American Smooth/ "America"/Red Tailed Hawk

 

American Smooth!  It is a ballroom style dance that consists of four elegant dances: the Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango and Viennese Waltz.  It allows for open movements, underarm turns and side by side choreography. It seems to celebrate the joy of dancing! Last week I shared a video from "Strictly Come Dancing" of Chris McCausland and his partner. They danced this past week to the song "Jump" and they showed the joy of dancing with the American Smooth! ("Jump" was written by Van Halen, but the version on this show was sung by Paul Anka and the arrangement is so very different, it will astonish you.)  What did the couple score for this dance? A perfect 10! 

Hope you enjoy the video as much as I did! I would give it a 10!

The beginning of the Christmas ads are beginning to be shown on TV! Many of them are not very good but there is one that just came out that I really like! It is an ad from Kroger, and I will see if I can get it on here...

There, isn't that just so wonderful?  It is called "Share Your Food, Share Your Heart" and the song is "Lonely People" by America!

It made me so happy to hear that song on that advert!  There is an English connection, you know.  The background of the band "America" is interesting to me, they were American lads living in London (their fathers in the US military) and became a band.  They called themselves "America" because they didn't want folks to think they were British trying to pretend to be American! Their songs from 1974- 1979 were produced by George Martin!  (I hope you know that name from the BEATLES!)  America (band) - Wikipedia

There, you may click on that above and read more about them, if you like. They also did the song "Tin Man" which I have also told you about in a post before! And "Sister Golden Hair"!

Also, in my last post I showed you a photo of a red shouldered hawk that was in our back yard.  I made a mistake and called it a red TAILED hawk but went back later and corrected it. Well, what do you think?  We saw that there would be a Bird of Prey demonstration at Arabia Mountain this weekend and we happily signed up! Guess what bird was there?  Yep, a red-tailed hawk! Why, you could have knocked me down with a feather! LOL!  Did Richard get photos? You know he did!  It was so great.  The two bird handlers were just wonderful, and especially so with the children. They took such delight in explaining and sharing everything about the hawks. Who enjoyed this more, the men with the birds or those in attendance? Hard to say for sure! 

The above are all photos of the red-tailed hawk but they also had a Harris Hawk....

This bird did not look familiar to us and that is because it is indigenous to Southwest Texas, Arizona and Mexico! 

Do you like the way I tied things together in a somewhat American theme? I am AMERICAN SMOOTH! 

Just so you won't forget, this is the red shouldered hawk that we had in our backyard! 

We All Shine On! (Must SEE Video!)

 

                                                Great Video- Please watch!

The video that I have here for you is from "Strictly Come Dancing".  (It is on the BBC.) The woman dancer is the professional dancer, and her partner is Chris McCausland, a blind comedian and actor. There, you read that correctly, he is a man who cannot see. (He was not born blind; he lost his sight gradually to retinitis pigmentosa.) The dance in the video was performed to "Instant Karma/ We All Shine On" by John Lennon. (I had the single: the B side was Yoko Ono singing "Who Has Seen the Wind". Anybody else have that record?) Not sure who is doing the singing on this song, but it is a great choice for this dance. Now, I'm not going to say anything more about the video until I finish this post....

So, how are you all doing these days?  After a very sunny October, we had a very cloudy beginning to November which has been a shame because you really want the sun to shine on the colorful leaves! It's been very warm but overcast, so very strange weather...we had zero rain the entire month of October, so we are hoping for rain which we are promised tomorrow! 

Richard managed to get a few nice photos when the sun popped out!

See? I told you we have colorful leaves!  Americans call it "Fall" and it really makes sense to me. That is a LOT of falling leaves!

We have a red-tailed  red- shouldered hawk that comes down in our back yard. (Sorry folks, I think I've got it right now!) Richard just got this photo today. Isn't that a beautiful bird? 

I hope you could all see the video that I gave you at the beginning of this post!  They cut the lights out during the dance and the audience was in complete darkness!  When the lights came back, the male dancer was .... oh dear, I don't know technical dancing terms, he was twirling his partner around in the air! Amazing! How can anyone dance without having eyesight? I think the answer must be...very carefully and thoughtfully. And lots of counting steps, I imagine.

For me, this comedian on this dancing show....it is hopeful and uplifting and cheerful.  Can't we all use those things just now?

And since my husband and I had only one child, you know I had to share this video, which is also the same comedian, Chris McCausland. For our one and only (also a Chris!) hope you think this is funny too!