As I’m (hopefully) winding down this bout with COVID, I’m excited to start my second season as a dad and dancer this month. My youngest son, Atticus, has danced professionally for a number of years, and one of the opportunities his dance company offers to students and their families is called Dads and Dancers (I like to refer to it as DnD). Basically the students and their dads (or another family member) practice up a dance piece every week over the winter months and then perform it a few times during competition season.
No “newbie” jitters this year
Last year was my first year with DnD, and I was nervous! Not so much that I couldn’t handle the choreography, but because Atticus is super competitive, and made it clear that I better “bring it” or I’d basically be a huge, embarrassing failure – not just to him, but to the whole dad group, and essentially all humankind.
Even though the weekly practices weren’t at my favorite time of week (Friday nights), I had a great time getting to know the other dancers and their dads. I especially enjoyed the “safety meeting” we had after each practice (which was an off-site hangout with pizza, wings and beverages :-). And heck, the dancing went pretty well too! Here’s a shot of me doing my best to hoist Atti in the air so he can show off his splits:
This pic is hilarious to me as I get ready to start this year’s DnD season because Atti is as tall as I am now. Maybe he’ll hoist me in the air this year!
COVID diet continues
I mentioned that over the past few days I’ve had a very limited appetite thanks to COVID. I’m a little concerned because today some foods taste…odd. Specifically, tonight Aimee prepared some chicken for dinner. That tasted fine, but I always eat chicken (and pretty much every other food but scrambled eggs) with an obscene amount of ketchup, and this time the ketchup tasted like copper! I almost spit it out onto my plate! I sanity checked this by having Cam and Aimee taste test the ketchup, and they thought nothing was wrong with it. This is the only food that has tasted funky, and my sense of smell is fine. So what does that all mean? No idea. But it’s kind of freaking me out. Anyway, today I ate:
- 1 mint cocoa
- 1 caffeinated ice
- 2 pieces of pizza
- 2 chicken nuggets
- 1 apple
- 1 taco
A friend asked me, “What exactly constitutes your so-called COVID diet? Seems like you’re just eating smaller amounts of unhealthy foods.” Exactly, friend. Exactly.