L.I.B. was probably one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. Not a drunken, party, didn't sleep-at-all kind of weekend... a really rejuvenating, fun, enlightening, peaceful, unhurried and fabulous experience. I'm not sure what I expected; I just know that I agreed to go because Lee was really keen on the idea and since he rarely says, "This is something we HAVE to do", I decided I should probably appease him! Had I not, I would have missed out on one of the best experiences I've had ever. Driving away from L.I.B. on Monday morning was heartbreaking... the sun came out (finally!), the tents were coming down, and the opportunity to be clean for the first time in days was right around the corner. But cleanliness was hardly going to compare to the genuine smiling faces and the wonderful people whom I met while waiting out the rain in the Orchid Lounge, doing yoga on wood chips at 9:30 in the morning, or waiting in line for an hour for a waffle!

Highlights of the weekend include: Yard Dogs show , the hula hoop workshop, March Fourth parade, and the Red Tantric workshop. I was like a kid at Disneyland watching the Yard Dogs show... either my jaw was dropped or I was beaming from ear to ear the entire time. So was everybody else. I'm so glad someone told me "You HAVE to come back for this show!" OMG had I not I would have missed out on something truly amazing. I discovered I'm not very good at regular hula-hooping but rather I can hand hula hoop pretty well! I have newfound respect for hula hoop dancers because as a bellydancer I think I can do amazing things, but hula hoopers are like bellydancers except they do it with hoops!

The Red Tantric workshop was an unexpected amazing experience. Lee and I thought we were going in for a lecture and within minutes we were doing couples yoga! Despite erupting in giggles every now and then, we deepened our connection on another level that I didn't know existed (or maybe I did know it existed superficially but thought only with the help of drugs). After the workshop, we stayed hugging for ten minutes or longer and of course, I cried. It was just really intense. When we left, without verbalizing it, we wanted to stay in that mindset and tried our hardest to stay there. The only thing that broke it was one of the amazing performances and then the Yard Dogs discovery!

Also unexpectedly good... the 5/30 hafla. Small crowd, but an appreciative and fun one. Thank you Deanna for jumping in there and doing an impromptu tribal lesson! That was so much fun! I opened the hafla with a solo which I was not prepared to do until the day before. I hate doing it with such little preparation but it was a good exercise for me........ and I must say watching the video afterwards I was greatly relieved (if not a bit pleased!) that my interpretation of the music was better than I remembered it being! To top it off, my students and I (Dahab) had an awesome performance, too! I love that number that I worked so long and hard on to choreograph. It's so gratifying to see it on video and be like, "Yes! I had hoped that formation change would work" or whatever. I'm looking forward to performing at Froggy's in September.

Keeping low expectations all the time is kind of numbing - sometimes I forget to observe, be spontaneous, just dance, or simply live because I have this mindset that if everything is just "so so" then I will never be disappointed. It's nice when something is so good that it takes you off guard and sets new perspectives in motion again.......