fun workouts but also teach the hand movements and steps. If you start doing a video with one or two people, it might grow into a group big enough to pay for a teacher.

John, it sounds like a great program! I'll look forward to seeing the video.

Mish mash of Korean and Japanese tonight. Sticky rice, kimchee, tofu, raw salmon, fried salmon skin, Korean rice dressing, etc. Looks a bit disorganized and I'll have to get used to kimchee, but it's a start.

And the link, which may or may not work in Houzz. Rehearsal of one of the year end pieces.

http://youtu.be/v3N4YaLlnl8

The link works perfectly. The audio started before the video, but when I backed it up, they came on together. Your son is a lovely dancer! This kind of choreography is difficult to make look right because the movements have to look complete without extension. He did a great job on that, and was present in the dance the whole time--that's head, carriage, eyes, shoulders, walk, etc. That's what makes him look like a mature dancer, rather than a kid. I'm really impressed, and glad to know that the program is working for him socially as well.

I don't even do REGULAR exercise videos lol! Dancing is hard on the body, but so is running, rowing, football, basketball, the list goes on. I have carpal tunnel syndrome and a herniated disk from just sitting at my computer desk!

John that video is SO AWESOME! Your son is so lucky! That dance was pretty sexy though. Like a combo workout/makeout session! :) My knees hurt just watching it! Love when the girls "lift" the boys!

Awesome job. They're really good together John. I really liked it.

The update on bro is, next Monday, June 29th at 8PM Eastern, NBC. Be looking for Anthony if you watch. Go bro!

I don't have TV, but will it be on streaming or YouTube maybe? I'd love to watch him!

IT won't let me watch from here :( The photo is lovely, though!

I just watched it. I think your son is the most graceful on the stage. Good job! I hope you don't mind, but I just sent the video to my daughter. She was with us when we visited you in Portland. I thought she'd enjoy seeing his dancing.

Sally

No problem, sally. Wow, seems like a long time ago that you visited us. How is your daughter doing? Is she still in Portland?

What a nice start for summer.

I see Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey in your son's movements.

dcarch

I'm also impressed with your son and his dancing abilities. Keep doing!

John, how amazing! Loved watching the video and thanks for the OT...I miss our Conversation tab or was it the Discussion tab.

Robin, I don't watch American Ninja but I will just so I can say "I'm friends with his sister!".

I hope I get to say, that's MY brother! I assure you, I've never watched American Ninja until this year. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it the one night I watched it, looking for Tony before I found out which group he was in. You might like it. I really didn't think I would?!

I watched it once, when I had TV. I liked it, it was a fun show. The players were pretty impressive.

dcarch, I read a biography of Alvin Ailey, he was a remarkable man. I meant to read a biography of Martha Graham, but it is still laying around waiting for me to get to it. When my son started dancing, I went through a phase of reading books on dance and choreography. It is interesting how few books there are on dance, as compared to books on music or theatre or painting or other arts. It is so hard to express dance in words. There isn't a notation, at least not one that casual readers know. Before video, dance was such an ephemeral art, a snowflake, a mayfly.

There is notation for ballet, but it's pretty incomprehensible even to insiders. There's also notation for ballroom which is a bit easier to get through because there's a lot of standardization, at least on the competitive side. Unlike staff written music or shape notes, which you can hear in your head if you're a good reader, with dance notation it's more of a guide to recreating the choreography, rather than an image of the dance in another form. Even with video, dance is ephemeral, unless it was designed for video. That's what Rosie Perez and Paula Abdul did when choreographing early hiphop for TV and music videos, which wanted closeups and extreme closeups, rather than the full stage view one might use to film a ballet. A lot of the bones of what you see as hiphop now still has the bones from those ready for closeup dances. Looking at a video of a stage dance, however, rarely captures the reality of what's been done. So You Think You Can Dance does a better job than most, but then the choreographers probably also keep in mind what will look good on TV.

Being that there is video, however, you might want to investigate what's on YouTube. You can see people who aren't dancing anymore, like Desmond Richardson and Judith Jameson, as well as all kinds of dance from all over the world. It's not like being there, but it's a heck of a lot more informative than reading notation. :D

John, your son dances beautifully. The video and audio loaded perfectly for me and I greatly enjoyed it. I am possibly the most ungraceful person ever, my mother once made me take a dance class because she said it would make me graceful and I got hit by a car crossing the street to go to dance class! She let me quit then, thankfully, as I was awful.

So your son is graceful and creative in his dance and your daughter is organized and creative in her kitchen, what a wonderful combination for each of them. They both are clearly confident in what they are doing, best of luck to them.

Annie

You got hit by a car?! What? I think you're full of grace in many ways, Annie.

John, my daughter is still in Portland, and very busy with many projects. She's about to head up a project involving some kind of movement/dance called eurythmics. It's a little out there for me, but she's excited about it. It gives her income for the summer during her students' vacation time.

Bro didn't make it. Aw. I was just sure he would. Seriously.

Oh no! Sorry! That would have been very cool. Hope he isn't too upset.

Touchy, I'm going with, yes, he's upset. :( there's always next year.

Aww, that's too bad.

Sally

Darn, Robin, I haven't even turned the television on in the last couple of months, I even asked Elery to show me how, so I could watch your brother. Yes, there's next time, but it's still disappointing for him, it has to be.

The worst part was that there was an overpass about a block further down, but did I use it? Nooooo, of course not, I was in my usual hurry and decided to cross the street where there was no light. Now, of course, there's a light there, because I wasn't the only kid coming from school and dashing across that street. And the end result, of course, is that I still cannot dance.

And thanks for the compliment!

Annie

I thought I would chime in and give a couple updates. I've been busy with my garden, the theatre (no workday last weekend-luckily, the dessert I made can be frozen for a while: Peanut Butter Pie).

Also, I'm waiting to hear about a possible job at Dollar General (I reapplied since my best friend who works there said they're hiring again). Keep your fingers crossed that I hear from them soon!

Sunday, I started to have terrible pain and of course, it was kidney stones. Mum looked up a home remedy and it worked. I passed 10 fragments/stones (8 large, 2 specks). Still on the mend, but just experiencing some mild pain and nausea today. My appetite has returned the past couple of days (ate heartily on Tuesday and yesterday). I hope to never experience that again.

My Halloween costume is coming along just fine! The costume itself needs the most work. My friend and I spent $125 on the fabric alone! I have to find/buy a hoop skirt/crinoline petticoat, wig, and the shoes and maybe some makeup (I have some plus we're going to make some with crayons and coconut oil). I have two accessories done (fan and parasol) and working on the third. I need more wire for this one (it's hair jewelry worn by Sarah in the movie Labyrinth, but that isn't who I'm going for as Halloween).

Tomorrow night, it's the local fireworks show and Saturday is a workday at the theatre (possibly a cookout there for our lunch). It'll be much needed after all I have going on lol.

Brad AKA Moonwolf

Kidney stones are terribly painful! Sorry you had to go through that. Read up on dietary prevention: lots of water, citrus, magnesium, and so on.

I do drink lots of water and lemonade, and I take magnesium and Vitamin B6, and started taking flaxseed oil capsules a few days ago. The remedy I used was lemon juice and apple cider vinegar. Sometimes it was just lemon juice in water. The first time it was with olive oil with the lemon juice and apple cider vinegar in water. All I can say is ugh. Makes me sick thinking about it lol. Passed a very small stone today. The grand total now is 11 since Sunday (passed the rest of them Monday). I am feeling a lot better! :)

I've been dealing with them since 11th grade, so quite a few years now. This episode was one of the worst. Tylenol and a heating pad also play a major role in aiding me. I feel great today!

It's great that we have threads like this so we can see what else is going on in our lives :).

Brad AKA Moonwolf

Oof. Too hot to cook. We are having a heat wave in Portland. 95-100F highs, barely cooling at night, and most homes here do not have air conditioning.

Cooking has slowly ground to a halt, replaced by cold sandwiches, fruit, Greek yogurt, and lots of water. I've been making batches of basil-sage pesto and mixing it with cold pasta. Some "meals" have consisted mostly of ice cream bars listlessly consumed, prone and damp on the couch.

Heat wave is supposed to subside by next weekend. I have a 200 mile bike ride then, so I'm grateful for the low pressure system on its way.

There were a couple of meals like that too -- a little take out sushi and some frozen yoghurt last night.

Do you have a camelback? If not, is there at least a chase car with water? I'm worried about you getting dehydrated again. I did the last time I cooked a big meal, when it wasn't that hot. I always drink lots of water, but it wasn't sufficient. While you're riding you need to drink water when you're not thirsty.

Are you cooking for your next ride?

The ride next weekend is a huge group ride (Seattle to Portland) with tons of support. I've done it a few times. A few friends and I will be riding together, and the temperature is forecast to be much cooler, like low 80Fs. I did buy some supersized water bottles, 32 oz each, so I'm going to be carrying a half gallon of water on the bike. We do 100 miles the first day, camp out (trucks bring your bags, there is food and drink), then 103 miles the next day. Some people do the full 203 miles in one day, I haven't tried that yet.

Dinner tonight is watermelon, steamed mussels, and cold beer. 1 mussel = 7 cal.

Tomorrow SWMBO and I will start going to the gym. Hopefully we remember where it is. The lose-the-tutu project, you know.

Were are the chips to go with the mussels? LOL Are you going to watch Le Tour de France? I bet watching that burns off calories....

No chips, didn't want to use the oven :-(

Starting now (5 am PST Saturday) I'll be watching the Tour daily!

Making an exception to the no cooking rule, because it is Sarah's (guest girl, excuse me young lady, living with us) birthday and she loves Korean food.

We picked three dishes from our Korean cookbook and are making Knife-Cut Noodles in Clam Soup, Seaweed Soup, and Soy Sprout Rice Bowl. Resting the dough now and will hand roll and knife cut the noodles soon. All the meat is being replaced with minced Saba (mackerel) because Sarah is a pescatarian.

I'm also roasting pork belly and will grill some Saba fillets.

I took her shopping at our local Japanese market where she got her favorite beverage, Pocari Sweat, which is apparently quite the hangover cure. This market also sells lots of Japanese books, utensils, cosmetics, decor and knick-knacks. I used to take the kids there to buy Hello Kitty toys and adorable gadgets. It made me sad to realize they are too old for that now.

Clam and Knife Cut Noodles. My hand cut noodles were laughable. So I'm hiding them.

Soy Sprout Rice. This has minced mackerel, scrambled egg, and seasoning sauce.

Grilled Saba. More Japanese I guess.

Pork Belly, roasted with salt and sugar.

Seaweed Soup, this is kombu, minced Saba, etc. Flavor great, presentation iffy.

And we are eating a vegan birthday cake. Ugh. Sometimes I wish I didn't live in Portland. This is the second one I've had in a month. They are heavy and dense, with too much frosting..

I get it about birthday cake, but if a baker can't replicate the flavor of birthday cake with vegan ingredients, wouldn't it be better to make a really nice vegan desert and put a candle and sugar flowers on it? Sorry you had to suffer, but your dinner looks tasty. I don't care about presentation so long as it looks like it would be good to eat. It does! And I can't even eat a lot of it (allergies).

I've enjoyed reading about your daughter's camp and your son's dancing -- he's quite talented and should continue to pursue it. Not to worry you, but there are plenty of things to spend money on in Tahoe in the summer, even at the summit :) She has quite the job for the freshman year.

I had to laugh at the vegan cake. I had a vegan, gluten-free cake (Two strikes against it) a few months ago at a birthday party --- all the non vegan guests tried to find creative things to do with a mountain of Crisco-based frosting and dense cake.

Plllog, what are you allergic to?

The seaweed soup was great. We could have strained out the solids and just had the broth.

Apparently this is a traditional Korean birthday soup. Because pregnant women and new mothers are supposed to have a lot of seaweed soup, for the nutritive value, thus it became the birth soup, and thence the birthday soup. So Sarah says.

Fish, especially hot fish. There are some exceptions. A lot of fish dishes don't even look appetizing to me because I associate the looks with reactions, but your bowl looks yummy, and the grilled one even more.

I love the concept of birthday soup! I detest the reality of kosher for Passover birthday cake, which is well beyond gluten free. It's hard to put candles in soup, though...

I have been getting updates from Daughter San at camp. Her first month as head of kitchen has been overall good, meaning more positives than negatives but still some negatives.

Positives: Most of the meals have been good, or better than good. Several times, the campers have "sung to" the cooks; this is a tradition at camp, it is a form of applause. Various new recipes she has introduced have been very popular; for instance, a simplified Chicken Marbella, and buttermilk crust pot pies. They passed the country health inspection with good marks, which was not a given under prior camp management, and the kitchen equipment has worked pretty well, unlike last summer when they had all sorts of problems. She has been writing up the recipes in very detailed form including timing, so that her assistant cooks can run meals. The staff seems to be getting along well, with a minimum of drama and butt-hurt, and they respect her. She got her first paycheck. There was a thunderstorm with heavy rain, and their tent cabin was cozy and dry. She has been having lots of fun.

Negatives: One of her assistant cooks is a corner-cutter but competent. Another is inexperienced but hard working. Daughter is stressed whenever she has a meal off, because there have been some screw ups when she isn't there. She hasn't been able to find time during her regular hours to do her office work, so she works long hours. One lady complained to the camp manager because there were only four dishes suitable for vegetarians at dinner. And daughter recently had to make plans to accommodate a camper who is coming up for a week and "cannot" eat onions, garlic, dairy, gluten, sugar, or raw vegetables.

All in all, her summer is going very well.

How is everyone's summer going? I don't want to monopolize this thread.

"It's hard to put candles in soup, though..."

We have floating candles, like tea lights, they would bob prettily in a soup tureen.

But the soup would have to be cool, or the candles wrapped in foil, or the soup flavors complimented by wax.

ew. flavors complimented by wax? Um, can't think of anything that does that!

Just a update. I came up to Tahoe for a few days to see my daughter. She got two days off work, after working 12 hours/day for thirteen days straight.

Her summer is going great. The kitchen is running smoothly. She's been learning how to manage her kitchen staff, 10 people including two assistant supervisors and a bunch of junior cooks. Lots of training, teaching, correcting, encouraging, and now doing job reviews and planning staffing for next summer. She's also been writing up recipes and procedures, filling out employee evaluations, and other administrative stuff. Along the way they've had to deal with equipment breaking down, water shortages, a small forest fire that closed the road and interrupted food delivery for awhile, and other interesting aspects of cooking in the high mountains.

The camper feedback on the food has been very good. People have told me the meals have been the best they've ever had in years of coming to camp. She's been asked for her recipes several times.

(As an aside, I think they need to change their policies for accommodating special dietary requests. This being a Berkeley camp, families are always requesting that their meals for the week be gluten free, dairy free, meat free, nut free, kosher, vegan, soy free, low fat, low carb, without certain spices, no raw vegetables, no garlic or onions, no peppers, no tomatoes, and on and on - the list of idiosyncratic restrictions seems endless. Right now the camp kitchen accommodates every request, which means they have to improvise a special variant or two of the meal, for one or more individual campers, almost every day. I told her they need to develop a standard list of alternative dishes using food that they will stock all the time and offer those and only those, instead of trying to create bespoke versions of every meal served during the week. For example, they should always be able to accommodate vegetarians or gluten intolerants or lactose intolerant, but I don't think a camper should be able to present any arbitrary list of restrictions and always expect to be accommodated. This isn't a restaurant, it is a summer camp.)

On her first day off, we drove to Reno and found a restaurant supply store, and I bought a bunch of little stuff they need. Things like more aprons and oven mitts, egg slicers, thermometers, etc. My daughter was like a kid in a candy store. The camp kitchen needs a lot of other equipment, but my "helpful dad" budget does not extend to a commercial mixer (the kids are making dough by hand because they only have one Kitchen-Aid for 140 people), a Robot Coupe (they chop everything by hand, no food processor), a commercial rice maker, etc. The kitchen does get improved a little every year. Maybe next summer they will actually have their new ovens installed. Can you imagine feeding 140 people a day with just one large flat top, four burners, one small oven, and one charbroiler? At the former camp in Yosemite that burned in the big forest fire of 2013, the kitchen was well equipped. At this camp in Tahoe, the kitchen is nowhere as good.

I've been vagabonding while I'm here. The first night I put my sleeping bag on the couch on the deck of the tent cabin that my daughter shares with some other girls. That was comfortable enough but I am a bit appalled at how messy four teenaged girls can be. The next night my daughter and I slept on the beach at Lake Tahoe, outside a friend's house. We watched the local bear splashing through the water about 70 feet away, then fell asleep to a fantastic lightning storm on the other side of the lake. Pictures below. Tonight I'm borrowing that friend's tent cabin, so I'm slightly less on guard about the local bear. He has never threatened anyone, in the five years that he's been living in this grove by the lake, and I've been within 40 feet of him a few times, but you still have to make sure you don't have food in your car or in your sleeping bag.

Well, that's it for now. It might rain tonight, so I'm glad my sleeping bag isn't on the beach.

Thanks for the update and the pictures!

I'm amazed at what your daughter is doing at her age. She definitely has her stuff together. To expand on what you said above, I think it would be a great exercise for her (and perhaps the camp) if (when she has time) she developed a full week of meals for each of the special requests, trying to find as many shared or mostly shared dishes (e.g., some with and some without aliums) between several. Little Maggie can't have snowdrops? No problem. She'll be on menu B, except for breakfast #2 and dinner #5, for which she'll be fine on menu A. If she perfected a system like that, she might even be able to publish it. :)

They are planning to tighten up the rules on "dietary" requests next summer. Feeding that volume of people with just this equipment, there is just not the spare bandwidth to be making custom meals for people who have "preferences" rather than "needs".

The kids keep bringing the custom XYZ-free meals to the camper who requested it, then seeing her (and it is almost always a "her") helping herself to the regular meal that contains XYZ, they rush over and tell her "the whatever contains XYZ", only to hear "oh, it's okay, I can have a little bit of it".

Hm... So is it that the little angels are using food to control their parents, or vice versa? If it really is an allergy that they can have a little of (which is possible), they shouldn't be doing so at a remote camp.

Your daughter probably doesn't have a lot of input into the approach they use, but I'd say a good cut off would be "will the worst case reaction to this kill your kid?" Will it bring on a severe stomach issue, or anaphylaxis? If the answer is no, maybe it's not really that important to cater to it.

According to dear daughter, it is usually adult female campers who have the special dietary requests. Not often kids, other than nut allergies.

The dietary requests should be mostly over now, since family camp has ended for the summer (sold out!) and youth camp is starting (also sold out). Staff gets pulled from all departments to be cabin counselors, who are responsible for their eight kids 24/7. So kitchen is short staffed, sometimes as few as three people handling dinner for 100. But the food served for youth camp is simpler, so they manage.