Love that "Mad Hot Ballroom"!

Saw this wonderful film last night and was charmed to bits, even though any recollections of my dance classes in grade school bring on winces galore.

As I say in my standup routine, we NE Wisconsin types are not a sultry people--and this extends to our dancing (if one could really call it that--methinks our attempts at dance evoke "Dawn of the Dead" more than "Dirty Dancing"). Stiffs on parade, that was us!

Well, me, certainly. I still don't have the music in me, and I think the odds are good I never will. Oh well. Another cross to bear. (Pile 'em on! T'is the season, after all.)

The kids in the movie, on the other hand--many had crazy talent! And sweetness. Reading and watching the news these days, one could almost think childhood is a relic of an earlier time, but these kids were kids--and but for a few exceptions (some of the girls had to worry about drunken men in their buildings, for pity's sake), they were allowed to be kids by their families, teachers, and communities.

Add in some great music, inspired teachers, and you have a movie that is, as one teacher put it, "Fantastico." (I think that's how that's spelled--never studied Spanish, sorry.)

On other fronts, I gave someone a ride to chemo this morning, which certainly helps with the perspective part of the day. But please, dear Higher Power, don't let things get to the point where my sole source of comfort is, "I've got my health."

That would be sad, really and truly sad.

On brighter fronts, I wrote a scathing letter to my alumni magazine, On Wisconsin, for they reported that the University of Wisconsin system does not offer domestic partnership benefits to its employees. In fact, it's the only school in the Big Ten that doesn't do so--if that isn't appalling, what is?

What ever happened to "cool, hip" Madison, the liberal stronghold of the largely Republican Midwest??

I was stunned. I was outraged. I ripped the "Bucky" sticker off my car.

And then I wrote the magazine, and felt better. And now I'm going to write a letter to the service manager who made such a botch job of my car.

Oh, and since I apparently was too quiet about this (I was on holiday, after all), my birthday was on June 24th--my debut was in 1959, which is appalling to type, but that's the truth. And I was born late--10:35 p.m.--which explains a lot.

Now, I'm off to heap some righteous indignation on a deserving car dealership--woo!