Dear All, Here it is, folks!  After many months in the making, it is arriving at last this Friday!  The famous Fourth Friday of the Month Practice Party!  Now who (you might ask yourselves) would need to practice how to have a party?  Well Monsieur/madam/mademoiselle, you miss my meaning.   This …

Dear All,   Well, it is another one of those weeks when I find that I have nothing to say and only ten to twelve paragraphs in which to say it.  Ordinarily not a challenge for me, but today’s home agenda includes bear-proofing the garbage shed (ah, the glamorous life …

Dear All,   “Picken’ ‘em up and layin’ ‘em down” is an old phrase for dancing that comes to us from the 1930s.  An enthusiastic and amusing (if inelegant) epithet.  Certainly not applicable to the Bolero or Waltz, which are the two most elegant dances in the ballroom lexicon (or …

Dear All,   I know, I know!  We told you a couple of weeks ago that we were going to teach Salsa and Quickstep in May and here we are, two weeks later, actually in May and suddenly we are teaching the Bolero and the Waltz.  So, sue me (us).  …

Dear All,   Spring, which has actually been here for some time, has finally opened its eyes. I guess it didn’t like what it saw considering how fast it has been asserting itself over the last several days.  I don’t think that I have ever seen snow melt so quickly.  …

Dear All, My head is bare as are my feet.  My pant legs are rolled up to just above my calf in the finest of Tom Sawyer traditions and my sleeves (to my elbows) as well.  And it is still morning.  If that doesn’t say Spring, then what does? You …

Dear All,   Alright, alright, alright!  Enough with the sun already!  Yeah, yeah . . . I know . . .  it’s getting warmer blah blah blah; the snow is melting blah blah blah; no more shoveling blah blah blah.  If it wasn’t supposed to rain tomorrow (Tuesday) I would …

Dear All,   Despite the massive piles of snow on the ground and the occasional (but still happening far too often) bone-chilling gust of wind, there are signs of Spring afoot.  Ants are beginning to make an appearance (I do so loathe the smell of ants!); the cats, who have …