Belly Dance and Sewage…The Stuff of a Good Life.

Some pretty funny things happened this weekend.  Funny, in a way…after the mess was cleaned up, and too expensive by far.

Sunday night,  we hear some gurgle from the laundry room.  We didn’t think much about it, until water started seeping under the door.

That got our attention.  The toilet was pouring over the new tile work and there were  inches of water all over the laundry room.  I sto0d in horror looking at the bubbling toilet (I have a special horror of the backs of toilets…where the water and other stuff, those trebuchet-looking things are…)  and I wasn’t going near that.

Long story short, we had a collapsed sewer line due to our lovely misplaced plum trees by the driveway.  Roto Rooter brought up tons of roots, and we are forced to put in new water and sewer lines….84 feet from the street tie in.  $10,000.00 worth of work.

Well, we have been lucky…sort of.  This house is 1880’s.  The sewer lines were put in around 1920.  The shelf life of cast iron for this is about 30 years, or so says the plumbers…

Last night they moved in their equipment to the garden.  Oh Jesus!  It’s a backhoe, and some other piece of equipment to cut concrete.  Lovely.   The new sewage line (and water line next to it) is right in the path of fruiting blueberry bushes, of a number of years duration, and 22 tomato bushes…some with flowers.  There are also rose bushes against the high wall of the house:  a Madame Alfred Carriere and a Cecile Brunner…all about 15 years of growth.  The first covers the wall 35 feet up and the second covers the chimney at about 20 feet.  We have no idea what the lurking monsters below will do to them, but we have been removing rock walls and bushes since dawn.

This should be a really interesting day at Clach Mhullinn.  That’s the Gaelic name for our historic house:  “Millstone around the Neck”.

Yes, it is.

Well, that is the sewage part of this entry.  Nice, have you had breakfast yet?

Belly Dance part:

I have been quiet about belly dancing lately, mostly because I haven’t been doing it..and I am paying the price.  My back is going out, and without at least 3 days practice, it does that.  My students have slacked off to for various reasons, and that’s fine, too.  One had a life changing experience (she got married at 60 and moved to another state), one fell out of bed and hurt her hip…and one just was a slacker.

The slacker is a friend but Brenda won’t MOVE!! That is a cardinal sin if you want to be a bellydancer…you have to shake, rattle and roll. Brenda is a good person, kind to dogs, the local wildlife, etc….but she is afraid to MOVE.  I try to go slow…very slow, and she makes a stab at it…but damn, she ends up watching me, and that makes me nervous.

But I have two new students who are, or were, bellydance students so they know what to expect.  Some women put on a coin scarf and shake their fanny and squeal in delight, and then squeal in pain the next day because if you don’t warm up, take it slowly…you gonna be in a bit of pain.

That seems to end the interest of many women early on.  It’s pretty vigorous, and the muscles, your whole damn structure has  to get used to the core movements  before you go all out.  It can take a year to work up to that.

But Hope and Dance Springs Eternal!  Silvi and Robin are more experienced in this stuff and though they haven’t danced in years, the muscle memory will kick in.  Plus they are bringing the wine.  They drink a lot of wine in the evenings or weekends, and I thought: what the hell.  Why not?  We are all adults and perhaps it will cap the gyrations.

But I am glad to get back to bellydance, because a lot of other things had taken up my time and energy.  Like writing, like this blog…..like fighting.  I done give out.

Belly dance is transcendent. It moves you into a headspace that is trance like.  With two good friends, sitting down, passing a bottle of wine around and sweat?

Can’t beat that with a stick.  Less mental, just muscle memory.

A veritable vacation!

Lady Nyo

Tags: Belly dance, friends, muscle memory, Raw Sewage, wine