Gotta dance and other stuff

My daughters' dance recital was this past weekend and, unlike other years, nothing out of the ordinary happened to the Hayden girls. Hooray! No crying on stage, no wandering out into the lights when they weren't supposed to. Again, hooray!

The girls did great on stage. Elspeth loves hip-hop dance and it showed. Alyssa was proud of her tap and ballet -- she was confident and moved with the music. Both made fantastic progress from last year.

A lot of the best dancers were high school seniors, of course. Since they're graduating, we won't see them dance next year. That's a shame. We've enjoyed watching Kara Oakley do ballet -- she's fantastic -- and Wyndham Mead is out of this world in any form you put him.

The recital itself is a small social event of its own. We see folks we haven't seen for a few months and enjoy chatting with them in the friendly atmosphere of Fennville High School. This year, after the event, we went to the Tastee Treat for ice cream with friends and their dancers.

More washer

I wrote in the last blog that the new washer still gave us stress. It did, but we figured it out.

Seems the delivery folks hadn't properly installed the water hook-ups. So, a simple twist of the knob and we finally achieved Whirlpool nirvana.

Parking

Today is the Volksparade for Tulip Time in Holland. Since the newspaper office is smack downtown, I have to go in a couple hours early to get a parking space. The company does not guarantee its employees a spot during the festival.

I've gotten in big trouble with previous publishers about this parking issue. I figure the company ought to make sure that folks who come in later in the day, like me and the other desk workers, should have a saved spot in the company lot. I consider it polite, like saving a spot at the dinner table for someone who you know will be a little late.

I don't see why the staff members who come in at 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. don't park in an adjoining lot at a nearby church. After 11 a.m. , the church starts charging $5 to park, so they can still park for free while saving four spots for the night crew in the company lot. But that would be polite of the day-side folks, and that just doesn't happen because the night shift people are an afterthought and treated as such.

But before I rant on this and get in trouble with another publisher, I'll put it in park.

Thought: Tip toe through the shi. ... I mean, tulips.