So I Think I Can Dance

I am definitely a white girl. I used to think I had pretty good rhythm. In my younger years, I loved to go dancing with my friends. In the mid 90s, there was this awesome bar in Five Points called Nightworks. They played seventies music, and we had the most fun dancing to "Rubberband Man", "The Piña Colada Song", and all those cool ABBA tunes. We felt so retro... (It was also there that I was introduced to that poison called Goldschlager, but that's another story.) Oh how we loved that place!

Fast forward to 2011. I have taken a few Zumba classes and feel so ridiculous. I obviously have gotten "whiter" with age. My hips don't gyrate as they should. So I stick with my treadmill and my trainer, a twenty-two year old who calls me ma'am and tells me all about his college escapades. (Those stories are the main reason I work-out. They are oh so entertaining!)

But I still love to dance. So I resign myself to my kitchen. I have made the best evah "mixed tape" of 90s tunes and one-hit wonders of the day... Pearl Jam, Sponge, Marcy Playground, Live, Spacehog, The Verve, Blind Melon, The Breeders, Smash Mouth, Sister Hazel, Blues Traveler, The Mighty Bosstones - to name a few. (You may not recognize some of the bands, but I promise you'd know the songs in a heartbeat!)

I hook my iPad up to the Bose radio... fix myself a cocktail... and crank it up. What therapy! And this is...


Of course it embarrasses and confuses S and J, but that makes it all the more fun!

Would You Care to Shag... um, I Mean Dance?

Last night we celebrated my father's 70th birthday.  My mother, sister and I sent out almost 100 invitations for a soiree with jambalaya, beer and shagging.  It was a wonderful affair, with 150 of his dearest and closest friends celebrating a man they love.  The supper was eaten, the Amber Bach consumed, and the shagging commenced. 

"What?  The 'shagging commenced?' " you non-southerners may say.  (And you Brits may be a little more appalled.)  Yes, shagging.  I do know what some of you may associate with the term, but if you live south of the Mason-Dixon line, your parents do it right in front of you, and encourage you to do so too!

Shagging is the state dance of South Carolina... yes, our legislature obviously didn't have much on their plates the year it was passed.  Think a variation of the 40's jitterbug, old Motown (affectionately called "Beach Music"), and a couple in bare feet on the beach.  Shagging is so ingrained in our society down here that at my debutante balls, in addition to the Grand March and the waltz, we danced to The Drifters, The Four Tops, The Temptations, and the other old Motown bands.

I, like all other young southerners, was expected to learn how to shag.  My parents are fabulous dancers, and my mother taught me by having me hold onto a door handle as "my partner" when I was around twelve or thirteen.  She also had me hold a pencil between my fingers and a cup of water filled to the rim in one hand because she knew that at some point I would probably have a "drink" and cigarette while I was dancing and she didn't want me to spill either.  (Yes, this is Mimi from previous posts!)  Needless to say, my sister and I are pros, and nary a drop has ever been spilled by either of us!

So now it is my turn to teach my children.  Sumter just started dancing with me just this past month.  And I must say he is pretty good.  So glad he is a willing partner!  Last night, he wanted to try some of the moves he saw the adults dancing.  I wish we had some pictures of us...

But I do have these little gems.  

This is Jackson and his best friend/cousin MS.  

Aren't they precious?

Please excuse the pollen "dots"!

Can you say "Dancing with the Stars"?