Twas a somewhat busy weekend, though it was the kind of busy that helped me temporarily put aside some weekday stressors for at least a little while. Hopefully I’ll be able to kick them forward at least a couple of steps (if not resolve them) in the next couple of days, to make room for the inevitable next source of weekday stress. Yeah, that’s the way I’m looking it at it these days; I’m not at all happy about it, but it’s the way it is, at least for the near term.

The weekend was kind of neat, though. Much of it had to do with dance…you see, this weekend was dance recital weekend for the girls, so there was lots of running about to get hair and makeup and costumes together and photographed and dress rehearsaled and whatnot. They all did well, and put on a good show (even if I dropped the ball somewhat). We spent Friday evening throwing cheesy classic 80s dance movies at the girl children, because Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose” was involved in the recital, and it felt wrong not to have them experience it in it’s original context. So many montages, and (as my teenager pointed out) more than a little bit of gay subtext, and a nicely nuanced performance by John Lithgow, which I totally didn’t remember being as good as it was (I’d bet they couldn’t get away with doing the character that way today – I haven’t seen the recent remake). We threw in Dirty Dancing for good measure, because why not – she liked that one too, though was a bit baffled by our stories of how it was a cultural teenage touchstone for people who are now in their forties. Things I noticed? I forgot how political it all was (and not in a bad way – again, I don’t think they could get away with the back-alley abortion storyline the same way today), and realized exactly how many times overtly-80s saxophone solos disrupt the flow of otherwise proper period music for a story set in 1963.

We also retrieved the boy from a week away at scout camp, packing a bunch of dirty laundry, weaving and woodworking crafts, and a pile of camp stories that felt a lot like my old ones. He seemed to have had a good time, which is what you want from these things…I’m hoping the right parts of scouting are starting to stick with the kid; in a lot of ways, Scouting was one of the best parts of my teenage years; I’d love for him to have a bit of that himself (which seems possible, despite the changes in the program since I was a kid).

otherwise, I played a little bit of music on Sunday (with the semi-regular instrumental string ensemble), made a pretty decent mexican macaroni and cheese casserole, and hooked my teenage daughter on Orphan Black, in between naps and some time logged on Marvel Heroes.

Of course, now the new week starts, and I have to deal with those old stressors again, at least for a couple of days, because I’m padding out my Independence Day weekend with a few extra days off, for no reason at all other than the fact that I deserve to sleep in now and then.

wish me luck.