Finally a break in the weather in which the sun came back out and the rain, for the most part, went away for awhile. I was up pretty late this morning, I think because sleep for me last night was hard to come by. My allergies were really kicking up and it was long after midnight before sleep finally came.
    But once up it was full steam ahead for me. First on the agenda was lunch in north Denver with a couple of my friends, Maggie and Paul. Really good to see them both again, and they are doing pretty well though Paul is moving pretty slow still after having had a hip replacement several months ago. We went over to a local restaurant in their neighborhood, La Luna. Run by a family of three, it is some of the best Mexican food in the Denver area and very reasonably priced also. We talked for more than an hour there at the restaurant as well as some more once we got back to their house.
    Once done there I was off running errands, I needed to pick up another pack of cough drops first off as I seem to be consuming them like candy at the moment. They help control the cough that results from my allergies, but they also tend to upset my stomach a little bit with all the saliva and menthol that gets swallowed.
    From there I was off to a local RV store to look for a couple vent lids to replace the ones that were beat up in a hail storm a couple of weeks ago. Plenty of vent lids, but none of the 'unbreakable' ones in the style my trailer needs. Still plenty of other RV places to check in the next few days or weeks, so I will find them somewhere, at some point.
    That was it for errands for the day so I headed over to a local Micky D's and read a couple magazines while drinking an iced drink. I needed to meet up with George and Tom at the movie theatre a little bit before 5:00 p.m. as we were going to see another movie tonight since so many of them have come out in the last couple of weeks. On today's agenda was the movie 'Hercules' starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in the lead role. Overall it was a much better movie than I actually expected. Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of gratuitous violence, but it did actually have a pretty decent plot. Lots of action, a little humor even a little sexual tension. Not an Oscar winner, but it will make a ton of money over time and it was kinda fun to watch.
   We all went across the street afterwards to the local Red Robin restaurant there. Still fun to walk in and find half the wait staff know who we are and all say hello. Emily met us at the table with our drinks and only had to make sure that I wanted the same thing as usual before putting in our order for food.
   A fun time talking with my friends and eating and drinking, but I needed to finish up a little earlier than usual as I was headed for Washington Park to see if there was any folk dancing going on outside in front of the north lake boathouse. A fellow by the name of Sukar (Sugar) Bassano showed up there one Thursday night 44 years ago. With a few old records and a table to put his record player on, he has been showing up there every since. I was lucky to be there the first night he and 7 other people showed up and started dancing. I'm still not sure how he managed to get me, a 13 year old boy, to come out and dance with them. But I did, and that was pretty much the start of my dancing life. Even though it has shifted somewhat over the years, going from just folk dancing to pretty much just contra, it is still really fun to show up at least  once a year and see some of my old friends there.
   Tonight Sugar was there of course, though he pretty much acts as an ambassador of dance rather than planning the dance list or teaching a dance or two. Also there was his wife Bettina and one of their daughters, Nora. I use to pick her up when she was about 5 and waltz with her around the floor. She's now in her 40's and has a husband and a 10 year old son. There are also a couple of other old timers there tonight. Russ and Sharon were both there that first night also and they still show up every summer too. And then there are all of the others, some that I know, some that I just recognize, and always, some that are completely new to me.
    I only danced about an hour and a half, but that was enough to remind me that it would be better if I danced some of these dances more than once or twice a year. And yet there are still a few old nuggets that they still dance to that, if I just stop thinking about it, my feet will automatically still find the steps to. At the end of every dance evening there is one dance that they always do that brings everyone together into one big circle as we all hold hands and close into a tighter and tighter circle with each other. I usually don't really go in for that kind of thing because it often seems a bit forced, but it's fun with this group because you actually feel like everyone is glad they and you are there sharing the evening.




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