What Once Was Lost....

Looking for the silver coin

No one, no one at all, ever talked about what was involved when a girl or boy starts Irish dance lessons.  Those dancers look amazing as they skim along a wooden dance floor, as they kick high to the sky, and as they leap without effort. Some costumes/dresses are impossibly ugly, the colors are day glow colors.  

But no one tells about the money all that costs.  Dresses straight from Irish designers can cost up to $3000. Children have a habit of outgrowing these dresses.

On Facebook

$1000 worth of Swarovski crystals
on an already expensive dress

Oh, the hard shoes. How can any pair of shoes cost so very much? Apparently, those hard shoes can cost a lot.  

In 2017, new shoes cost about $350. Used ones are slightly less. But what happens when one shoe is lost?  Disaster.

After a huge Irish Feis (fesh) dance competition held in a hotel near Disneyland, my daughter discovered that Clara, my gr-daughter had only one shoe.  They searched all over the hotel with staff help, to no success.

This is how a competition looks

As irony would have it, a few days later John and I attended a math conference in the next hotel over. Time was on my hands, so I went to the hotel and asked about the lost shoe.

Obviously, Lost and Found was the place to go. No luck. But then the hotel maid recalled one shoe and turned it in the next day after the Feis. 

That correct lost and found box contained the shoe. Huzzahs all around!

The lone lost shoe

What was lost was found. Was the search worth it? One shoe, was it important enough to find?  

No one warns us about the cost. But everything costs money, what matters is where it is spent. A new sofa and love seat or a life time of dance memories and skills? Just where do you invest your time, money, self?


The dresses are crazy out-of-line, no matter what. 

Miracle made by Many

What was lost, is now found.

Do you know how much Irish dance shoes cost?  No, not the fairy-like soft leather shoes that lace up over white socks (did you know that these socks are actually glued in place, “sock glue”?).  They cost a pittance as compared to the “hard shoe”.

The hard shoe is the stuff of “River Dance” shaking the stage, and costing upwards of $350. 

So imagine my daughter’s distress when one shoe when missing after a big Irish Dance Competition (called a “Feίs”, Fesh) at the Sheraton Hotel in Anaheim, California.  They had called the hotel, who said nothing had turned up.  Many sobs were heard that day.

My husband had a conference the following weekend in Anaheim at an exquisite hotel next to the Sheraton.  Not one to miss some taste of elegance I went with him.   And I popped over to the Sheraton.

Adventures happened, but through the determination of Sheraton’s staff, a house keeper named Maria Luisa recalled finding a shoe last week (huge hotel, hundreds of rooms).

Many thanks go to: Front Desk clerk Anthone, Banquet hall manager Javier, House keeper Maria Luiza, and Lost & Found desk Christine.  When she set the box in front of me and pulled out the lone shoe, it was a miracle.

River Dance, Michael Flately, Jean Butler