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. 

Wednesday Words: Nigeria Kidnappers

Source: The School

When the zealous Islamic militants attacked her school with frenzied shouts and gun fire, the school girls tried to run and hide in the bush.  One masked man scooped Teeka and tossed her over his shoulder, as he yelled orders to the other men.

All the screaming girls were forced into box trucks, beaten with gun stocks.  Crammed and cramped, Teeka and her school mates were crying and beating against the metal walls.  No!  No!  Let us go!  You have no…

Source

Teeka had always been the meek and quiet girl of her class, more of an inchworm, one who would gladly go unnoticed.  But now?  Teeka summoned all her strength and became a gladiator, taking charge.

Be quiet! She demanded.  We must plan and think, not weep and beg.  This…With steely determination, she finished, these animals will not have weak and sobbing cowards!

Teeka had no way of knowing that she herself was considered as an investment. For a few dollars she would be sold, either as a slave or in a forced marriage.  But, she would not go easily.

Boko Haram: the group leader

Many thanks to Delores   for providing random words (the bold, underlined above) for participating bloggers to use and created a flash fiction, poem, prose, etc.   Please click on the photo of a stream on the right sidebar to read the work of other writers.  And please join the group!

...And pray for these girls to be returned to their homes.  May their captors receive the justice they so richly deserve.