Maybe I'm Back?

Thanks for letting me take my break from blogging. I can't promise that I'm going to be consistent. I have a very full schedule until about mid-July. There are two major events coming up, one at work (the high school youth theology institute) and Hearts on Fire (which you have already missed registration...poor schlubs).

But what do I want to focus on today? Perhaps the epitome of a suburban existence. Tonight I drove out into the farther suburbs to watch my goddaughter in: The Three Hour Dance Recital!

Just so you know, that's not my goddaughter. That's just some girl whose parents thought it would be cool to put her photo on the internet.

The difficulty with a three-hour dance recital is that I'm really there for only about 15-25 minutes of it. My goddaughter had two dances (one in each act). Her sister also danced, so I knew two kids on stage. Other than that, I was watching a bunch of strangers.

The senior high dancers were very good. I guess I like dance, so I was pretty entertained. However, for some reason, my eyes area always drawn to the one girl who is way off from everyone else.

Here's the really mean thing: I also look for which girls look the most unflattering in those costumes. I have a co-worker whose daughter does dance, and she makes jokes that the costumes make the children look like trollops, but parents still send them out there. These are clothes that parents would never allow to be worn to school or another function. But somehow it's OK that they are dancing around on a stage in front of hundreds of strangers.

All in all, it was a nice evening. Both girls danced quite nicely. As I mentioned, I was more impressed with the older girls, who had good routines and were all together. I guess I don't care a lot for "cute", so I wasn't as impressed with the 3-4 year olds (who wants to send their child to dance classes at 3?!?!?!). Perhaps the highlight was the father/daughter group. This was the only time that a male was represented on the stage. They did a cute number to "Hero" (both Bonnie Tyler and Enrique Eglasias). The fathers were all dressed up like super-heros (Batman, Mr. Incredible, even Austin Powers). It was quite funny (and I'm glad that I'll never do that).

So parents of daughters...beware of dance!