R really does have an adventurous spirit and game to try most anything. Thank goodness too, otherwise being bossy wouldn’t be as much fun.

A co-worker had mentioned that she attends a contra dance once a month in Fayetteville and suggested I go. Well, it only took a few months to find the time to attend one, but last night R and I finally did.

My face positively hurts today from smiling so much. It was like my Jared Haase smile times a hundred. You remember the smile. It still haunts me.

I was pondering what to tell you to not do if attending a contra dance. Oh, how about wear an all white outfit with no second layering and then sweat like you’re in a sauna. Everytime someone put their hand on my back, I felt them pull away like it’d just been burned.

So while learning the actual dance routine, a conversational routine started to emerge…

• [hand jerks away from my back]
• “I’m so sorry. I never sweat like this. I don’t even have sweat glands.”
• [he smiles apologetically for so obviously showing his repulsion, but then realizes that my sweat caused a one person wet t-shirt contest (which I STILL lost, damn genes) and returns hand to my lower back.]
• “it’s okay, I know I’m disgusting. Please don’t shut me up in an dungeon somewhere a la Buffalo Bill”
• [his eyes widen and then immediately twirls me over to the next victim whether it was time to or not]

And then it just repeats. Embarrasingly so.

I finally figured out how to stop that line of conversation.

And then the tale of the father-son duo.

They. were. awesome.

I first turned to dance with the son (in the photo below) who is half my age and literally half my size. I smiled sweetly at him, thinking that the more mammoth of the two of us would have to lead.

Um no.

He grabbed my hand, took hold of my back and twirled me like he was trying to start a fire on the floor. I have never. I repeat, never been spun so fast in my life. The first time I kind of just stared at the blurry faces going by and when he let go so I could dance to the middle of the circle with the rest of the girls, I literally stumbled over my left foot and skidded to the center.

No one made eye contact with me, which as everyone knows is much more embarrasing than if they had only laughed at me.

The next time I was more prepared and stared at his face the whole time. I noticed that he never quite looked back at me, but instead was watching the rest of the group and I finally realized it was so he knew when to spin me out to the next move. Professional. I was impressed.

Then the dad asked me to dance. Here we fricken go again. It doesn’t look like we were going fast in the above photo, but I was hanging on for dear life. It was so much fun.

Notice the Jared Hasse grin. And sweaty face.

I managed to catch R in action too. He really improved by the end of the night. I think I just might make a dancer out of him after all.

We both agreed that we are going to insist that our sons know how to lead on the dance floor. Shouldn’t that just be a basic skill learned by all men?

After three straight hours of dancing, we were exhausted. As we were putting the chairs away, the duo who were playing (a fiddle and a banjo — loved it), played a nice waltz. I was asked to dance and, really, what better way to end the evening than with a slow waltz.

This is definitely going to happen again… because I’m already coming down off my twirling high.