Monday, February 10, 2014

February 2014 -- Country Line Dancing

Dilettante Amy taking the line dancing pret-ty seriously. Note mechanical
bull in background. And freakishly good dancer in front of her. 
Dilettante Kathleen's "authentic" western belt buckle.
By Betsey Johnson.
Fast Eddie's
14114 Lee Highway
Centreville, VA  20120
www.fasteddies.com
Thursday, February 27, 2014
7:30-9:30pm
Cost: Free

Interestingly, we all arrived separately and had the identical experience entering Fast Eddie's -- and that is being enthusiastically greeted by a friendly gentleman who looked at us expectantly as though he wanted identification or a cover charge. Independently, each of us had a few awkward moments of silence until we asked him if he worked there and he replied, "no" and led us into the establishment.

(You'll notice that Dilettante Amanda has changed. Actually, she is currently in Kenya working on a geothermal consulting project. Ergo, we put out the Dilettante invitation to others and our friend, Carrie, was able to join. You may be seeing some other faces at Dilettante activities this year...keeping it interesting, we are...)

At first, we were not sure the line dancing lessons, advertised to begin at 7:30, were actually happening. So we had a drink and visited and took in the atmosphere: a huge dance floor, a mechanical bull and a pretty diverse crowd of people. And then, a little after 8:00pm, the line dancing instructor called people to the floor and began the lesson.

The first dance we learned was one that she began teaching last week -- to Pitbull and Ke$ha's "Timber" -- and it was pretty complicated and we were already a week behind most of the people there, so it was pretty challenging to pick it up. The good news is that after we began with this dance, the second one we learned seemed a lot easier.

Gettin' into it. Yee-haw!
In between the dance lessons, they played music and the regulars got out on the floor and did a bunch of dances they already knew. Including one guy who was wearing jazz shoes and seemed to know every line dance in the universe. Showoff.

We all agreed we would do this again -- it was a lot of fun. And because of this new found love for country line dancing and a recent trip to Austin where everyone wore them, Dilettante Kathleen is now in the market for the perfect pair of cowboy boots.

Wonder if Betsey Johnson makes those?

January 2014 Activity -- Terrarium Making

Terrarium Making (with wine)    
Living Social Building
918 F Street Washington, DC
Cost:

After spending 90 minutes with Kelly Rand, I'm not sure whether the focus of this class was instruction on how to create a terrarium or seeing how many times one could say "moist soil" before driving the entire class to a sanitarium.

For this Dilettante activity, Dilettante Kathleen invited neighbors Bonnie and Lisa (you may remember Lisa from her earlier work in Dilettante Gargoyle tour) to join her.

Living Social recently announced that it will no longer be holding activities in this building after April 2014.

Moist succulents

Kathleen's Terrarium

Lisa's Terrarium

Bonnie's Terrarium

Supplies