#DWtS Week 4

I didn't do a results post for week 3. Margaret went home as I predicted, good enough for me.

Week 4. Am I the only one who felt they were playing very fast and loose with the term "acoustic"?

You know the show was on for 15 minutes before they got to the first judged dance? And 10 minutes between the end of the first dance and the start of the next? They really need to trim this down to at least 90 minutes. With  9 dancers this week, there is (at most) 25 minutes of actual dancing, 18 minutes of behind the scene training footage, and 15 minutes of judges comments. That's 58 minutes of relevant show stuff, 102 minutes of commercials and inane banter  I'm a busy person, I don't have time for this much filler.

Kurt and Anna: It was...nice. And bland. I can't complain, but it didn't stand out either.

Brandy and Maks:  Again, nice and bland. I don't know if the dance, the music, or the dancers, but the first two couple just haven't done anything for me.


Rick and Cheryl: Didn't Cheryl wear this dress or one just like it a season or two ago? I liked the dance well enough, the footwork was good (although Rick was a bit mechanical at times), but I didn't like the last lift. It all really lacked the drama and ferocity that usually goes with the Argentine Tango. I think the floor is messing them up.


Kyle and Lacey: Another very cute skirt! While Len has a point about Kyle being sharp rather than flowy for this dance, wasn't it previous complained that he wasn't sharp enough? I love watching Kyle dance and he did a lot better at this sensual dance than I expected.

Mike and Karina: He needs to stop looking down at their feet! It was weak because they focused on lifts and neglected intricate footwork, and weaker because what little footwork he did was terrible.

I hate it when Carrie-Ann treats the guys like meat. "On behalf of all the women I'd like to welcome The Situation's abs to the show!" Ugh. Imagine if a male judge said that to a female contestant about her breasts or butt.

Florence and Corky:  I liked it! Mrs Brady is a hot cougar mama! I think it was her best week yet.

Jennifer and Derek: Loved their opening bit. It had flair and drama and great movement around the stage without it ever feeling like the stage was too small. I think it was my favorite dance of the night.

Bristol and Mark: I thought it was good but they should have left out the strip show. The judges were hard on her, maybe with good reason and maybe not. This was a really tough dance on a really tough show for her. That she's doing so well technically is impressive. Margaret was chided for dancing too much with her face, Bristol is penalized for not dancing enough with her face.

Audrina and Tony: Some of their footwork looked really awkward and out of sync, but I don't know if that was deliberate or not. Very nicely integrated lifts. It was really good and fun to watch, though Jen and Derek's was still better.

I'm not sure about the bottom two this week. I believe it will be some combination of Mike, Florence, or Bristol. I suspect that it will be Mrs Brady's night to go home, but I hope that it's Mike's time.

Bathrobe Man

Several mornings a week while the children await the school bus, I see a middle aged man (who looks a bit like Wallace Shawn) walking his lady friend to her car, carrying her briefcase and lunch and putting them in the car for her, then giving her a kiss goodbye. It's very sweet and gentlemanly.

Except that he's typically wearing a scandalously short bathrobe. We're talking about Zapp Brannigan short.

This morning it was a relief to see that he had pulled on a pair of trousers to supplement the bathrobe. I hope it's a response to the cooler weather and will continue.

My undergarments and handbag do not help cancer patients

Last year, there was a game on Facebook that had a message circulating urging women to post the colour of their bra. It was touted as raising awareness of breast cancer and said by participants to have been a tremendous success and kept the men guessing for days.

The bra game did not start as anything to do with cancer awareness. It was circulating for at least four days as "Tee hee, let's be coy with the boys and keep them guessing." Someone tacked on the cancer awareness thing later. It made the news, sure, but it did very little for cancer awareness because of the complete lack of information and ideas. It was essentially "Hey, breast cancer exists!" Yeah. No kidding. What good does that do?

Now there is the purse game:

'This year's game has to do with your handbag/purse, and where we put our handbag the moment we get home. For example "I like it on the couch", "I like it on the kitchen counter", "I like it on the dresser", you get the idea. Just put your answer as your status with nothing more than that and cut n paste this message and forward to all your FB female friends to their inbox. The bra game made it to the news. Let's see how powerful we women really are!!!

REMEMBER - DO NOT PUT YOUR ANSWER AS A REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE- PUT IT IN YOUR STATUS! PASS THIS TO ALL THEWOMEN YOU KNOW.'

This is just as silly and ineffective as the bra game.

One of my aunts died after a long and painful battle with breast cancer. Posting about the colour of my undergarments or where I leave my handbag masked in faux sexual innuendo, and pretending it's to help the cause of women like my aunt would be frivolous, disrespectful, and merely make light of that very difficult time.

I don't understand the logic behind being coy and mysterious being an awareness campaign, when these viral campaigns don't even include any links or idea for how to do things that will actually help people. If people want to help and raise awareness, they need to do something real. Donate money, donate time, knit caps for women who have lost their hair after chemo, give a donation of food to Compassion House, share the stories of loved ones who have been touched by cancer, send people information on real, tangible ways that they can help.

Be coyly naughty and mysterious if you must, but please don't cheapen cancer and what families continue to go through by pretending it's for a good cause.

#DwtS Week 3.1

As always, I loved the pros dancing to demonstrate the dances.

Derek & Jennifer's Samba: I love the Samba and I think they did a well enough job. However, I did not like that their story was a teacher seducing a schoolboy. Maybe it's because I have kids now, maybe it's because I'm acquainted with someone who went to prison last spring for seducing one of his teenage students. It's just not a fun or appropriate subject matter.

Florence & Corky's Waltz: What an unexpected song. Not Florence's best week for me. Her footwork was fine, but she looked stiff and uncomfortable when holding her frame rather than easy and graceful.

Also, I just noticed that Tom Bergeron does a slow clap after every dance. I now imagine him clapping sarcastically to everyone and it amuses me.

Kurt & Anna's Foxtrot: Very nice. I liked the nods to Gene Kelly.

Margaret and Louie's Samba: Rehearsing in Edmonton! Her parents looked so happy and proud. Not her best dance, though. Her feet got really clompy partway through. It may be a mistake for her to try to stop dancing with her face; she's very expressive but I think concentrating so hard on what she's doing with her face is taking away from focusing on what she needs the rest of her to do.

Audrina and Tony's Waltz: The waltz is not my favorite to watch, but they did a really lovely job.

I love the glimpses of Bruno at the judges' table, conducing with his pencil, standing up to intently watch the footwork, tapping his hand on the table.

Bristol and Mark's Foxtrot: I really liked the dance. It was elegant with some modern flair. But where was the story? The homeless guy start didn't relate to the song at all and they totally lost the story once the hobo coat and tuque were discarded. Dance win, story fail.

Brandy and Maks's Samba: I really liked the dance and Brandy really improved from last week, but I wasn't feeling the story. I didn't get until the end that Maks was her bodyguard. I spent the whole dance wondering if he was a cop or a mobster. He did look awfully tasty, though! I'm with Len, I didn't get it.

Kyle and Lacey's Waltz: I thought this might not be a good dance for Kyle because we've really only seen him do the fun, lively, peppy dances so far. He was so much more elegant than I expected. Great chemistry between them. Also, Lacey's trousers were deeply unflattering to her backside.

Mike and Karina's Foxtrot: He's so stiff in the arms. Len once gave a contestant the advice to stop thinking about the arms, and just think about were the hands need to be and let the arms follow. Mike should try that. He's trying and his feet have improved, so good for him, but he's definitely the weakest contestant.

Rick and Cheryl's Samba: Very nice, but Rick just doesn't stand out so much for me. I'm not sure why. Like Audrina, the dancing is good but there's not a lot of personality.

Bottom two prediction: Margaret and Mike, and Margaret will go home. Although, I can see Florence at the bottom of the list this time. Tough call this week.

Fetching

The previously mentioned wristwarmers were not working out. So now I'm making these fingerless mittens which I'm finding an easier. I've not yet gotten to the thumb hole yet, however. I'm very apprehensive about the thumbs.

On February 16, 2009, I broke my left pinky toe very badly. It was at a full right angle from where it ought to have been. It was X-rayed, set, cast, and subsequently healed as well as it could. It aches when it (the toe itself) is cold and when it's cool and humid out. Recently, I've started having a some pain at the base of the middle toes and the ball of my foot. Whenever that flares up, the knee which had a minor injury 16 years ago also starts giving me problems.

When going through the orientation process with my personal trainer at the gym, she referred me to a nearby clinic for a biomechanical foot scan. I just had that done and it confirmed that my left foot is getting pretty effed up. Both feet have low arches, so I already wasn't distributing my weight very well when I walked. The way in which I changed my gait after breaking my toe has had me distributing my weight on the left in ways that feet were not meant to handle, putting me at risk of a stress fracture. I now await some expensive (but hopefully to be reimbursed by our health insurance) custom orthotic insoles to prevent worse things from happening.

Then I walked 2.5km home.

Unto the breech

Today is my first real visit to the gym. I am apprehensive. I worked out a general plan with my personal trainer, Kelsey, to do about 1/3 light cardio and 2/3 weights. Today we'll start narrowing down which specific types of each category will work well for me. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hate every second of weights, but I may enjoy cardio. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm going to sign up for another 12 sessions.

Afterwards I'm going for a biomechanical foot scan to figure out what's wrong with my left foot and if fixing it will help my knee. I probably should have done that before the gym.