The Perfect FunFitFoodie Day

I had the perfect funfitfoodie day yesterday. How does one exactly have a funfitfoodie day? Easy—accomplish all three elements of the funfitfoodie life (good fun, fun fitness, delicious food), and you’ve got yourself the perfect funfitfoodie day.

1. Fun Fitness: I’ve been experimenting recently with an idea for exercising to make it more fun. Yesterday was my trial run. I was spinning on the bike and laughing out loud, which made this other girl on a bike nearby laugh out loud, too. I’m pretty sure she was laughing at me. Any way you slice it, I’ve made a new friend at the gym and great headway in my fun exercise project.

2. Just Plain Good Fun: I decided that I had been in my “hermit” mood for far too long (I think it lasted about a week and a half.) Usually when I’m lonely, I’m too afraid to call anyone for fear I might cry if they can’t hang out with me. It’s like that scene from Gran Torino when Clint’s feeling lonely. He calls his son, and they all don’t want to answer the phone. Finally, the son does. Clint talks to his son for maybe 15 seconds. Then the son says, “Hey Dad, I’m kinda busy right now…” We know how sad it is because the son is just doing bills.

Anyway, I try to avoid feeling like that whenever possible.

So, I’m trying to invite my friends out to lunch or ice cream or a show prior to when I feel lonely. Last night, Loreto and I went to the ballet. For just $5 per ticket, you can sit in the Galeria, and since I’m a gringa, we got there early enough to get THE BEST seats. We could see almost all of the stage without leaning over the balcony rail. Plus, I like being up so high. You can see the tops of everyone’s head in the orchestra.

My Review of the Ballet:
The ballet, called La Bayadera (which is an old word for The Dancer) lacked fire. It had such potential based on the story. The story goes like this (I think): boy meets girl in a forest. Boy must marry other girl. Other girl kills forest girl. Dead forest girl's ghost gets revenge.

See, so much potential!

But it failed in its choreography. It looked like an opening night: too many baubles, too many falls out of turns, too many disconnects between the music and the dancers or even between sections. In fact, Loreto and I still don’t know why this one section involving a Hindu god was even in the show. I decided maybe it was some kind of deus ex machina thing.

When the choreographer used a prop like a long silk scarf, he failed to use it to its potential, like the last unused match in the box. The couple would merely hold the scarf up high. Once, they twirled in together. Boring.

Again, during a large chorus section, he had the 30 dancers file in a snaking line with the same phrase repeated over and over again. And the phrase was wrong—a step that required the girls to balance like gravity didn’t exist. There were too many opportunities for the girls to fail. They did.

To make it even worse, (I cringe at this) after many of the dance sections, they came up to the front and bowed even though the show wasn’t over. It confused the audience. We didn’t know when to clap anymore. And I didn’t think their performance merited clapping in the middle.

The only redeeming points were the costumes and the set. Maybe I'm just not a ballet-type of girl. Give me some crazy modern dance with a shopping bag and a nightgown any day.

My Thoughts On Skinny Ballerinas
Anyway, because of this boring show, I thought a lot about body image. These women were skinny! You could see their ribs sticking out even from the fourth floor balcony.

I admit, I was jealous. I wanted to look that thin and be that graceful.

I kept having to remind myself that some girls develop anorexia from taking ballet. In fact, just off the top of my head, I can name two friends of mine who were anorexic for a while because of ballet.

I had to remember that some girls up there on that stage were beautiful, but sick.

That’s the problem with ballet, really. Audience-members like me, especially at a professional level, expect ballet dancers to be out-of-this-world. Ballerinas are made taller than they really are by being en pointe. They are trained to be more flexible than anyone else. They are expected to be skinnier.

Little girls who want to be grow up to be ballerinas starve themselves.

3. Delicious Food: Speaking of starving, after the gym and the show, I was soooo hungry. So, after the show, we met up with Loreto’s step son, Matias, and her man, Osvaldo, at Boulevard Lavaud. It is THE coolest restaurant I’ve been to in a while. It’s located downtown. It is an old French barbershop and salon, founded in 1868, that has been preserved and is now a restaurant. The place is filled with antiques. I would definitely have taken my parents there had I known about it. After Caprese and rice, I ordered culant du chocolat. It is a cake with fudge filling in the middle. I died and went to heaven!

I came home happy, stuffed to the gills, and went to bed at 1am, when I finally I came down from my sugar high.