Wednesday, March 17, 2004

A WEE IRISH TALE
I reminded TinyTuna to wear green to school for St. Patrick's day. Wow. Was she ever wearing green. Green shirt, Green sweatshirt, green pants, green socks (and no, I didn't check the underwear). She was a mean, green Tuna machine! Never mind that each item of clothing was a different shade of green. She's got the clothing covered and should survive relatively pinch-free.

Being a run-of-the-mill European mutt, I'm sure I probably have Irish in me somewhere, but I don't have any particularly fanciful stories to tell about potato famines or the Emerald Isle. The best I have to offer is TinyTuna, who is usually as good of an excuse as any. Ever since she was old enough to stand, TinyTuna has always loved to dance. Location or reason never mattered, but one of her favorite venues was in the living room (any living room) smack-dab in front of the television (any television) that was playing music (any music) or showing dancing (any dancing). This behavior first got her in trouble way back in preschool number one, where her creative demonstrations were rewarded by banishment to a back bedroom.

One of TinyTuna's early dance favorites was The original mid 1990s PBS Broadcast of Riverdance. You know, the one with Michael "Although the shoelace around the forehead isn't in quite yet I still think I'm hot stuff" Flatley and Jean "The waif with the beautiful red hair" Butler. TinyTuna loved this tape. I would get the VCR all set while she changed into her usual bedtime dance ensemble -- a heavy winter one-piece pair of footy pajamas -- and then she would prepare to dance the opening number as only a three-year old could.

You might think it would be difficult to do Irish step dancing (similar to tap dancing) in footy pajamas on a carpeted floor, but it never seemed to deter TinyTuna from the performance at hand. The opening step: a triplet pickup to a downbeat sounded less crisp and more like elephant ballet: thump-puh-dee-THUMP. On and on it would go as more dancers entered the stage.

thump-puh-dee-THUMP, thump-puh-dee-THUMP, thump-puh-dee-THUMP, thump-pah-dee-THUMP...

Finally, when the dancers had all made their entrance they began a series of more complicated steps. Of course, this was a bit much for a three-year old to figure out, but that didn't stop her. She'd jump and stomp and hop and kick as best she could. Occasionally she would stop to display dramatic exhaustion by huffing and puffing as if she had blown down the houses of sticks, straw AND bricks. But then she'd wind back up again and keep going. As the dancers danced in a large circle, TinyTuna galloped around the living room table. Woe to all those who forgot to pull their knees up under their chin, for surely their shins would have suffered greatly for TinyTuna's art.

As the chorus of dancers made their first exit, so did TinyTuna. If this happened to be your first viewing of her performance, it would seem quite odd, because she would circle the table several times and then run around the corner into her bedroom. For those of us familiar with the presentation, we'd start laughing ahead of time, because we knew what was coming.

The music got louder, the drummers banged away, spotlights focused on an upstage doorway, and POW! There was Michael Flatley, making a grand running entrance across the entire length of the stage. And there was TinyTuna, making her grand entrance across the entire length of the first floor. He would run. She would run. He would hop, dance and heel click, she would thump, bump and karate kick.

After awhile she'd tire out and flop next to me on the couch. Breathing and gasping dramatically for effect, she'd say, "All this dancing is really hard work!" I agreed with her and told her she did a nice job. Without missing a beat, she'd add, "Since I did such a good job and worked so hard and I'm soo sweaty, can I have three scoops of ice cream tonight as a special treat?"

She may not be 100% Irish, but her blarney count has always been off the charts.
Michael Flatley, eat your heart out.
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