Which is why I can’t believe it when the following little scenario played out in one of my creative movement classes earlier this week.

The School’s year-end concert is just around the corner, which means I’m responsible for putting together a “demonstration of tasks and gross motor skills” for each of my two classes and a “finale dance” for those beach balls who will be moving on to Kindergarten next year.

Of course not all of the graduates are in the same class—that would be too easy—so this week we’ve been shuffling the schedule around to allow me to hold a series of mega-rehearsals with all 19 kids in the same class.

My goal for the “finale dance” is to ensure that there’s not a dry eye left in the entire theater.  And to make sure that our branch’s year-end concert is better than the other branch’s because I know my little North Philly kids can out-dance their Queen Village counterparts any day of the week.

Especially because they can do headstands.

Not all of them, mind you, but three of the more agile boys have mastered the art of inversions so the dance is going to begin with the three of them standing on a mat in the middle of the stage looking all serious and then, when the music starts, they’re going to flip over and do their thing and the audience is going to go nuts.

But of course, that leaves the other 16 kids.  The 16 kids who can’t do headstands.

Given the potential for bodily harm, I’m very selective when it comes to teaching headstands.  I won’t even let my littler beach balls try, even when they pull up their shirt sleeves and say, “But I’m FOUR, Miss Kat!  Look at my muscles!!!”

I told them that they cannot do headstands until they are FIVE.  Then I gave my less-agile five year olds the pep talk of their lives.

“We are all different,” I began.  “And we are all special.  Some of us love music.  Some of us love dance.  Some of us love art.  So even if you’re not going to do a headstand in the show, you are still going to have a very special part.  In fact, everyone is going to have a special part!”

I then turned to one of less-agile-but-nonetheless-excellent-dancers, took a deep breath and said, “Now So-and-so, can you be mine LINE LEADER for the somersault section?”

Being the line leader is pretty much the preschool equivalent to being the quarterback/captain of the cheerleading squad/President of the United States so I was pretty sure he’d forget all about his disappointment over not being in the headstand section and accept my offer with all the grace and dignity a five year old appointed to a leadership position can muster.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he cocked his head to the side, looked at me like I was crazy and said, very deliberately, “No Miss Kat.  I’ve decided I’m going to paint.”

I’ve decided I’m going to paint?

To PAINT???

There is no painting in the finale dance!

It took me a second to figure out just where my little beach ball was going with this but then I remembered: Oh yeah.  I just finished saying “Some of us love music.  Some of us love dance.  Some of us love art…”  Evidently he took the art part literally.

But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?  On Saturday afternoon, I drove my brother’s truck into a wall.  A few hours later, I attempted to bake a double batch of butter pecan cookies (so that I’d have something to bring to The Wedding Date’s parents’ house) and even though I’ve been using this particular recipe since high school, the results were nothing short of horrific.

Later that evening, The Prodigal Son (aka Tech Support, aka my younger brother) came for a visit and because he’s now a long haul trucker and doesn’t make it home all that often, my mom made steak and steamed clams for dinner.  Unfortunately we didn’t get to actually eat dinner until well after 10pm because I had a show to review.  Said show was—to put it bluntly—not my cup of tea (call me crazy, but I’m not sure how a bunch of people running around stage with their tongues sticking out constitutes “art…”) but I’ll save that story for next time.

At any rate, I was not having a good day so when my brother turned to me and asked, “Is the store open?” I replied, “Yes, it will open at 11:00 and close at 11:05.  You have exactly five minutes to shop.”

The “store” is long held tradition in the Richter family, mainly because the men folk can’t be trusted to do their own holiday shopping.  Instead, my mother and I purchase the majority of the gifts and then my dad and my brother take their pick.

For Mother’s Day, I’d loaded up The Body Shop and Ten Thousand Villages and after a quick round of browsing, my brother elected to purchase a handmade, sequin necklace from India (which he then proceeded to “wrap” in a tote bag; fortunately I told him tote bag wrapping is absolutely unacceptable at his age and provided him with a roll of sparkly tulle netting instead because I’m that kind of sister.)

After a rather bizarre Mother’s Day breakfast (during which my brother made my mother a kale smoothie because that’s what she wanted) I decided to try again on the cookies.  And, because I like making myself stressed out on my days off, I also decided to make a custom wrapped floral box to house the cookies in the event that they did not die a slow and painful death this time around.  To further complicate matters, I decided after showering and shaving my legs and putting together an appropriately demure-yet-flirty Mother’s Day ensemble to wear to the Olive Garden that I really did need to wash my hair after all.

Why so much fuss?  Well, in addition to making the annual pilgrimage to the Olive Garden with my grandparents, I was invited to a barbeque at The Wedding Date’s parents’ house to meet his paternal grandmother.  (She lives in Colombia and is getting up there in years so it was a now-or-never situation.)

The afternoon began with my grandmother marveling over the bottomless breadsticks.

“Wowee!” she announced.  “It’s so big!”

“That’s what she said,” I muttered under my breath.

It ended with a game of Settles of Catan (which I won!) and several episodes of the Discovery Channel’s Wild Wives of Africa at The Wedding Date’s parent’s house.  I never knew Wild Wives of Africa (which features a lioness, a cheetah and her cubs, a female hippopotamus, etc.) could be so interesting but las abuelas sure seemed to think so.  I even learned a new word in Spanish: el diablo.  According to The Wedding Date’s paternal grandmother, it means “crocodile,” at least in the context of a wildebeest-eating-crocodile.  Maybe I should watch Wild Wives of Africa more often.

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Four o’clock rolls around and my usual thought is, “Hmmm… I know I’m doing something dance-related tonight but where? New Jersey or Philly?  Downtown or in the suburbs?  Traditional venue or some hole in the wall somewhere?”

As such, when The Wedding Date arrived on Thursday night to accompany me to the farewell performance of Jeanne Ruddy Dance, I instructed him to drive to the Jeanne Ruddy Performance Garage.

Makes sense, right?

If you’re a choreographer who’s fortunate enough to own your own performance space (and said space bears your name), wouldn’t you want to perform there?

Evidently not.

At least not if you’re Jeanne Ruddy and your company is giving their final performance.  You want to be downtown in that case, on the Avenue of the Arts if possible, and just to make things even more confusing, you’re going to choose a theater that bears a different woman’s name: The Suzanne Roberts.

Unfortunately I somehow missed the memo.  So The Wedding Date and I drive over the Jeanne Ruddy Performance Garage, spend about ten minutes trying to find parking and make our way towards the entrance all the while arguing over the difference between a townhouse and a condo.

The entrance, however, looks weird.  As in dark.  And empty.

There is no one there.

Tacked to the outside of the building a flyer for a show called Suadade.

Suadade?

I’m supposed to be reviewing Suadade, but not until Saturday.  Or so I thought.

In desperation, I dig in my purse for my cell phone.  “I think we’re at the wrong show,” I explain to The Wedding Date.  “Or it’s the wrong day.  Or… something.”

I pull up my calendar but of course I didn’t note where Jeanne Ruddy was performing because Jeanne Ruddy was supposed to be performing at Jeanne Ruddy!  So then I Google it, and that’s when it hits me: it’s not the wrong time, and it’s not the wrong date; it’s the wrong theater.  And we’re on the completely opposite end of town.

“We need to run,” I announce.

“Seriously?” The Wedding Date asks.

“Yes seriously!  I’m reviewing!”  I hike up my dress (which is long and meant for sipping cocktails, not engaging in cardiovascular activities) and take off down the street.  The Wedding Date, who runs several times a week (as opposed to several times a decade) sets an easy pace and follows behind me.

All I can think is I am so screwed if I miss the first piece.  Not that I’d be the first dance critic ever to miss an opening number (in fact, I’m sure it happens all the time) and I’ve seen critics leave before a show’s over simply because they’re bored or on a deadline but I don’t want to be one of those critics.

So we run and as I’m calculating just how long it’s going to take us to get back to the car, drive across town and find a place to park, all I can hear is The Wedding Date.  And he’s cracking up.

“What are you laughing at?” I demand, turning to look over my shoulder.

“Us,” he says.  “It looks like I’m assaulting you.”

And so it does, because The Wedding Date is running behind me because he knows I hate running and doesn’t want to set too fast a pace.  (Or so he claims.  I think he’d simply forgotten where we parked.)

I force a smile to let all interested parties know that I’m not being chased but am instead running late… hence all the… well, running.

We make it just in time and I don’t even have to give my name to the press folks because let’s face it: I’m the only moron who went to the wrong theater.  And thanks to my mistake, we’ve missed the complimentary champagne.

Oh well.

Better luck next time.

Here’s my review by the way.  (And you’ll be pleased to note that I managed to catch the entire first piece after all.)

Check back later this week for my official Mother’s Day Re-cap (hint: my Abuela’s involved.)

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry: neither do I.

And I spent an entire weekend trying to figure it out.

It all began last New Year’s when The Wedding Date found a kindred spirit amongst the guests at my parents’ Martini Bar Soiree.  Upon discovering their mutual obsession fondness for Game of Thrones, it was decided that I would A) Start watching Game of Thrones, B) Start playing Game of Thrones, C) Devote an entire weekend to the consumption of wine enjoyment of said board game.

Initially, I was all for it.

That was before I learned that Game of Thrones was just one of several board games on the agenda.

First, we had to play Settlers of Catan.

And just when I thought my brain was going to explode from all of the “I’ll trade you a sheep for a brick” shenanigans, The Wedding Date declared victory and asked if I wanted to help him set up the board for Game of Thrones.

Being the super stellar girlfriend that I am, I declined and headed outside with my yoga mat for half an hour of Board Game Decompression.  (What can I say?  I could feel a severe case of b*tchiness coming on and it was way too early in the day to start drinking.)

By the time I returned, the dining room table was covered in cards (several different decks), tokens (several different types), tiles (several different shapes), figurines (several different colors, shapes and sizes) and half a dozen shields bearing Game of Thrones insignia.  I thought perhaps that four or five board games had somehow gotten together and procreated, resulting in token-spewing octuplets and but no, it was just Game of Thrones.

This might explain why The Wedding Date sent out a Youtube primer.  We were all supposed to watch it before heading down to Maryland for the weekend and even though I had every intention of doing so, I got so bogged down with finishing my review of last week’s naked show that I never got around to it.

This was my first mistake.

My second mistake was agreeing to spend the entire afternoon playing a game that was clearly invented by crack heads for the sole purpose of inspiring misery and suicidal thoughts amongst its players.

My third mistake was falling for a man who LOVES this stuff.

I could feel my brain shutting down.  And even though I tried to strategize, I couldn’t keep track of the tiles—did I need the fist tile to attack or the flame?—so I started losing.  Badly.  By the end of the fourth round, my House Lannister stronghold was down to three territories.

It was then that I decided there are times when it’s okay to drink wine at noon—and this was one of those times.  I shared a bottle of red with my friend’s husband and we decided to form a Stark/Lannister alliance (desperate times call for desperate measures…) but his understanding of proper tile usage was only slightly better than mine.

Needless to say, we lost.

And The Wedding Date won.

When he excused himself to use the rest room, it was all I could do to keep from banging my head on the table.

(In fact, I would have if the table hadn’t been completely covered in Game of Thrones paraphernalia.)

“It’s a good thing I love that man,” I whispered.  “Because this is the worst game ever!  Whoever invented it must have been tripping on acid.  Or LSD.  Or something.  I mean do people actually enjoy this???  It’s worse that the GREs!”

I spent the rest of the weekend making equally enthusiastic comments and by the time Sunday morning rolled around, I excused myself from Betrayal at the House on the Hill to—wait for it—edit a research article.

Clearly I’m not destined for world domination any time soon—at least not domination by tile.

And yet as I write this, I’m sitting beside The Wedding Date who is drinking chai tea and reading one of his “nerd textbooks” (at least that’s what I call them).  We’ve just returned from the Suzanne Roberts Theater where, for the second time in two weeks, he’s accompanied me to a modern dance concert.

I’ve just thanked him for coming with me, and for making an effort to make intelligent conversation afterwards, and for taking an interest in something that interests me without complaining about it.

And then it hits me.

I’ve got to go watch that stupid Youtube tutorial.  And I’ve got to figure out how to play Game of Thrones.  Not only because it’s important to him and he’s important to me but because this way, when we converge upon Hoopers Island later this summer for Round 2, I’ll be able to kill.  (Or at the very least find some way to amuse myself other than comparing Game of Thrones to cruel and unusual punishment.)

“Where do we live?” I asked a few months ago.

“Earth!” one of my particularly astute three year olds shouted.

I’d been going for “Philadelphia,” or perhaps the “United State of America,” but I had to concede that she was in fact correct.

“Very good,” I replied.  “We do live on earth.  But can anyone tell me what country we live in?”

“A-rock Obama!” was their unanimous response.

“Good guess!  But Barack Obama is the president of our country.  Can anyone tell me the name of our country?”

After several well-intended but incorrect responses (Philadelphia, North Philly and “the ocean”), I finally cupped my hand to my ear, thereby signaling a temporary suspension of our usual “raise your hand” rule, and prompted “The United States of…???”

“HEARING!”

Hearing?

It took me a second but then I remembered that whenever I’m cupping my hand to my ear, I’m usually trying to get my little beach balls to remember what their ears (and various other body parts) are used for.

“Not the United States of Hearing,” I replied.  “The United States of America!  Now let’s all say that together: The United States of AMERICA!”

A few days later, I decided to try again:

What’s the name of our city?

A-rock Obama!

No, friends.  That’s the name of our president.  Now, what’s the name of our country?

A-rock Obama!

No, friends.  That’s the name of our president.  Now can we try to say it correctly this time? 

A-rock Obama!

Oh well.  At least they’ll know who to vote for when the time comes.

(As for the gaming weekend: just wait.  More on that later…)

We’re going to my folks’ place on the Eastern shore and we’ll be joined by another couple—friends of mine—for an entire weekend of (wait for it…) GAMING.

And hot tubbing.

And drinking.

But mainly gaming.

I’m not really sure when I turned into a gamer.

I suspect, however, that it all began when I agreed to celebrate Valentine’s Day at the movie theater.  Watching Star Wars.  In 3D.

And although Star Wars isn’t strictly related to gaming, it’s a slippery slope.

Granted, then term “gamer” should probably be reserved for an individual who knows how to play more than one game (which I don’t), or who has done something other than lose at the one game she’s learned to play but I see no need to get hung up on semantics.

Especially because I nowadays I can hold my own in a discussion of Game of Thrones.  In fact, when I stumbled across the following t-shirt last week, I actually got it:

Damn it feels good to be a Lannister

During last weekend’s college reunion, I met an old friend for dinner and found myself engaged in a rather lengthy debate regarding the alleged handsomeness of Jamie Lannister (who everyone knows is a total pansy) vs. the undeniable sexiness of Khal Drogo (‘nuf said).

I have yet to start Season Two (so no spoilers!) but I’m engrossed thanks to The Wedding Date (and his indefatigable determination for me to finish the entire first season prior to our gaming weekend… lest I fail to fully appreciate the back stories).

So wish me luck.  I’ll be learning Settlers of Catan, House on Haunted Hill and Game of Thrones the Game (not to be confused with Game of Thrones the HBO series, or Game of Thrones the book).  I’d blame The Wedding Date for turning me into a nerd but he says he’s “expanding my horizons” (and let’s face it: I’ve always been a bit of a nerd, just not a nerd of this sort).

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What my dad doesn’t understand is that reunions are all about looking fabulous.  And since I will never have a high school reunion (having been homeschooled…) this is my one chance to hold my head high and tell my former archenemies to go screw themselves.

It’s not that I didn’t like college— I loved it—but I had a real love/hate relationship with the dance department.  My turn out was never good enough, my attempts at choreography were never “investigative” enough and it was with great relief that I realized I could skip up to three ballet classes a semester without jeopardizing my grades.

Frankly, I wasn’t exactly the poster child of the dance department.

(Until the chair realized I had a good relationship with the college president; then I was an asset in the department’s campaign to turn the former library into an extra rehearsal studio… but that’s another story.)

Can you blame me for packing four pairs of killer stilettos?

(Or wanting to stab my former classmates in the eye balls whenever I read about whatever crack pot “art” they’re currently producing?)

(Or sniggering to myself whenever I stumble upon a former bunhead’s Facebook photos and discover that the ballerina in question has gotten fat?)

I’ve lost weight since college.

And I have a job in my field.

And I get paid to write about dance.

And I’m still performing.

To top it all off, I have an awesome boyfriend.

And arguably the most interesting Masters degree of my entire graduating class.

I could barely drag myself out of bed this morning (mainly because The Wedding Date was in bed with me…) but I’d say the past five years have treated me pretty well.

In fact, I don’t even care what my classmates think of the new-and-improved-me and my high heels.  Why?  Well, lately my preschoolers have started running up to me demanding, “Miss Kat!  Do you like my new shoes?”

“Do you like them?” I always ask in return.

“Yes.”

“Well then that’s all that matters.”

Touché.

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He’s in the shower down the hall, and the fact that I can hear him from the bedroom tells me that this is something serious.  Something for which I should probably get out of bed.

I stumble down the hallway and mumble, “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

I can’t imagine that forgetting one’s shampoo in one’s overnight bag or dropping one’s towel in the toilet would warrant the use of profanities at 5:30 in the morning so I start to worry that he’s sprawled out on the floor, somehow decapitated or missing a limb or befallen by equally tragic but unimaginable fate.

“What happened?” I demand.

“Oh, sorry,” he replies.  “I forgot my cufflinks.”

Cufflinks?

I am simultaneously relieved and incredibly miffed that I got out of bed for this.

(Then again, I do have a thing for men who wear cufflinks.)

“Do you think your dad has a pair I could borrow?” he asks.

I resist the urge to snort.  My dad’s a good looking guy but fashion isn’t exactly his forte.  He’s about as likely to own cufflinks as he is to own a bowtie (and considering the fact that both he and my brother are rather fond of those George Foreman zip-up ties, I’m pretty sure that the Richter household is a bowtie-free zone).

“I doubt it,” I reply.  It occurs to me that maybe someone got him a pair once, like when he graduated from college or something, but the likelihood of me sneaking into my parents room at 5:30 and finding them are slim to none, especially when you consider the fact that the family dogs need very little excuse to go crazy in the wee hours of the morning.

“What about a butterfly pin?” The Wedding Date asks.  “Do you think you have any of those?”

“What is a butterfly pin?” I ask.

“You know, those gold things with the round part on top.”

“You mean a brass fastener?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“No.”

“No?”

“We’ll have to safety pin it.”

Of course, having had a performance the night before, I’d raided every drawer in the entire house to re-stock my “costume emergency” box and said box is still in the car, beneath my garment bag, all of our promotional literature, approximately a dozen leftover water bottles and various pairs of tap shoes.

But relationships are all about helping each other out, so while The Wedding Date is getting dried off, I’m out in the garage, routing around for a box of safety pins to pin his French cuffs at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning.

The things one does for love…

I spent Monday and Tuesday night teaching, Wednesday night performing, Thursday night at the Wilma to review BalletX and that’s just the beginning.  I’m reviewing again tonight and tomorrow night and on Sunday, I’ll be spending all day in Valley Forge for my girls’ competition.

Not that I’m complaining—how many dance majors actually end up working in their chosen field?—but I am exhausted.  So exhausted in fact that I was considering writing an entire blog post about the absolutely gorgeous bouquet of flowers The Wedding Date gave to meet after my company’s show at City Hall on Wednesday night but then I thought better of it.  After all, I usually want to stab people in the eye when they post pictures of their Valentine’s Day bouquets all over Facebook so I’m going to resist the urge and post a few photos from the show instead.

Enjoy!

Silent Ladies: the a cappella piece I choreographed to open the show (I'm third from the left)

It Don't Mean a Thing: me and my partner in crime (thank GOD I we both opted to add clear straps to those dresses!)

The Shim Sham: my students joined the cast for the Shim Sham Shimmy (and TWD totally ignored my announcement forbidding photography during the performance and snapped this picture on his cell phone... tsk tsk).

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When I was seventeen and trying to determine whether or not I was in love with my first boyfriend, the Canadian I’d met at Not Back to School Camp, I turned to my best friend and asked, “How do you know when you’re in love with someone?”

“You just do,” she replied.

Even thought she was two years older than me, already in college and in possession of a perfectly nice boyfriend who she would eventually go on to marry, I didn’t believe her.

“You just do?”  What a load of crap!

I was waiting to hear something scientific, or at the very least something romantic (“A chorus of angels will descend from the heavens” or “Rainbows will spring up in your path,”) but she was adamant.

“Trust me,” she repeated.  “You’ll just know.”

That was almost ten years ago, and even though numerous boyfriends (and numerous declarations) have come and gone since then, I’m not sure that I ever really believed her.

Until last week.

To those of you who’ve been reading for a while, it’s no secret that I have issues with the phrase “I love you.”  It’s never worked out properly any time I’ve said it (or been told it).  In fact, the last time a guy told me he loved I was so surprised that I proceeded to bang my head on the steering wheel.

Presumably, this was not the reaction he’d been hoping for.

As such, I’d been both wanting and not wanting The Wedding Date to tell me he loved me, and I’d been both wanting and not wanting to say it to him.  But I was scared.  A first “I love you” is like a first kiss: you put it out there and hope the other party responds but there’s no guarantee.  You could be left standing there with your mouth hanging open, feeling like an idiot and wondering what the hell happened.

Several weeks ago, however, I did something stupid.  I got angry at The Wedding Date because he didn’t wake up to walk me out.  We’d spent the weekend together at his place, and we were going to be seeing each other again in a few hours at my parent’s annual Oscar Party, but I couldn’t believe that he was going to let me go without saying goodbye.  I tried to wake him but he’s a much heavier sleeper than I realized at the time so when he didn’t respond, I hit him in the shoulder.

By the time he stumbled, rather bewildered, into the kitchen, I was in full meltdown mode.  “I always say goodbye when you have to get up early to go to work!” I cried.  “And I always offer to make you tea before you leave.  You don’t even care that I’m leaving!”

(And this to the man who spent his day off making me breakfast because I was on a deadline.)

I was overtired.  And stressed out about getting back to Philly in time to make it to the event I was covering for the Dance Journal.  And anxious over the fact that I hadn’t hit it off particularly well with any of the women I’d met at his birthday party the day before.  Nonetheless, it took me exactly three minutes to realize I was overreacting.

I called The Wedding Date the instant I got on the Parkway and he was, as usual, perfect and apologetic even though it wasn’t his fault.

Everything was fine after that—I apologized and he came to the Oscar Party (where he nearly won all of the trivia games, despite my attempts at cheating)—but a week later, he turned to me and confessed, “I have to ask: do you normally hit your boyfriends?”

“No!  God no!”

“I didn’t think so—you don’t strike me as that kind of person.  But I was wondering.  I just wanted to make sure.”

It was then that I realized, for the first time in my life, that I was afraid of losing someone.  I’ve broken up with every man I’ve ever dated but this was different: I was terrified.  And suddenly I knew.

To my great relief, The Wedding Date eventually came to this very same conclusion.  And so it was that the “A” word was finally said.

Oh.

Right.

I need to explain what the “A” word is.

Refer back to your high school Spanish text book and remember folks, The Wedding Date is Colombian after all.

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