The Joys of Dancing Around a Teapot

There's something to be said for donning a tiara, some princess jewelry and dancing around a musical teapot.

It's something that can instantly make you forget the worries of the world and realize that the smaller moments, the sillier moments in life are the ones that make it worthwhile.

In my case, it came down to the musical teapot. The tiara was never optional.

Now it's a Monday morning and though the tiara is gone and the musical teapot far away, in my mind, I can still dance around the teapot and plan to do so anytime I want to be far away from my job. I'd do it for real and not just mentally but given that the teapot belongs to my niece, I don't think she'd appreciate her Auntie Monkeypants taking it to work and she'd adamantly tell me know if I asked.

That's the thing about my niece, already at the age of three, she knows what she likes. For example, she very much likes to dress like a princess and has the clothes to prove it. She also likes to have tea parties. She likes to call their dog, Lillie, by the name of "Baby Ho." And she likes to use her imagination. I like to help her with that part, mostly because I still like to use my own imagination as much as possible.

So it was, yesterday, when I found myself being asked to dance around the musical plastic teapot and wearing my niece's tiara. How could I say no to that? It's not every day that you get that sort of invitation. So, I gave it my all and had a little dance. Baby Ho...I mean, Lillie the Chihuahua, joined us at one point.

I have to say, it was quite a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I also got to catch up with my sister in between tea parties and dancing around the teapot. In addition, I got to sit inside my niece's Hello Kitty tent which is really quite small and claustrophobic, especially when you're sharing it with a large tinsel, arched-back Halloween cat named "Kitten" and a small musical keyboard.

Hanging out with my niece is always a lot of fun. Three-year-old's are completely open-minded and don't understand why someone wouldn't want to dance around a musical teapot. It's just fun to let loose and be silly once in a while.

Some weekends are just meant to spent like that, I think. I always have stuff to be doing around my house but sometimes, I think it does us good to ignore productivity and spend it having fun instead.

My weekend was fun. In fact, it was very fun. I got to spend Saturday with my parents. They were looking for a new sofa and wanted me to help them figure out which one to get. So, a portion of Saturday was spent wandering around Ashley Furniture and sitting on couches. Personally, I find that rather fun. In the end my parent's picked a compromise between the one my mother liked and the one my dad liked. I also got to look at furniture ideas for my own place. One thing I do want to know after spending time in Ashley Furniture is do people really decorate like that? I don't know how familiar you are with furniture stores but they tend to set up their displays like a real room so there are rugs and accessories all over the place.

It's the accessories that have me curious. They have the strangest things in their setups. I saw wrought-iron giant frogs, urn-like vases, strange baskets of wicker balls, giant hands cupping....nothing. It was most peculiar. I'm not sure if you're even supposed to look at the accessories but I do find them fascinating.

As well as the couch shopping, my parents and I saw a movie: "Pirate Radio." I have to say, it was one of the most fun movies I've seen in a while. It's a movie that is written and directed by Richard Curtis who also made one of my all time favourite movies: "Love Actually." It's set in the sixties during a time in Britain when rock music was not played on the radio for more than an hour or so a week in favour of news and radio dramas. Enter the pirate radio stations: Large boats that broadcasted off the coast of Britain and played rock music all day and all night.

The movie focuses on the motley group of DJ's who live on the Radio Rock boat, the most popular of the stations. It is viewed primarily through the eyes of an eighteen year-old boy who is sent to the boat by his mother after he's expelled from school. The cast features Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ivans, Kenneth Branaugh, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost and a lot of other hilarious actors who make the whole film feel like you're taking a holiday from life. The British government want the pirate radio stations to stop because of the corruption of the youth that they're supposedly causing and because of the lost revenue by advertisers. Kenneth Branaugh plays a politician who makes it his mission to take down Radio Rock.

The thing about the movie is that it focuses on the music and the effect it has on Britain. Half of the population tunes into the pirate station but it's still going to be shut down because the government holds the reigns. The DJ's are celebrities because of the delicious seeds of rebellion they sow in their listeners. The music is hardcore '60's rock and the DJ's live to play it.

Don't get me wrong, the film is rather silly. Yet it's the kind of silly that makes you just want to jump on board and watch more closely. It makes you want to take Kenneth Branaugh's character and slap him until he wakes up and realizes, as the DJ's do, that you can stop the radio but you can't stop the music. When the government finally passes an act that prohibits pirate radio from broadcasting because their signal can potentially block distress signals of other craft in the area, it looks like it's the end of Radio Rock.

And, in a way, it is but the movie finds a way to show us that it never really died and the fact that there are over 6 million radio stations in the world that are now free to play whatever they want means that pirate radio did its job.

I had a great time at the movies. It's been a while since I got to do that with my parents and I have a feeling they enjoyed it as much as I did. In the end, it turned out to be the kind of day that was truly an escape from the weekday, just as real weekends should be.

Now it's Monday and it's the last one we'll have in this office before we move next week. There's a lot on my plate to get done over the next week but I think I can manage. There's not much that doesn't seem better when I close your eyes, imagine a tiara on my head and hear the tinkling sound of a teapot nearby. Let the dancing begin.

Happy Monday!