In the Boston Public Garden, walking on the grass is not allowed. The other day, codename: Isis (nearly two years old) kept trying to climb over the low chain to get onto the grass. Codename: Cordelia said to her, “No, Isis, we’re not allowed on the grass.” Isis said, “Okay Mommy.” Then she threw her hat as far as she could over the chain and said, “I need to go get my hat.”

In the meantime, in order to stop codename: Phoenix (nearly two years old) from trying to climb into the duck pond in an attempt to bring a duck his missing feather, I had to create an elaborate story about how the feather was going to float across the water to the duck all by itself. (Around boats and over waves, dodging the fishies.)

Hey, Cambridge-and-Environs residents! Bob Slate is coming back! YAHOO! Those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while may remember how sad I was when the news came out that Bob Slate Stationer was closing.

In other news… for those of you getting tired of me talking about So You Think You Can Dance, don’t worry, the season is almost over. 🙂 It’s a confluence of things. I have lots of deadlines this summer and no extra energy for in-depth blogging. I have stuff about Bitterblue I want to blog, but am not allowed to yet. And, despite the inevitable copious bullshit, it’s an unusually good season of SYTYCD. If things go as I hope they will, I will love all the people in the finale and be happy with any one of them winning.

I tend to enjoy a super-cool dance (with super-cool characters, if the dance is a story) more than an emotional dance where everyone is flailing around with agonized looks on their faces and we’ve been informed beforehand that the subject of the dance is something deep and meaningful. I mentioned a dancer a couple weeks ago who has “it.” If you want to see a super-cool dance with the super-cool “it” oozing out all over the place, you should really watch this video (or this video if you’re outside the USA or, um, want a better-quality picture and playback than the crap Fox puts online). This is contestant Tadd Gadduang dancing with All-Star Lauren Froderman (last season’s winner, who also has “it”), choreographed by Mandy Moore. I love the hand in the pocket — could he be more cool? I was enjoying this routine so much the first time I saw it that I didn’t even register that Tadd had lost his prop (the hat). He didn’t need the hat to make the dance work. I did, however, notice Lauren accidentally punching Tadd in the face (at 0:51) and Tadd not even flinching. His mouth was all bloody during the judging section! Tadd is a b-boy (as you might gather from some of the things he does so gracefully in this routine) who isn’t trained in other styles, but he seems able to absorb every style of dance the show throws at him. (He was one of the dancers in the vulture routine I linked to a couple weeks ago.) One of the most exciting things that happens on this show from time to time is that you have a b-boy who can do the other kinds of dance, too, which gives you a dancer with an extra (and extra-awesome) skill set that the choreographer can take advantage of. I love when they work breaking into contemporary or jazz routines. Anyway, I think I know which other contestants will end up in the finale (go Melanie!), but I and a few compadres are extremely worried about Tadd. If you watch the show and don’t usually vote, think about voting for Tadd on Wednesday. This is extremely important, people! :o)

Okay, on that note, I need to get back to work, sigh…