Off to Adventure

I, like the illustrious Carmen Sandiego, am off to exotic parts of the earth. Or how about hot and dusty with irregular electricity? Anyhoo, next time you hear from me I could be anywhere. I promise a full, detailed report when I get safely home.

Dance Shows are officially over!

Well, Carmen Sandiego was officially caught....twice. But the slippery scoundrel got away on us. Alas, she is still on the loose to steal major artifacts and national treasures. However, the Rockettes are safe and sound in their home at Radio City Music Hall.

This morning I awoke to cool temps again. We are still running the heat at least at night. And it is cloudy, but it is a beautiful day to me. The shows are awesome. The kids were great. The dancing has gotten more and more complex and while I don't want to brag.......OK I will. We rock! Now more than ever. We are up to 60+ performers between the two programs.

So how many costumes you ask? Well , 60 x an average of 5 costumes per girl. Many were in closer to 8 or 9 . Most costumes had at least 3 pieces. That put us at a minimum of 900 pieces for this show. Yes, it was a ton of work and it took me plus 6 helpers to get the job done. Now our ever growing costume closet is in very nice shape so while there will always be work and stress during a show, the costume part is now done being overwhelming. Hopefully!
It needs to be because it is time for me to concentrate on publicity and other things that help make a production great.

What do I plan to do with my first day off in 2 months? We are going out to breakfast with the Grandma's for belated Mother's day and then I am coming home to cut the grass!!! Yes, even us important celebrity types have to cut our grass.

More on the Large Wild Critters

"Cyndy, your last post may have been a little out there" you say. Well, guess what??!! Battle Creek, which is also very southern Michigan and rather close to lots of people and some suburbia, just reported catching a bear and Chicago just found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to shoot a big cougar because it had taken up residence in the streets of the city where cats, dogs squirrels, coons and possums live in large quantities.
I say "pssssssshhhhh" on all you doubters. The wild life that was so eradicated by the early 20th century is back.

Cougar, Puma, Panther, Mountain lion in Michigan?

Hi folks,
Well I have just had my reality shaken pretty good. What got me started on this is 2 things:
1. There is an absence of the usual pesky mammal population around our house this spring-skunks, possums, coons.
2. There was a rumor years ago of a large cat roaming about 15 miles from our house.
So in trying to figure out where our nuisance wildlife is I happened upon a couple of tracking sites for the big cat. My eyes were opened pretty wide upon reading these sites and the testimonials of the contributers. While Lapeer County is not a hot spot, Genessee and Oakland are. I won't get into the DNR's refusal to admit they exist in Michigan. The reasons seem very logical given our current quagmire called the federal government, BUT since most Michiganders aren't used to dealing with anything worse than a pesky coon when out in nature, I think it only prudent that we as the citizenry be informed that yes, indeed, we might actually happen upon a big cat while out and about and if we think we did see one sometime but shook our head and said no, chances are we did see one. It would seem our big cat population is pretty healthy and growing. Growing enough that there have been 2 killed on the highway in the last couple of years.

By the way, Mountain lion, puma, black panther and cougar are all referring to the same animal. There have been many sightings of black cougars around Michigan. That is where the word panther comes in. No, our cats would not be the same as the ones from south of the border, but many of our big cat sightings appear to be black cats.

As if this isn't enough, a dance parent came in last night with late breaking news. It seems a mother bear and cubs were spotted near the grocery store in town. Now the thumb of Michigan is not known for huge mammals because of all the farm land, but who knows? The store is just a short hop and skip from a rather wild muck field area that is still pretty untouched by people, full of deer and has a couple of huge berry farms. I assume this sighting was seen from a long distance. So while it was obviously a large animal family, it could also have been big cats.
One way or another our little farm community has some large furry neighbors and they aren't deer.