The reprieve…

Big day at work today. At a 2:00 team meeting, the “slip” of the release of our product was announced. Instead of having to have everything done by this Friday, 11/22, we have until Friday, 12/13. Everyone was quite relieved, giddy in a way. This product was never going to be ready by this Friday anyway, so it was a good business move. The quality would have been awful.

And the good news is that everyone who is here (traveling) on business, is going home on Friday and Saturday as planned. That took tremendous pressure off me, because the UNIX installation guide would have been ready by Friday, but it never would have had time to have proper reviews done on it.

More good news that I received today is that Robert has managed to get Sunday off! Yippee! I can’t wait to see his beautiful smile and be with him again! MMMMMMMMM!

To “celebrate the reprieve,” I decided to head up to N. Hollywood to dance! (Up until the announcement, I had planned to work until 10 or 11 at night.) I told Casey I was heading up to Oil Can Harry’s to dance, and he was welcome to join me. They have lessons tonight, from 7:30 – 9:15, and then open dancing until 12:30am. He said, “I’ll let you know by the end of the day.”

He decided to get another night’s use out of his boots he had FEDexed out here last Friday. 🙂 We stopped at Arby’s on the way out of Irvine. I tried to reach Robert again, as I had tried a couple of times (both his land line and his cell phone) from the hotel and had had no luck. When we came out of Arby’s there was a message from him that made me smile and warm. He was in great spirits, and that’s when I found out he’d gotten this Sunday off.

On the way, “What a Beautiful Mess” came on the radio and Casey and I sang along. I was thinking of Robert that whole song. We arrived at OCH’s just after 8:00, and they were in the middle of learning the “Shadow Dance” (the way the do it here, which is different from the way Casey and I do it).

When the lessons were over, they played a shadow dance song for them to do, and Casey and I danced it together “our way.” It’s such fun dancing with him. We did a waltz that was just wonderful, too. I thought of my time, dancing with my (then) wife, to the waltz in Vienna. We had several other fun two-step dances, and the Barn Dance, which I always love. You switch partners in that one and get to dance with all the men in the house dancing the opposite part to yours. Lots of fun.

Also, at one point, one of the guys put on the headset microphone and lead the most fun, sort of like a “Virginia reel” kind of dance. You found a partner, designated a lead and a follow, and he gave “commands” to the leads, like turn around and swing the person behind you. Leads stay put, follows rotate around the group, join back up, turn under with your partner and go through everyone’s arms which were up in an arch, pair up with other couples, etc. It was a fun time, like being at a big old fat Greek wedding. I did several line dances,too, and requested Backstreet Attitude before I left.

Casey drove back. We stopped at the 7-Eleven for drinks, watched something that looked like hookers pimping in the SUV parked to the left of us. Actually, I watched this while Casey ran in. I was totally wiped out when we got back. Just a ton of fun night!

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