Ack! It's February already! How did that happen? Heck, it's still hard to believe that it's 2003! Shows how much I've been paying attention.

Renegade Rose had a great practice on Thursday. We had twelve dancers (!), several musicians, and lots of enthusiasm. I do enjoy teaching beginners a dance, but I'm hoping to soon graduate from the stage of having to go back to teaching the basics every week because new people show up. We're beginning to have kit (or "costume" for the uninitiated) discussions, and of course nobody can agree on what we should wear. Some of us did a spontaneous dance-out at the Farmer's Market last fall, where we wore bright baggy "harem" pants, black shirts, and arm-bands. That was fun, but nobody actually wants that for real kit, so we have to think of something else. I personally don't see a problem with harem pants, as long as you wear bells to keep from tripping over them when you dance -- they're nice and cool. :) Actually, the idea for that kit came from what I just wore to practice one evening! But that's another story. Renegade Rose is scheduled to dance at the Seattle Folklife Festival over the Memorial Day weekend, so we need to come to a kit consensus and hammer out a few dances before then. :)

Hugo and I went for a run this morning. Ugh. It wasn't a very long run, and we didn't go very fast at all, but still -- Ugh. I haven't been running in waaaaaaaaaay too long. Hugo wrapped my knee up in an ace bandage before we started (as a preventative measure -- I've been having some issues with my right knee for a few months). As he was wrapping it I was asking, "Are you sure it's supposed to be that tight?" He said, "Yeah, you're supposed to support the kneecap." It felt pretty tight, but I figured I just wasn't used to it. By the time we got to the end of the block, though, I had to stop and re-wrap it because it was cutting off the circulation in my leg. I was laughing, saying, "This thing is making me limp! I thought it was supposed to stop me from limping!" At which point Hugo remembered that you really don't have to wrap those things very tightly for them to work properly. :} We re-wrapped the knee, and the rest of the run was better, though he hit his stride right about the time I hit my "I can't go any further" point. Sigh. I need to do that more often.

We've finally had some rain up here. For a couple days straight, actually. It's good, because it's been a really dry winter up here, but it makes things rather muddy when it all decides to come down at once. :P And I discovered yesterday that my umbrella is pretty much useless. It's very wimpy, so if there's any wind at all, it will use that as an excuse to turn itself inside-out at every opportunity. If it hasn't done that for a while, it decides to shut itself up the proper way -- on my head, of course. Sigh.

I should probably attempt to do some schoolwork, especially if I want to go to the contra dance tonight. I just remembered this morning that I have a Diff. Eq. exam on Monday, so I should probably study for that as well. Oh, the joys of school. :}