Potluck Cum Line Dance Party

As planned, our very first potluck cum linedance party was successfully organised yesterday. When the idea was mooted, the husbands of the husband-and-wife teams were very excited as the event would be held on a Valentine's Day. Indirectly, they can be spared from burning a hole in their pocket for a Valentine Day's Candle Light Dinner. However, I doubt they really received mercy from their honey. Perhaps the dinner can be saved but not the Valentine's Gift. I hope they got even with each other.

As for me, I was rather carefree as my hubby was not in town (Thank God!). I couldn't be bothered with Valentine Day celebration as I think the idea of a married couple spending on a Valentine's Dinner at a restaurant is rather foolish. Must we have it on on a Valentine's day, of all the days? Perhaps I am the practical sort..

Back to our potluck party..yes it was a succesful event. Am very surprise that all my team members not only can dance, but are also good in their culinary skills!

There were varieties of homecook dishes and the pictures are available at our Team Blog:
http://cllinedance.blogspot.com/2009/02/yesterday-day-pot-luck-and-dance-party.html

I love this sort of event very much as it was a time to bond and get to know our members, including members' family too. Oh..yeah, by the way, we have our Bayu, Shah Alam team members joining us for the event. This group can also dance and cook well too.

All the dishes prepared(or bought??) were exotic and the taste were fabulous. Christina has forgotten to provide the names for the food pictures posted in our blog. Let me introduce them one-by-one, in case you have already salivated..

• Thai Style Kerabu Chicken Feet Skin by Christina (this time the dish was spiced up with lots of shredded ginger
• Mini Chicken Siew Pau(puff) and Homemade curry puff contributed by the Bayu's team members (Sorry, Joyce never introduced the name of the contributors)
• Glutinuos Rice with Chinese Sausages prepared by our linedance instructor-Joyce
• Assam Lettuce (By the way, anyone knows who was the contributor??)
• Vegetarian Fried Vermicelli (sorry, again dunno who's the contributor..)
• Stewed cuttle fish prepared by Joyce
• Chicken Feet in Vinegar (This dish is supposed to be pork trotter in vinegar but then as Lam is a non-pork eater, Joyce was undertanding enough to replace with chicken feet. By the way, with chicken feet as the most popular dish amongst this group, I supposed you could have now get to know the key to line-dance till aged 60s & beyond, right? The secret is to consume more chicken feets (so you can dance like a chicken)
• This pic look like stewed octopus....Frankly I dunno what was that and no one seemed to be able to tell me who prepared that. This dish looked great to eat with rice anyway.
• Home-grown chicken from YoungmanLim and LengluiKim
• Red bean and black glutinuos rice dessert from Joyce again
• Nyonya style acar from Janice (yummy!)
• "Mieng Kum" (Thai Leave Roll) and steamed savoury rice pudding (Now you understand why we must called upon our Bayu Team members to join us as they are expert in preparing traditional and exotic dishes which with money also can't get to buy..)

The food list was lengthy.... Some pictures were not in time to be taken as they were finished in a lightning speed! I believe the camera man when seeing this was too stunt to take further pic and told himself to better grab some food before the pot and plates got empty.

Other dishes were pandan jelly from Sister Ying. Longan and coffeemate jelly from Rui Ting. Annie's dessert (I dun get to eat this one as all other members have grabbed all and left me an empty container..so sorry for me!) Fried rice from Ya Mei. Ms Tien's curry puffs and Yuki's Tea Leaf Eggs. By the way, Cindy's vegetarian style mixed vegetables had been mistaken by Lam as a dish prepared by his mother in law. I believe Christina's mom would be happy to learn that. For her son-in-law really admired the taste of her dishes. But not the case for Cindy when Lam innocently sought confirmation. Below is the conversation recorded:
"Was that prepared by you? How come it taste exactly like my mother in law cook one??"
"Walau-way! Please don't take me as your mother in law, okay?!" That was classic!

All the food was so-so very delicious! By the way, I was lucky to have my mom-in-law's help to prepare for my potluck offering. As usual, she has demanded for perfection to the extent that she got to start a charcoal fire at our backyard to deliver her specialty-Charcoal Style Hokkien Mee.

I better pause now in case you get too hungry with the food listing...

Success Is In The Journey, Not The Destination

"Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.".

Our line dancing practice session last Monday was an entertaining one. One of the thorns amongst all roses, Youngmanlim demonstrated his "stepping cockroachs" movement for the Hit The Road Jack Dance.

At first I thought he deliberately did that style to amuse the team. As usual, I burst out laughing when seeing that funny movement. I felt so bad later when I realised that he was actually very serious in putting the steps right and trying very hard to synchronized his movement with the beats. I supposed he was completely engrossed with the dance that he wasn't aware of his stepping cockroaches stance. At the thought of it I was a bit regret for not controlling my laughing gas as he's just being serious about what he was doing!

Later that night, I went to Youtube to search for the dance video. There were a few clips but the dancers are of various age group. I have particularly chosen the senior citizen group for their movements are clear, but very rigid and robot-like. I reckon that clip is more suitable than the versions done by younger dancers and that people like Youngmanlim can observe and catch up easily. Sometimes zombie-like dancers may look clumsy but their "one-beat-slower"steps actually make our learning easier.

After the post is up, Youngmanlim post a heart-melting comment "don't demand too much from senior citizen, as long as they are happy, any style and steps ok lah, like me loh, enjoy the presence of everybody is enough already." This made me feel very sorry for I have formed a self-opinion that I must select something to match his standard. This is a very silly intention cos it is like forming the mindset that a grade 1 music student cannot read the grade 6's musical notes.

The comment from Youngmanlim reminds me of an inspiration quote -
"Success is in the journey, not the destination"

After joining line dance class for more than a year, I notice that my enthusiasm is running low gradually. On the contrary, those late comers like the husband and wife teams-Christina & Lam, Lengluikim and Youngmankim , Yue Har, Milly, are all catching up fast and have shown vast improvements over the months. Really shame on me in this respect. The inspiring quote from Youngmanlim perhaps is also the voice from every team members heart.

It is really quite true that the outcome(destination) is not important, what is more important is the process (journey). Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination. Like what was humbly commented by Lengluikim's hubby - "Don't demand too much from senior citizen, as long as they are happy, any style and steps oso ok lah, like me loh, enjoy the presence of everybody is enough already." (Hey! Thumb-up for our young man and the senior citizen!)

Even we can't really dance as good as the professional dancers, we enjoy every move we made and every moment we being happy together, e.g. joined the linedance party, potluck and the weekly practices at KL's mansion. So, it is friendships that matters the most..isn't it?

May every members of my line dancing club including our dance instructor Lady Joice be bestowed with good health so that we can continue to dance year after year, cheers!