You have the hands of an... archaeologist

Cristie came over for dinner last night, and then we went out swing dancing. Hooray! I wasn't sure I was going to make it, after five long days of field school and not much sleep the night before, but I'm really glad I went. There was a one-hour east coast swing lesson before the dance, and we arrived in time for the second half of it. I got totally discombobulated because they were teaching it "rock-step, triple-step, triple-step" instead of "triple-step, triple-step, rock-step" the way I'm used to dancing. I guess it's a mark of how long it's been since I've been swing dancing (not counting Big Dance, I suppose) that, when faced with this style of teaching I felt like I didn't know how to dance. It was weird. But once the actual dance started it was really fun. There was a live band, which is always nice, despite the fact that the bassline was mic'd way too heavily and their seeming inability to maintain a single rhythm through a tune (they turned the one perfectly good waltz into a swing halfway through, and did funny things to a bunch of other tunes). I guess that doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement, but it was nice to have live music. The people there were really friendly, and there was a good mix of dance abilities and ages -- from 14 to probably 65, and a decent college-age-appearing crowd (though we didn't actually interact with them much). Cristie and I were talking to one guy for a while, and told him we were archaeology students. The next time I danced with him, he commented, "Well, you have the hands of an archaeologist." I protested that I'd cleaned them as best I could (and did a pretty good job, I have to say) and tried to put lotion on to soften them up, but I guess that didn't help much. He said, "No, it's not a.. bad thing. They just feel... different." Hmmmmm. I have a feeling that wasn't exactly a compliment, but I took it as one. :P

Off to the Farmer's Market now. It's a gorgeous day!