Enter Stage Life

The problem with taking dance classes and loving musicals (i.e. "Annie") as a kid was that you just expected people to burst into song and dance in the middle of the street/grocery store/park/school/church/whatever.

And you were sorely disappointed when these things didn't happen ...

I remember distinctly choreographing in my head how, say, a day at the park should play out, and it involved lots of manly, softshoe-shooshing men leaping and twirling their suspendered way over picnic tables and around big trees while girls, wearing appropriately frilly dresses and harmonizing perfectly, would get swept and swished and twirled about. Life, in my imagination, was a beautiful, song- and dance-filled thing that came with pastel-colored dresses and perfectly curled hair. Think "Oklahoma!" here.

Nothing, I have learned, ever goes according to plan, and perhaps I should have been committed by age 10.

No one ever sings or dances in the park, and I have yet to get twirled about a picnic table while wearing a pink dress with the flared skirt and tulle flounce underneath, singing about something that rhymes with "squirrels."

Sadness.

In the meantime, I'm going to go home and sing ♫Food, Glorious Food♫ to my microwave while it heats up something yummy. I may dance with a kitchen chair while I'm at it.