Choreographer's Cuisine

My solo at the beginning of Flesh and Spokes Show time!!!!  Our call to the theater on Saturday was for 3:00.We made this call in plenty of time and were able to relax a bit before I was needed. After my rehearsal and notes it was snack time followed by make up and costumes. At rehearsal the previous day, it hadn't taken me long to adapt to the stage, but the wings were a problem for me. Every theater has different wings but in all the eight years I've been dancing professionally I have never seen wings like these. They were shallow and wide. The booms for the lights were in each wing making it cramped and scary (each boom held 2 or 3 lights and each light got very, very hot. Not to mention the lights are very expensive.) The set up was such that turning around in the  wing and remaining hidden would be impossible. This meant that for each of my 3 exits, I would have to go off backwards. One of the things we're taught as a dancer is to never look over your shoulder ...

They gave us Saturday morning off and my friend and I decided to go get breakfast at the grocery store. We were able to find the store no problem, but the problem was how to get in with a chair? There was an elevator off to the side, so we walked towards it. But instead of ending up in the store where we wanted to be we ended up in what looked to us to be the janitor's rooms. This carried on or a couple minutes until we found ourselves on the main level of the mall again. We asked a young man who was nearby how to get to the grocery store. He pointed us in the direction of a second elevator that took us right down to the store. Once we had what we wanted we decided to  eat out at the harbour. After breakfast we took a nice relaxing walk. Paws Way???? This was so fun!!! There were five or six of these along the side of a building. This one was my favourite. This was Paws Way

In Toronto during the PanAm Games  It was hard to believe as I stepped off the train with my boss on Friday July 17, that I would spend the weekend in Toronto. Even more unbelievable was the fact that this was my first trip without a family member. Far from feeling nervous or small as I sometime feel when I'm in a new place, I was excited. Yes I was there to "work,"  but my job is my passion so it doesn't feel like work. And besides, in just few moments, as soon as we got inside and through these crowds, I would be reunited with a friend whom I hadn't seen in over a year.  After the three of us found our way to the main door leading out onto the street, my boss, who had been my travel support and companion on the train, left us. My friend,  knowing in the way good friends do, that I'd need something to eat upon arrival had texted me an hour or so earlier and had gone out and bought me a steak panini After we split the panini, I had had something to drink...

"You are good, and what You do is good..." Psalm 119:68a A couple weeks ago we made another very exciting discovery regarding my Dyslexia. It began on a Monday morning at physio. My physiotherapist has been intrigued by all the previous developments since the program and we've started using some of the tools in our sessions. On this particular day an idea struck her. "Monica, do you know where your legs are?" Do I know where my legs are? The question sounded strange. But I thought for a minute. I knew I had legs but when I'm unable to see them I realized I didn't really know where they were or what the were doing. When I got home I relayed this new-found information to my mother who got really thoughtful. The next morning, she decided to ask me to orient while standing. After a couple of minutes of trying, I couldn't get oriented. When we tried again a few hours later, it took a full minute, but then I straightened up, stood away from th...