Jen's Column / Easter weekend

I'm supposed to be writing this column on the way home from "up north" — my laptop balancing on my knees in our silver Town & Country as my husband drives and my boys munch on Goldfish and watch Shrek in the back seat.

I'm supposed to be writing about spending Easter weekend at our cabin near Itasca State Park — about how 15 of us crowded into our two-bedroom cabin for three days, sleeping in four beds, an air mattress and three 1970s-era couches.

I was going to dazzle you with stories about how we made our entire Easter dinner — including two hams — in crock-pots, since we have no oven there. How we kept the milk and butter in the snow bank outside the front door, a more reliable location than our ancient refrigerator. How we washed our dishes and our faces in a roasting pan filled with water we hauled from Rochester — because we've also no running water at the cabin this time of year.

I couldn't have resisted telling how nine little cousins who haven't seen each other since October combed the woods on an acre-wide egg hunt, the pink, yellow and blue Easter eggs hidden amid the white snow and the white pines, in the fire pit and alongside (but not in) the outhouse. How the kids played outside until the bottom of their snow pants dripped with muddy water and caked dirt — and how we washed them in the snow and hung them from the log beams over the woodstove to dry.

I knew how the weekend would play out even before we left. Counting my chickens before they hatch, you might say. And, of course, we know how that ends.

We left for the cabin early Friday morning, our van packed with sleds and coolers and shovels and blankets and boots and enough food to feed 15 people for far more than three days. And then we drove 35-miles-an-hour to Cannon Falls, made a U-turn at that first set of lights, and headed back home. With more cars in the ditch than on the road, we knew when we were beat.

The kids were devastated. Who am I kidding? I was devastated. When you live far from extended family — even a seven-hours' drive, as we do — the time you do spend together is important. You want to confirm those connections. You want to make those memories.

Instead, I spent the rest of the day in my kitchen cooking up comfort food for my pity party. I made a pumpkin pie. I baked blueberry muffin bread. I made five dozen M&M cookies. I put together the most decadent spinach and artichoke dip you've ever tasted. ("What do artichokes taste like?" my Mom asked when I talked to her later. "Cheese," I answered.)

Once I got that out of my system, my husband, sons and I spent the weekend doing things we probably wouldn't have done at the cabin. We played a lazy afternoon game of Scooby Doo Monopoly. We dyed eggs. The boys put on a play in front of a color-crayoned backdrop. I went for an evening run as glitter fell from the sky. In a moment of euphoria over the beauty of the night, I thought, "I am lucky to be right here."

I called my parents on Sunday. The cacophony in the background told me that the family Easter had very much gone on without us.

Part of me felt that familiar ache. That longing to be part of the greater family — part of the noise and the drama and the smells and my father yelling for everyone to just settle down for one minute. But there was also that part of me that, when I hung up the phone, understood our quiet little weekend here was a more than fair consolation prize.

I got in!

I got in, I got in, I got in!

I've been accepted into the MFA in Writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts -- the program I reeeaaaaalllly hoped to attend. I tried to be very grown-up when I got the call, but as soon as I hung up I jumped up and down on our kitchen floor and screamed. Loudly!

Jay brought me flowers in congratulations. What a sweet husband I have. :)

Running

I ran 10 miles today! 10!

And then I crashed in my bed for an hour-and-a-half and had the kids bring me water. :)

Jen's Column / Belly Dancing

Friday night started out as a typical girls' night out. At about 7 o'clock, some girlfriends and I got together at my friend Jamie's and spent the next hour standing around her kitchen eating calorie-laden food, drinking wine and talking.

We could've happily maintained this position for the next five or six hours. But we didn't. We had to get down to Jamie's basement to shake our groove thangs — with a belly-dancing lesson.

Our instructor was Laura Ehling. Ehling is a stay-at-home mom who just happens to be a belly dancer on the side. She teaches lessons, like the one at Jamie's, for $70 a session.

Promptly at 8 o'clock, we shuffled downstairs and Ehling got straight to business.

"You'll all wear hip scarves," she said, pulling sequined and bead-adorned scarves from a box. "Do you want one that makes a lot of noise or a little noise?"

"A lot of noise!" I answered enthusiastically. If I was going to jiggle, I wanted to jangle, too.

With our hips appropriately adorned, Ehling threw in a CD called — I kid you not — "Turkeylicious" and gave us a backgrounder on belly dancing. I guess I'd always assumed that belly dancing was created for men — as a form of flirtation or seduction. I mean, aside from "I Dream of Jeannie," you don't really see a lot of women hanging out with their friends in belly-dancing garb.

But I was wrong. Belly dancing, Ehling said, is a 5,000- to 6,000-year-old dance traditionally performed by women for women. "Men didn't even see belly dancing for thousands of years," she said. "Women danced for each other. It was a way to celebrate their bodies — to feel beautiful while strengthening those child-bearing muscles."

You understand, don't you, that "celebrating your body" can be a tough concept for a group of women who've not only had babies, but who have also nursed those babies? (Heck, one of my friends nursed her baby during our lesson.) Frankly, "focus on my bare, wiggling stomach" isn't something we're likely to say.

But Ehling put us at ease by stripping off her shirt to reveal a choli — a revealing belly-dancing top — underneath. ("When I started belly dancing, it was for exercise," Ehling told us. "I didn't know I'd eventually be the owner of several sparkly bras!")

She put her hand on her stomach and said with a smile, "It's been a long winter and I like dessert. This body has had three babies. But that's the great thing about belly dancing. You need curves. You need some flesh. You shouldn't be ashamed of that — you should appreciate it."

"Well then," our collective sighs seemed to say. "This is the dance for me."

To the sounds of several Turkeylicious tunes, Ehling taught us how to belly dance, showing us how to isolate the movements of our shoulders or our hips. "Stand straight," she'd call out. "Keep those legs together!" ("There's a name for people who do these dances with their legs open," Ehling said. "They're called strippers.")

There was a lot of laughing — and a few exclamations of, "I don't think my body can do that!" At the same time, it was a formidable workout that left me with a stitch in my side and with my neighbor Bethany saying, "Is it supposed to hurt?"

As we carpooled home, LaNae, Bethany, Lisa and I talked about the night. We threw around words like "empowering" and "inspiring" and "beautiful." We admitted we were struck by Ehling's self-confidence — and her belief that a body doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful.

I thought I'd come home that night with a few choice moves to impress my husband. But instead I came home with a better body image. Not a bad deal.

Jay kicked my a**

Jay and I went out last night and played a few games of racquetball. The scores?

15-1
15-0
15-1

And if you so much as glanced at the title of this post, you know who was stuck in the single (or no) digits.

We had a blast -- but I'd like to not get completely creamed. Any championship racquetball players out there who can offer a little advice? :), Jen