Nancy Edwards: The Dancing Grandma

The Big Apple Wants Me!

Recently the Universe handed me an unexpected opportunity. About two weeks ago, a New York TV producer began emailing and phoning me to be on a new talk show: "Dr. Keith Abrow". I asked what the topic was and how they found me.

The topic: older women dating much younger men.

Well over one year ago, I'd checked out a new dating site called "May/December". I didn't join it but my email information must've been stored because it linked Dr. Keith's folks to me.

I can only hope this subject is done tastefully - I sure plan to be cautious. The producers explained that men have always dated younger women, but that it's not as common the other way around. No kidding!

Then, they discovered the Dancing Grandma web site and went crazy over the idea of having me come to New York. Perhaps it's the whole "re-inventing oneself" thing. More than likely, however, it was probably due to making the mistake of informing them that I've dated a 24-year old. They begged him to appear with me but - thankfully - he didn't choose to do so.

The Big Apple Ate Us Up - Day 1

I couldn't sleep the night before this trip because I was really anxious about having made such a potentially life-altering decision, namely to "go public" in a big way with what's always been a local identity. I tossed & turned, finally arising three hours before my 6AM flight departure.

The flight was non-eventful with the only surprise being that NYC is on the OCEAN! I had no clue and had to ask somebody. A funny thing happened on my way to the studio: the handsome young driver gave me his cell phone number & said he'd love to take me out on the town if I had nothing better to do one of the nights I was there!

I tucked it in my purse, thanked him and allowed him to give me a hug which was rather "familiar". I thought to myself, "Well, isn't this proof of why they flew me here?"

The Big Apple Ate Us Up - Day 2

I learned that in NYC when someone tells you that a person will "pick you up" at a given time, they DON'T mean by car! They mean someone will WALK you to your destination! Crystal "picked me up" around noon and walked me for blocks to a small nightclub where the TV crew was waiting to tape me dancing with a handful of young guys who volunteered to do this. A couple of women were also there to emulate a nightclub scene.

The music started and I quickly forgot that I was being filmed and just got down. After what felt like hours, the men were told to line up in front of me then, one by one, each was "given" 30 seconds to show me their dancing "stuff". It was a Bachelorette model with me getting to choose my #1 partner!

The Big Apple Ate Us Up - Day 3

This is the BIG day!!!!  We were all walked to NBC's headquarters and led through very tight security into the "Green Room", where a hired baby sitter took over with the kids.  I felt sorry for them because they had wanted to be in the audience watching the show, not with a Polish baby sitter who seemed determined to give them a geography lesson as well as the history of Poland.

Mary and I were taken to make-up and hair rooms, then to ward robe.  We looked so nice.  We then proceeded on to an area behind the set and were seated in order of appearance.  We could watch the show in progress from here.  There were three other women brought here to represent "older women dating younger men". 

Day 4

This is how our final day in the Big Apple went.  The show's taping ended
on Day 3 around 1:00 in the afternoon.  We all walked back to our hotel where my daughter nearly collapsed.  This would make sense given that she's a single mother of five great kids and runs a horse boarding ranch with 80 horses!  Just to arrange making a spontaneous trip to NYC was nothing short of heroic for her.

I left her sleeping in our luxury hotel room and told the girls (6,8, and 13) that we'd explore the city.  We set out to see the big city; Trump Tower, Disney Store, and pigeon-feeding.  Exhausted, we hailed the form of transportation in this image.  After four days in NYC, I concluded that this was the ONLY way to travel, by the way.

On our last paid night in the Big Apple, we ordered prime rib from room service and a movie: "Flight
93".  We fell asleep, one by one, watching how terrorists hijacked a plane which we might very well be taking tomorrow.

On Day 4, we all packed up and stored our bags, then took a bus tour of the sights EVERY new visitor HAS to see.  Big mistake.  Our open air bus tour ($200) spent nearly two hours delivering us to a spot where we could theoretically see stuff.  Unfortunately, the weather had turned quite nasty, so the five of us froze in gail force winds and rain in the open air bus seats.

We walked for two hours, peeked at the Statue of Liberty (no time for the ferry), and stood near the concrete barracade blocking any real view of Ground Zero. The most exciting part of this experience was - of all things - feeding seagulls. I'd thought to bring a bag of uneaten french fries.  What a thrill as these birds swooped down, picking off food from our fingers!!!

We headed back to catch our pricey "Hop On, Hop Off" bus only to find that we had to wait over an hour to board for the one-hour trip back to our hotel!  The $200 tickets promised a ride every 10 minutes so that we could get on & off at our pleasure.  Bad advise from my young limo driver.

Surprisingly, after getting our bags out of storage, a big white stretch limo pulled up.  I think I'll insert just one more image here.  We arrived at the airport and saw that we'd be flying on a jumbo jet!!!!  As people were boarding this big plane, all five of our names were called to the service desk.

Apparently our boarding passes didn't include the flight from NYC to Chicago!  When we finally boarded, the officials realized that the three girls should NOT be on the front row emergency exit row of seats.  We stood at the front of this jumbo jet for 15 minutes while the officials tried to find us all seats.  Sitting right in the front row staring at us was an Iranian man who looked EXACTLY like the hijacker on the movie.

The man wouldn't smile and his eyes shifted back & forth.  We were spooked for sure.  Finally, some other passengers "traded" their seats so we could sit together.  Bree (13) and I occupied aisle seats.  She discovered head phones and rock music, then punched in this station for me.  The two of us sat there dancing in our seats with gusto until her mother - my daughter- told me to quit making the whole seat move around.  OK.

As long as I live I will never forget this magical adventure.......nor will my grand daughters, I think?  Thank you for sharing this incredible adventure with me.  Hopefully, this is just the beginning?

Dancing... It's better than exercise!

I'm 61 years old. Until about one year ago, I had high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and weighed at least 30 pounds more than my 5'2" height warranted. My aerobic activity amounted to walking to the mail box once a day - even this caused heart pain for me. In the previous 20 years, I'd tried every form of activity, including joining health clubs at least half a dozen times. Each time, I lost my motivation after a few weeks.

I also paid $700 for a Nordic Track, bought a pricey bike, and purchased a high-end treadmill. As with the health clubs, none of these items maintained my interest for very long. I'd long since concluded that unless an activity was FUN, I would not keep it up! How many others have fallen back into slothful lifestyles for the same reason? I think I'm rather typical.

About a year ago, I found myself in a bar with a rock band. My salsa class had been cancelled right above this bar, so I ventured into it. The music began, I moved a little to it, then eventually found myself up on the dance floor letting loose with moves I didn't even know were in me! By the end of the evening, I was given roses for being the "best dancer of the evening".

BREATH OF FRESH AIR

Hello to my fans! Yesterday, the Discovery Magazine hit the newstands with a very nice and detailed article on "The Dancing Grandma of Navarre". It was much more detalied than the February article in the Strib and the two photos were acceptable. Having action shots while dancing taken more often than not can reveal some very funny facial expressions!

The article mentions that my three adult children hold fast to the rule of "never bringing attention to oneself", and that my hope is they'll join me one day on the dance floor. This miracle has already occurred, but not in time to be noted in the magazine! My 40-year old daughter, Mary, has fully joined in the fun of dancing with her mom at local taverns.

I couldn't be happier about this! She's a much classier, smoother dancer than me and draws much attention when we "appear" together, but I'm more uninhibited by far. We make quite the couple out there. The greatest reward however of having her join me is that by doing so, she finally & fully "gets"
what this scene is all about for me. Any and all critical judgments have disappeared as a result, and my daughter now takes delight in this phenomenon.

I'm not sure where things will proceed from here. Unfortunately, the magazine article neglected to mention my web site, so there's no easy way for interested people to track me down with incredible job offers or invitations to be a party-starter. I guess if more is to come from this silliness, the Universe will present it to me?

I'm discouraged.......

Hi loyal readers! I wish I could report all sorts of wonderful career developments, but the truth is that I really don't know what I'm doing. After such a stellar start, my little women's group disbanded due to scheduling conflicts.

I continue to dance at least 3-4 times each week and the people present continue to love this demonstration of joy. In two days, there will be a photo shoot up at my beloved tavern. These photos will accompany a story on the "Dancing Grandma" in the quarterly magazine for the Lakeshore Weekly,
scheduled to hit the news stands the first week of May.

My 40-year old daughter has joined me in the joy of dancing at the Narrows this past month. It's really strange to see men I've dated hitting on HER! She's a better dancer than me - classier - but lacks the total abandon I possess. She's wondered this past year why her mom dances at a biker bar many hours a week. Now she knows! I'm delighted to have her experience this with me because it can't be easy to have a 60-something mom suddenly become a bar dancer!

Please stay with me and the news from this site.....I will continue to believe that there are far too few
examples of joyful living at my stage of life!

I decided to add this category so that I could share a few extraordinary solutions to age-old problems around the house, most especially pet problems. I've had 13 cats over the last 17 years - usually five at a time. Last summer, I was in the sad position of putting three down in just six weeks, so I "only" have two now.

The worst cat problem of course is urine or spray odors. Over the years, I've replaced whole rooms of carpeting, redone hardwood, and tossed many affected items due to this issue. I've tried every product on the market: Nature's Miracle, bleach, peroxide, Hot Shot, etc. None of these has worked to eliminate the odor. I hate to admit this, but I've felt forced to make the euthanasia decision for a couple of geriatric cats based on urinating outside the box.

Last summer, two of my 17-year old cats soiled a large area of my 10' round deep shag carpet. I had it cleaned, but the urine had soaked the hardwood floor below. I could barely stand to be in my living room due to the smell.

A miracle product appeared in a newspaper column: ATMOSKLEAR was the name. I found it in Target's air freshener department, brought it home and sprayed the hardwood. Within mere seconds, there was NO ODOR WHATSOEVER!!!!! I got down on my knees and put my nose to the floor: NO ODOR could be detected. This, after 3 months of stench and every possible product had been tried.

I got so excited about AtmosKlear that I called the toll-free telephone number and found myself speaking to its inventor. I got a real education on the topic of "odors". He explained that anything which smells emits gases and it's these gases which produce the unpleasant odors. His product literally eliminates the gases. He said he's demonstrated this by, among other tactics, placing a pile of dog poop on the floor and spraying it! The smell just disappears.

As we talked, I learned that this same miracle product eliminates other common odors:
HOCKEY EQUIPMENT (my roommate & all his hockey buddies use it)
DOG AND SKUNK ENCOUNTER STENCH
CIGARETTE ODOR ON CLOTHES
OVERSPRAY FROM BOYS BATHROOM USE
SMELLY SHOES

The list is endless and oh so impressive. I even considered repping this product in toddler departments for moms of little boys. The inventor, a local guy, suggested that I come up with a name for it. This was fun! I settled on PISS MISSED (or PISS MIST) but this idea went south when he said I'd have to purchase 1500 bottles of his product in order to rep for my own partial profit!

Enough on odors! There are two other solutions for pesky household problems I can mention in this post. One is pet hair on furniture: use a pet brush with little wire bristles. This also works on cleaning screens each spring!

Finally, to make porceline sinks pure white again with NO scrubbing, fill the sink with about two inches of water and liberally sprinkle dishwasher powder in it. Leave it for an hour or so, rinse it away, and your sink will look like new.

I'd welcome any "miracle cures" my site visitors have happened upon and will add them to this list.

Daylight Activity

I made a decision a few weeks ago that I spend entirely too much time only having fun AFTER dark and in places where people are drinking. This decision led me to getting a very part time job at Caribou
Coffee in downtown Wayzata. My logic? Well, I'd be meeting new folks in the daylight who weren't using alcohol.

I've had a really hard time however in learning a whole new skill set! In fact, I'm calling myself the
"Cari-booboo". There's a whole subculture and language to this environment. Terms like "moose it",
"skinny", "half caf", "dry latte", etc. continure to trip me up.

One "guest" last week had this order: turtle mocha with lite whip no shavings moosed twice five splendas no bean half caf extra hot soy milk lite caramel drip no bean. Get THAT?! My God - and of course she had a line of customers seven deep behind her!

Since I only worked a four-hour shift once a week, I had little chance to really "learn through repetition" in my new job. My most common, ridiculous mistake is closing my apron strings in the cash drawer after ringing up a sale. This traps me and renders getting the coffees impossible until I ring up the next sale as I'm tied to the drawer!

My first, and so far ONLY, stint on the bar making drinks spooked me enough that I've managed to avoid working the bar ever since. No one seems to mind because all the other employees prefer working the bar and hate the cash register function.

While attempting to steam milk to 160 degrees, I splattered it all over myself and the bar. This hurt and was all I needed to become instantly phobic around steamed milk. Unfortunately, most drinks require this dangerously hot ingredient.

I am not doing this for the money! In fact, I earn more in one hour as a therapist than I earn in 13 hours at the coffee shop. Last week, after one month of trying to "get it right", my manager sat me down and delivered negative feedback from my co-workers. They're annoyed that I ask so many questions. Tears welled up in my eyes and I felt like a little kid who can't do anything "right".

I considered never going back. If a low-paid, difficult job like this could ding my self-esteem this much, why even do it? Oddly, my very next shift went really well and everyone was extra nice to me, telling me I was doing a great job. I think the manager must've informed them that I might run out of there crying.

It's starting to feel like fun now, so I'll probably hang in there. At least it gets me out of the cottage and among other human beings! And, I get one pound of FREE Caribou coffee a week :)