Pumped

Some would say it is necessary to be humble in victory.

I think those are the same people who never win.

Early last week my dance partner and I decided to enter a competition. We had to choose a song, choreograph some sort of routine to it and commit it to memory before what is now last night. I think we put in less than 8 hours work total.

We are far from pro's at this and certainly have never worked on a showcase type performance before. Our opposition started preparing two months ago.

A final rehearsal this afternoon before the event had the butterflies in a frenzy as we crashed run through after run through. Forgetting moves, muffing the exits of others and basically feeling like we had made a very bad mistake entering. We were so fucked.

Our shared dinner was pushed around the plate and mostly left untouched, much to the amusement of friends who were trying to reassure us we would do fine.

They had not seen what we were going to do.

Our turn to perform came around too soon. The lights felt like a solarium but floor was clear and ours to play on.

We were off and on auto pilot. Two moves in and a weight came off my shoulders. We could do this. We own this floor.

And we did.

We won.

It is now 2:30 am and that was nearly five hours ago. I am still pumped.

My dance partner is curled up in bed with her boyfriend and just messaged me.

"Hey Champ. Hot like wasabi baby! Thanks, you rock!!!"

Can't wipe the smile of my dial right now.

Random thought

Watching the Olympics the other day I was struck with curiosity about the medals being issued at the 2008 games.

There is obviously a lot of importance attached to these items.

On one had you have the recipients who have spent the best part of their life working towards the achievement, and on the other is the host nation who attempt to make a design that captures the event and the flavour of their nation.

I wondered that as China moves into a position of global power if they had enough self awareness to make sure that the medals carried those words that the western world have embraced with open arms.

"Made in China"

Short but sweet

The Christian has been fed to the lions so we are back to our regular programming.

It was my first break up via email which was right on par for her PDA scripted life. The weekend had gone swimmingly with dancing, dining and sexin without the sexin. If you know what I mean..

The wheels however started to fall of on Sunday morning right about the time she needed to be congregating.

The plan had been for her early departure to attend her church. This was obviously going to mess with my Sunday morning worship at the love cave but there are some sacrifices that need to be made right?

It was however going to give me a perfectly timed leave pass to go kite surfing. After all, it was blowing a freaking gale and despite the Arctic chill in the air it had been weeks since my last blast on the water.

The plans changed. It seemed that she had swapped a morning at church for some prerecorded sermons that she could listen to.

Now I am about as tolerant as they come but there are a few things that tick me off.

1) Changing the radio station in my car without invitation when you are a passenger.
2) Re-activating the Christian TV channel on my HD receiver
3) Talking about God as if he is in the room when I can clearly see that there is only the two of us here.
4) Any form of hypocrisy regarding your belief system.
5) Smelly people who can't dance.

This lady smelt nice and she is a great dancer so you can guess which 4 of the 5 she hit out on in our short time together.

With the sun starting to stream into the house and the rumble of motorbikes going for their Sunday morning sprint she announced she was getting up to listen to her sermons.

I thought about sorting myself out briefly but then figured that after her fill of God she may be feeling turned on so I would steady my hand for now. With that thought I rolled over and went straight back to sleep.

After another hour of sleep I awoke to hear the house filled with fire and brimstone. Some dude had written on the walls of Babylon and then someone else suggested it was the hand of God rather than some kids with too much time and paint on their hands.

I chuckled and thought of Monty Pythons "Life of Brian" then proceeded to put a pillow over my head to muffle my laughter and filter out the silliness coming out of my home theater system.

Emerging from the bedroom it quickly became apparent that my neighbors could probably hear the sermon too. Not very cool.

After politely declining the offer to join her on the couch to listen in, I suggested a lower volume might be more appropriate or maybe this really nice pair of Senheizer headphones even more so....

In knocking back the headphones there was only one other option to clear my head - fresh ground coffee. The buzz of the grinder gave me a full 30 seconds of aural insulation from His words coming out of my speakers. A moment later I made a second cup for no other reason than to use the grinder again.

Eventually she almost got the point but swapped the sermon from the mount for some good wholesome Christian radio instead. It was about now that I lost it.

Wishing to avoid a confrontation, I loaded my car with kite surfing gear and suggested that the party was over and it was time for me to pay homage to Poseidon and the Anemoi gods with a new and hip twist care of Mr Cabrinha.

We hooked up again later that afternoon for a bit of a dance and dinner but things were getting a little awkward. My lack of faith, or rather my adoration of false idols was obviously rubbing the wrong way a little.

Monday night and the email arrived with a cheery beep. There was more talk of the list, the need for children to be presented with a consistent view of the world from their parents and that she was sure that He would find her the right man.

The insinuation was of course that I was not that man.

Finally something we saw eye to eye on.

I replied in the affirmative that backing off was a great idea.

An interesting post script to all this is that we are both booked into a weekend of dancing in a few weeks time where we were to share a room. On further discussion as to how this was going to work she replied that the idea of a naughty weekend sounded like a lot of fun so we should not change any plans.

Brilliant, I suppose I can abide breaking of rule number 4 after all.