More cluelessness

You can take the feis dad out of Irish dance, but you can’t take the cluelessness out of feis dad. Truer words have never been written, particularly considering what happened yesterday.

Here’s a true story. My wife and dancing daughters went to see a movie and do some shoe shopping for Mother’s Day, giving me the afternoon off at home. After the movie, they called and asked me to call the Olive Garden restaurant for call-ahead reservations at 5:00 pm. Being the efficient father and husband I am, I did just that.

At precisely 4:45, I left home and drove toward my place in history as a true bonehead. Ten minutes later, I turned into the large shopping center containing Wal-mart, DSW, Best Buy, a movie theater, Olive Garden and Red Lobster.

At this point, my daughter called me and asked where I was. I told her I was just coming up on Olive Garden and would be there in less than a minute. She told me they were just leaving DSW and would be there shortly after me.

Not concentrating on where I was going, I pulled into the first restaurant looking building. I parked, strode confidently into the building and announced my name to the hostess and told her that I had called ahead for a table for four. She gave me a strange look and told me that had a bunch of tables open.

I told her I would wait for the rest of my party in the waiting area instead of going to the table (which happened to be the only smart thing I did the entire afternoon). As I waited in near the hostess table, I walked over to the lobster tank and looked at the poor lobsters.

Hmmm, I thought, when did Olive Garden get a lobster tank? I wondered if they were having a lobster special. Seemed like a strange thing for Olive Garden to do, but what do I know about the restaurant business?

After a few minutes of waiting and watching the lobster, an older couple left the restaurant and I heard (or thought I heard) the hostess say, “Thank you for coming to Red Lobster.”

At this point (actually WAY before this point) something should have clicked in my brain, but nothing did. I just though I’d misheard her.

I went back to watching the lobster. Poor things. I was glad I didn’t like lobster. I didn’t want to think about me sending them to a pot of boiling water. I looked at my watch. 5:05. Where was my family? It shouldn’t have taken them this long to come over from DSW. Had they gone back inside to do some more shoe shopping? I was going to have to give them a hard time about being late.

Then a family walked by me on their way out the door.

“Thank you for coming to Red Lobster,” the hostess said again. This time I was SURE that’s what she’d said. What in the heck was going on? Did she forget that she was in Olive Garden? Did she have two jobs? One at Red Lobster, the other at Olive Garden. Or maybe she was just playing a joke on these poor people leaving Olive Garden.

I shook my head. Boy, people can be REALLY stupid sometimes.

The hostess walked by me. She didn’t look all that stupid. Why would she be saying, “Thank you for coming to Red Lobster.”

Then it all hit me. The lobster tank. The maritime pictures. The fried fish smell. The Red Lobster name tags.

Yep, sometimes people can be REALLY stupid. And it just so happens that this was MY time! I thought that at this point Bill Engvall would come up to me and hand me MY sign.

As red-faced as the lobster in the tank, I made a quick exit, looked up at the sign over the door, just for confirmation. Yep, Red Lobster.

I had been in there for almost 15 minutes! I got on my cell phone. My family was sitting in Olive Garden, wondering where I was. Wow. I know where I was physically, but mentally, I’m not so sure.

I can’t even blame this one on Irish dance. This one was all me.

Feis dad

Feis dad Irish dance suggestions

As all of you should know by now, I haven’t a clue. I’m a typical feis dad. It’s not that we don’t care, we do. It’s just that our brains can’t grasp all the finer details of Irish dance. Okay, truth be told, most of us even have problems with the big picture items.

Recently, I was talking with my family about which dances my daughter should be dancing at the next feis (well, they were talking, I was trying to listen and understand) and it amazed even me how much I didn’t know about something my daughters have been involved in for three years. Or has it been five? Maybe it’s only been a few months. Heck, I don’t know…

What do I know? I know there are two groups of dances. One is done with a soft shoe; the other is done with a shoe that makes all that darn racket. I believe these shoes are called the steel lined, concrete filled, noisy, loud, obnoxious shoes, or in short, the noisy, loud, obnoxious shoes. But that’s just a guess on my part.

Other than that, the names and distinctions between different kinds of dances somehow eludes me. The only dances I know the names of are St. Patty’s Day, a jig and a slip reel. Or are they called a reel and slip jig? Or was it a slip pig? Maybe a reelly slippery pig. Ha! Now that would be a fun dance to watch!

Oh, who knows. Clearly not me.

But as bad as that is, even if I knew the NAMES of the dances, I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. When I watch my daughters dance, no matter how hard I try, I still can’t tell the difference between a reel and a jig. But that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Men just aren’t that observant when it comes to those kinds of things.

For example, most men don’t notice when their wife gets her hair done. Not even if she gets 6 inches chopped off, a perm and is now blonde. My wife gets upset when she has to tell me these things. And to tell you the truth, I don’t really know if she’s pulling my leg or not. Did she really get a haircut? I can’t remember what her hair looked like twenty minutes ago, never mind yesterday. When she tells me it used to be long, straight and black, I just have to shrug and believe her.

It took a friend of mine FOUR DAYS to notice that his wife and kids had taken a vacation without him. And that’s only because my wife called me from Disneyland and I was still at home. I’d wondered why I’d been able to watch sports on TV without anyone complaining lately.

This same guy, however, spotted a typo in the second significant digit to a baseball player’s ERA within two seconds of it being displayed on ESPN’s Sports Center. Go figure.

What’s my point in all this you ask? Good question as I’ve already forgotten.

Ten minutes later and after asking wife for point of blog post...

Oh yeah, it’s about making the dances interesting to feis dads so we can remember them. If you want a feis dad to pay attention, the dances must be something he can relate to. Here are a few suggestions:

THE JACKIE CHAN JIG: This dance would be full of awesome karate, tae kwon do, jujitsu, ninja (and any other cool Japanese word) moves that really kick butt. Also, the dancers would have to perform while speaking cheesy dialogue which no one understands.

THE CLEAN YOUR ROOM SET: This dance mimics all the moves that are made when one cleans their room (which of course none of our daughters know). With time and lots of practice, they will learn moves like the Pick Up Your Dirty Clothes Kick, Take Out the Smelly Trash Cut, the Sweep the Messy Floor Jump and the Throw Out The Old Pizza Box Twirl. Although this dance is a parental favorite, teenagers loath it and you’ll be lucky to see them perform it once a year.

THE FISHING REEL: This dance involves sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair for hours on end while waiting for freakin’ anything to bite. Dancers will have to master the following positions: slouched in chair, sleeping in chair, scratching butt in chair, drinking beer in chair and finally folding up chair and going home empty handed. But it’s not all static poses. One lucky dancer will actually get to perform the “reel”. This is done by furiously acting like she’s reeling in the BIG ONE. After ten minutes of this she realizes it was just an old boot, spends ten minutes furiously swearing, ten minutes furiously packing everything back up in the truck and, finally, ten minutes furiously lying to all the guys down at the pub about the BIG ONE that got away.

Lastly, this is for adult Irish dancers only: THE POLE DANCE is anything that involves a pole, loud music and enough cigarette smoke to choke the state of New Jersey.

Yep, if a typical feis had these dances, we might just remember more about them. But, then again, maybe not, I can’t even seem to remember where I put my keys when I’m getting ready for work, or if I put my pants on. Either of which makes showing up to work a dicey situation.

Another painful admission

Everyone who knows me should've seen this coming. It was only a matter of time.

So I'm just going to come out and say it. Yes, Jesse James DID hit on me when he came to Tucson for a promo tour for Monster Garage while Sandra was filming The Blind Side. And, no, it wasn't pretty.

I was out in my garage, working on my hog. It was hot and I wasn't wearing my shirt and I was sweaty and my tattoos were gleaming in the desert heat. Too much for ol' Jesse to resist.

What? You didn't know I had a few tats? Come on, I spent over ten years in the military. They're required. So, during basic training I got one or two. No big deal. As you can plainly see, it's only when I don't have my shirt on that you can tell I've got a few tattoos.



But Jesse saw them and went a little crazy. I told him no, no, no, no. That's when poor Jesse settled for second best: Ms. Bombshell.

I feel bad for Sandra. I really do. Maybe if she would have gotten a few tattoos like Jesse had wanted. No, your right, he's a jerk. It wouldn't have helped.

-- feis dad

Here’s a clue: I don't have a clue

Last weekend I drove my two dancing daughters to Albuquerque for a feis all by myself. Let me say that again for those who didn’t grasp the significance of the last sentence. ALL BY MYSELF. No feis mom along. Nada. Zip. Zero.

I believe this was a huge accomplishment in my life. Sort of like my first time wearing big boy pants and leaving the comfort of my diapers behind (which, truth be told, wasn’t that long ago). Yep, I did it all by myself.

That being said, I’m surprised nobody died.

Nevertheless, what amazed me most was that people were coming to me, asking questions about the feis. Me. Yeah, right. I haven’t a clue.

This is how I usually ride out a feis.



As you can see, even without feis mom here, I had a chance to “rest my eyes” for a few minutes while another feis mom helped my DD’s with their hair. I think it worked out for the best. For some reason, they weren’t keen on my idea of using duct tape to secure their slinky wigs of doom. Go figure.

Anyway, after I helped get them ready (by not helping) for the feis, we moved down to the ballroom and I immediately took up the following position:



Now, any sane person would look at me intently playing ATV Race on his daughter’s iPod Touch (I can’t afford my own since I just bought two new solo dresses) and think, “This guy doesn’t have a clue,” right? Then why in the heck would people bother to ask me questions?

One guy, possibly even more clueless than me, started asking me about taking pictures during the feis. If he’s reading this, I have to apologize. Up to this point in my life, I hadn’t won a single game in ATV Race and I was hot on the tail of the leader. So, I tried to answer his questions and still race at the same time, with about 95% of my concentration going toward the race. The conversation lasted about two minutes, with me mumbling some sort of answer while twisting convulsively to trying to speed around the ATV in front of me. The whole encounter didn’t turn out well and he went away unfulfilled. Again, sorry, but you should know better. I haven’t a clue.

But he wasn’t the only one. Other people (who evidently thought I had a clue) were asking me for directions, opinions on the judges and whether or not so-and-so danced better than another so-and-so. FYI. I can’t tell the difference between a slip jig, hornpipe and the macarena and to me a “good” dance is anytime someone doesn’t fall down. That’s about the limit of my expertise on the subject. Again, I haven’t a clue.

If this wasn’t crazy enough, a feis mom who I know well (and who should have known better) asked me, “How long do you think the awards will take?” I gave her an incredulous that said, “You’re asking me?” She quickly recovered from her significant lapse of judgment and decided she might do better by asking someone (or something) with more of a clue … like the pool boy or a chair.

Other than those pesky questions, I think the weekend went fairly well. My daughters made it to all their dances and they even placed in a few. Although I’m convinced their success was mainly due to my attention to detail, my dancing advice and my over abundance of energy, the next time I’ll let my wife do the honors. I might take the weekend and do something a little less stressing … like running a marathon or donating a kidney.

'Twas the Night Before Oireachtas

'Twas the night before Oireachtas, and all through the room,
Not a dancer was stirring in the pre-party gloom;

The poodle socks were placed in the dance bags with care,
Right next to curly wigs made from 20 lbs of fake hair;

The ceili dancers were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of recalls danced in their heads;

And feis mom in her school polo, and I with my school cap,
Had just settled down for a much needed nap;

When out on the dance floor there arose such a clatter,
That I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter;

Away through the lobby I flew like a flash,
Stubbed my big toe which left a large gash;

The Oireachtas dance floor was cast in a glow,
Bright lights illuminating as t’were part of a show;

Then, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a man dressed in black, holding a pint of Guinness beer;

With feet of flames moving so fast-ly,
I knew in a moment it must be Michael Flatley;

In with our team of ceili dancers he came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, Tuleagh! Now, Jennifer! Now, Lexi! Now, Delaney and Kayley!
On, Natalia! on Lauren! on, Dani and Sydney!

To the stage! To the stage! To the podium, please stand!
Now first place! First place! I want you to land!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
The dancers went to work, their jumps meeting the sky;

Each dancer was so graceful and neat,
As they did cuts and kicked their seat;

And then, in a rush, I heard on the floor,
The banging and pounding of two shoes doing more;

As I drew in my breath, and was turning around,
Out on the floor St. Mick(ael) came with a bound;

He was dressed all in leather, from his head to his feet,
And his pants were so tight, my wife was in for a treat;

With a beautiful adult dancer held in each arm,
Who couldn’t resist his smooth Irish charm;

His eyes – how they sparkled – his ego so grand,
He believed himself the best dancer in the land!

His mouth was drawn up in such a wide grin,
That I knew in my heart our team would win;

He performed a solo from Lord of the Dance,
While feis moms from all over watched his pants;

His shirt split open revealing a large round belly,
That shook and rolled like a bowlful of jelly;

He was becoming chubby and plump, a right fat old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, ‘spite the weight I’d gained myself;

A wink of his eye and a nod of his head,
Told the team they had nothing to dread;

For their dancing and team spirit, he sure was proud,
And to make sure they listened for the cheers from the crowd;

During his finale, one last big jump,
He fell to the floor with a horrific thump;

Then he sprang to his feet and gave the team a wave,
For all the practice, hard work and energy they gave;

With a grand flourish he danced to the door,
Got stuck from all the pints he drank like a bore;

Then I heard him exclaim, ere he got unstuck,
"Happy Oireachtas to all, and to all good luck!"

feis dad or not a feis dad?

During a recent trip to a feis, I met two brothers. Identical twins actually. Identical in every way, every detail, every fiber of their being--except one.

One of the brothers had two daughters in Irish dance and they were competing in the feis. The other brother, he was only there to watch. His daughters had decided to do something a little less expensive—like pro tennis lessons and investing in the stock market.

Below are pictures I took of each twin in front of their respective homes. Can you tell which one is a feis dad?