Life has taken quite the turn – moreso than usual. Of course I have the daily 9to9, but have been wrapped up with Wigg’s new med­ical devel­op­ments (they found a growth they need to biopsy – fun fun! He’s going to be a surgery reg­u­lar at his vet hos­pi­tal at this rate) and cook­ing for me hasn’t been as much of a pri­or­ity as it has been cook­ing for him. The dog goes through about 5 pounds of chicken a week – let’s not even cal­cu­late the amount of rice that has to be made. Any­whoo, as I was say­ing, it’s been a busy sum­mer here for this gal. Any cook­ing I have done, it’s either been recipes I have already spot­lighted here that I can whip up in a jiffy or items for friends’ par­ties and BBQs.

I do have a bit of an off-topic event that has been con­sum­ing my atten­tion for the past few weeks. For many Philly peeps, the town has been all abuzz about the Dancin’ on Air Marathon that is set to run on PHL17. For those of you not famil­iar with Dancin’ on Air, well, it was a regional show that was filmed locally in Philly dur­ing the 80s which even­tu­ally went national under the name Dance Party USA. Pretty much, Dancin’ on Air (and, in turn, Dance Party USA) is looked upon fondly in this part of the woods. I can’t tell you how many peo­ple tell me that they had a cousin, brother, sis­ter, mother, neigh­bor dance on the show. As I often joke that my days on the set of Dance Party helped hone my PR skills (I hated being on cam­era), my days on set gave me a fam­ily of friends that I trea­sure to this day.

A (huge) group of for­mer dancers headed to PHL17′s stu­dios a cou­ple weeks ago to tape ret­ro­spec­tives of their mem­o­ries and time on the set, lessons learned, funny sto­ries and it was like one huge catch-up fest. Granted many of us get together for birth­days, wed­dings, home again par­ties, cock­tails, etc. but this time we saw faces that I can say I haven’t seen in 20+ years. It was so good to catch up in those hall­ways and on the stu­dio stage of PHL17 – so many mem­o­ries from being “pulled” (when we weren’t allowed to dance on set because of some infrac­tion of some sort – talk­ing, gum chew­ing, atti­tude, look­ing at the cam­era too much), “roll call” and just get­ting reac­quainted with the cam­era (and for those that know me KNOW I detest that dag­gone cam­era! *LOL*)

So, with PHL17 air­ing 4 vin­tage eps of Dancin’ on Air from their vaults, you know we had to pull out the stops. The Piazza at Schmidts with the Dancin’ on Air and Dance Party USA Alumni is host­ing a “View­ing Party” in North­ern Lib­er­ties on Sat­ur­day, July 23, 2011 from 8 – 10 and there will be so many famil­iar faces from shows past. It’s going to be a GREAT time and we’ve been basi­cally run­ning our­selves ragged plan­ning it. I have to give major kudos to Romeo, Annette, Liz, “Princess” and Niecy for giv­ing this their all They are a dream team I’m thrilled to work with and I’m seri­ously look­ing for­ward to tomorrow’s fes­tiv­i­ties. I’m hear­ing its the “talk of the town”.

So – those in Philly – c’mon on down and watch some vin­tage eps with us!   I’m hear­ing there might even be a lit­tle Madonna in the mix (and some Duran Duran – who knew.  I won­der – was The Rov­ing Stove’s Julie Anne on the Dancin’ on Air set way back then?  Small. World!)

And, for those that wanted to know about the “Rules” check out this “reflec­tion” cour­tesy of PHL17!