The wedding is rapidly approaching and there are a lot of little details to work out before we go, like travel and hotel and schedules and side-trips and finances and all the other little things that go along with big trips.
Yet there are two other concerns that rate far higher than all the rest, at least in my mind. Number one, of course, is the language issue. My new relatives are (generally speaking) from the Eastern part of the county, where for the longest time the Soviet Union held sway and the lingua franca was not English, but Russian.
So it is important that I learn to speak Deutsche. At least a little bit.
The second concern is dancing. I never learned how to dance -- at least, not official ballroom dancing. Sure, I've attempted rock-n-roll, swing-your-hips and move-your-feet, as has everyone with a semblance of rhythmic sense. Yet I cannot waltz or swing or rumba or cha-cha or anything that would be considered proper dancing at a formal occasion.
Well, here is a formal occasion on which some knowledge of the dancing arts is paramount. There will be dancing. And we do not wish to cause embarrassment to our new family.
So it was that Cheryl and I began something we've been talking about for the last twenty-six years: dance lessons! From Arthur Murray!
We started a month or so ago, and it has been a whirlwind of fun and anxiety. We generally have one private lesson each per week, followed by a lesson together; and then we attend group sessions once or twice a week; and then there is a free party every week which helps us to get used to dancing with other people.
The good news is, I haven't killed anyone with my feet. Yet. Only stepped on (quite a few) toes.
The bad news is, I'm still a decided amatuer. Viewing my performance, one is only reminded of a drunken elephant rampaging through the African veldt. It is a miracle that Cheryl hasn't ended up in a body cast while attempting to keep up with my haphazard gait.
We're going to keep practicing right up until the last minute, though, in the (vain) hope that a light will click in my brain and the hidden Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers in all of us (yes, that means you, too!) will leap rhythmically to the forefront and transform the inherent clumsiness of the chair-bound engineer into the graceful moves of the woodland deer. Rather than the current unsteady wobbling of the woodland woodchuck.
And now -- a one and a two and a ... dance!
Yet there are two other concerns that rate far higher than all the rest, at least in my mind. Number one, of course, is the language issue. My new relatives are (generally speaking) from the Eastern part of the county, where for the longest time the Soviet Union held sway and the lingua franca was not English, but Russian.
So it is important that I learn to speak Deutsche. At least a little bit.
The second concern is dancing. I never learned how to dance -- at least, not official ballroom dancing. Sure, I've attempted rock-n-roll, swing-your-hips and move-your-feet, as has everyone with a semblance of rhythmic sense. Yet I cannot waltz or swing or rumba or cha-cha or anything that would be considered proper dancing at a formal occasion.
Well, here is a formal occasion on which some knowledge of the dancing arts is paramount. There will be dancing. And we do not wish to cause embarrassment to our new family.
So it was that Cheryl and I began something we've been talking about for the last twenty-six years: dance lessons! From Arthur Murray!
We started a month or so ago, and it has been a whirlwind of fun and anxiety. We generally have one private lesson each per week, followed by a lesson together; and then we attend group sessions once or twice a week; and then there is a free party every week which helps us to get used to dancing with other people.
The good news is, I haven't killed anyone with my feet. Yet. Only stepped on (quite a few) toes.
The bad news is, I'm still a decided amatuer. Viewing my performance, one is only reminded of a drunken elephant rampaging through the African veldt. It is a miracle that Cheryl hasn't ended up in a body cast while attempting to keep up with my haphazard gait.
We're going to keep practicing right up until the last minute, though, in the (vain) hope that a light will click in my brain and the hidden Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers in all of us (yes, that means you, too!) will leap rhythmically to the forefront and transform the inherent clumsiness of the chair-bound engineer into the graceful moves of the woodland deer. Rather than the current unsteady wobbling of the woodland woodchuck.
And now -- a one and a two and a ... dance!