
I'm sitting by my front window and there are about 300 people across the street learning how to salsa together in Tompkins Square Park. The instructor is guiding them from one step to the next. To see all these people moving in time with the salsa and instructions echoing across the park is beautiful.
It looks like they are moving into the Rumba! Now I want to take lessons.
I'm on my own this weekend. The boys are up in Boston making a pilgrimage to Fenway Park so I'm flying solo.
As my first act of defiance, I woke up at 8:05 (about 11 am non childrearing time). I walked Saki all over the park and hung out with my friend Martin for a while. He is an artist and a surfer.
I did a few chores then took Saki out to check out the...
UKRANIAN FESTIVAL on East 7th Street afew blocks away. My dad is part Ukranian and spent many years as a child living on or near 7th street.
I dropped my thirsty dog home and went to St. Mark's Place to watch the Dance Parade that began somewhere in Chelsea and shimmied down to Tompkins Square Park. That parade did me a world of good. There must have been a zillion different dance troupes, dance schools, dance groups and a few dancing drunks shaking their groove things for blocks and blocks.
What I LOVED best about it was that the people dancing all had different bodies - sure there were the lean and tall legions but they were way outnumbered by the wiggily, jiggily let it all hang out baby brigade. There were disco dancers, followed by South American traditional dancers. There was a group of black women in black unitards and plumed masks on roller skates doing disco moves. At one point I saw a guy in traditional Greek costume hanging out with a woman who was one of the multitude of bellydancers who showed up. It was just insane, sloppy and great.
They all marched into the park where...they danced some more! At the water fountain of the three graces - three women each wrapped long wide red pieces of cloth around the sculpture and then wrapped themselves in it, moving position very slowly while someone played the violin. It was cool!
After parade watching, I got a slice of pizza and went to the gym....you read that right. Then I wen to Trader Joes and came home and plopped myself down. In two hours I'll be going over to the Pearl Theater on St. Mark's to see the Importance of Being Earnest.
It's a good day in New York.