Nom de Plume

So it’s been about a year since I started bellydancing classes, and I’m more in love with it than ever. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been bad about getting to class, but good about practicing–and as part of that, I dug up the DVDs I bought last summer. And the whole purpose of this post is to tell you that if you’re in the market for bellydance DVDs, stay away from Veena and Neena.

You may have heard about these people. Dubbed the “belly twins,” they are undeniably thin and gorgeous. But I think they’re automatons; they have no soul; they’re like little bellydancing robots. Actually, I remember doing this a couple of times last summer and being bored out of my skull. Like they’ll do snake arms on one side for 30 full seconds. Then the other. Then both. Yawn.

But when I dug it out again and did it, I realized something. I’ve had this rotary cuff thing going on for a few months, and blamed it on my obsessive two miles a day in the pool habit of my twenties. NOW I realize that it has nothing to do with a repetitive crawl, and more to do with the fact that I’d been doing the shoulder shimmies and snake arms they way they did. Which they do with a snapping movement that’s almost violent. (I finally broke free of this habit not so long ago–basically letting the shoulder blade do the pulling rather than the shoulder itself–and lo and behold, no more pain.)

In other words, they have no soul AND they’ll damage your body. So what’s left? Not much. I would give this DVD away, but you know, I really think they’re a hazard.

I believe the rest of the song goes, “Right back where we started from.” And really, that’s quite appropriate because way back when we first started talking countertops lo these many years ago, I was really pushing concrete. I like it. I don’t like granite. Most of it is way too shiny and busy, and my own theory is that in about five years people will scoff, “Oh that’s SO oughties.” (Or rather it would if that tripped off the tongue the way 70s or 80s does.)

Speaking of scoffing, that’s EXACTLY what Steve did. To be fair, it wasn’t so much about the material as much as it was about the sheer cost. The material itself is cheap, but it’s incredibly labor-intensive. So we told ourselves it would be slate. ‘Cause really, slate looks kinda like concrete. And after two years or so of discussion, we still have the plywood substrate as our surface. Lovely, really.

Anyway, now that Steve is out of work, he has time. Two weeks ago, he looked at me with that maniacal gleam I know so well–the one that presages a new obsession. “You know what?” he said “I think we’re going to do concrete countertops.”

Like this was an original idea.

So we got books from the library, and now he’s practicing.

He doesn’t want to start with the countertops, so he’s building a side table for the Kamado:

Here’s a cardboard cutout of the shape, complete with holes for grilling implements (and yes, the base is the stump):

And here’s the mold:

Let the adventures in concrete begin …