Tomorrow is the last day of school. Yea! The week of madness is very nearly over! Neale started working on the lawn tonight. Considering he's never mown a lawn in his life, it's not bad. He wants to get a push mower. Not because he wants to be eco-friendly, but because I refuse to use the gas mower, because I don't like loud machinery (also the reason I don't like skill saws, and will avoid using them whenever possible), and he wants to share the joy of lawn care.

The magnolia is sick. This is really bad, because it's very close to the sunroom, and the place where the power line comes into the house, and the fence. If it dies, removing it will have to be a professional job, and therefore, expensive. I called a tree specialist, a state-certified arborist, according to the Yellow Page listing, who gave us an estimate of $250 to come and apply fertilizer, pesticide, and fungicide over a couple of weeks. Apparently, this will involve climbing up into the tree to apply stuff, which I am happy to pay someone to do. I remember my broken arm, it hurt like a bitch.

I have discovered Shimmy. Fit TV has a bellydance show. It's on at 3 every day, and on Tuesday night. I record it. It's basically little half hour workouts that focus on 4 or 5 different moves. I dig it, because it's not overly complicated, it's not five hundred choreography-specific things. It's pretty much "here's this step" (repeat several times), "now let's put these together," and from there, it's pretty much switching off from one to another, in different orders. It's only been a few days, but it seems to be a better way of working on the things I have trouble with (mostly figuring out what to do next) than the dvd's I have. They're either pre-choreographed, usually so specific that the combos aren't applicable to other situations, or it's so open-ended that I have a hard time getting a sense of how to put things together. Really, I need to get with Trudy about dance lessons. Mom's old teacher is apparently still around, too. That would be cool. But there's the issue of style. I'm highly unlikely to dance for an audience outside the SCA. Egyptian cabaret is not the most appropriate style for the SCA. It's pretty, especially the decorated bra and belt sets and the circle skirts, but there are too many modern influences. I do dig veil work, though. It's pretty. And my idea of what constitutes bellydance is still influenced by watching my mom practice when I was a little girl. No jewel in the navel, though.