Dan arrived late last night at 2 AM. Traffic in Ohio had slowed his arrival. That and trouble with the front door, which forced him to instead use the backdoor, did not help either. This forced him to noisily barge into the kitchen and then have to negotiate Declan’s highchair, which was blocking that doorway, but he made it. Declan slept better last night, but he was up all the earlier this morning.
I went back into the archives to 2011 and dug up this “new” photo of the dance troupe Bandaloop. They performed their rappelling act down the face of the Continental Building. This picture shows the group’s finale with six performers coming down at the same time. New software let me to rehabilitate this shot.
We saw the Dance Saint Louis’s performance last night. Normally, just Anne and Joanie have season tickets, but Dance STL offered up extra seats as part of a season finale, so Vicki and I got to attend too. The dance troupe was Body Traffic, a seven person LA group. The show was preceded by dinner at Winslow’s Table. Most of their performance were forgettable, except for their final number. Set to the sound of Dean Martin singing That’s Amore, three male dancers strutted their stuff wearing nothing but dance belts (Google it).
Dancing in only half light, these amazingly well muscled men were a sight to behold, and their physique could not be more different than my own. So, it should be no surprise when I got called out on Friday for showing too much skin during Gyro. In our Gyro class, we are expected bend, stretch and gyrate, all without showing any butt crack. Apparently one of the delicate ladies and they are all women at Gyro took exception to my southern exposure. Subsequently, Anne dug out of the closet a t-shirt that she had gotten me for just such an eventuality, or I could go a whole other way and don my own dance belt.
When my moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that’s amore…
Sometimes, I wake up crabby. Sometimes, I let her sleep. Today’s launch hour wasn’t as early as yesterdays was, but still there was some grumbling. Even a seafood avocado toast breakfast did little to mollify her. Anyway, we got out-the-door on time and made it to Tower Grove Park by nine. I was trying to get going early enough to beat the heat, but more importantly also beat the crowds. Today, in addition to hosting the usual Saturday farmer’s market, the park was also hosting the Festival of Nations. This annual event was on again this year after a two-year hiatus. To make matters worse, the adjoining Missouri Botanical Gardens was hosting their official grand opening of the new visitor’s center, with free admission. Parking was going to be a bear.
Laotian Parrot Puppets
It is always hot the weekend of this festival. The festival’s combination of heat, humidity and humanity makes for a terrible triumvirate to overcome, but this festival brings with it a trio of attractions with which to do this with—song and dance, arts and crafts, and food, lots and lots of different foods. This festival doubles as a fundraiser for almost every ethnic charity in town. We arrived at the park an hour before the festival was scheduled to open and already parking was becoming a problem. Usually, we bicycle to this event, making parking irrelevant, but not this year. I guess we are getting old. We shopped the farmer’s market, where I snagged a new t-shirt. After that, it was time to hit the festival. Most of the food booths were still getting started, so we listened to a little music and then hit the arts and crafts booths. When we finally got around to looking for food, most of the booths were already mobbed, but we were still able to find good stuff to eat. After our feeding, we decided that it was time to bail and headed back towards the car, completing our regular circumnavigation of the park. I got the car turned around, but traffic was stop-and-go, all the way home.
