Mr. James Brown and I share a dance move. I’d like to take credit for it but I know he was the king.
Here’s the story.
I was invited to a party but was going to arrive late as I was playing soccer in town first. I cruised by the house party on return and could only see four men sitting in chairs and soft lighting in the living room and thought, “Oh no! Poor Marie! Hardly anyone went to her party.”
I ran home long enough to change and grab the cookies I’d baked for the party then bundled up as it was -30 C or colder with the wind and started walking to the party. I headed up the five or so steps to the front door and rather than knocking, simply opened the door, stepped up into the foyer and called out cheerfully, “HI! I’m HERE!” with a big smile. It was at that point that I noticed the other 10 people sitting on the floor playing a game. They all turned to say hi but
It was also at that point when Mr.James Brown took hold of my body.
I (minus the scarf in this photo but otherwise wearing this outfit…)
had planted my right foot on the linoleum of the foyer and as I pulled my left foot up to go in the house it caught on the lip of the doorjamb and, rocking back on my right heel to regain my balance, the snow on my boot turned it into a slip ‘n slide on the flooring and
BOOM!
Down I went like James Brown onto my left knee, right foot shooting out in front.
I had the container of cookies in my left hand and my right on the doorknob and all the people disappeared as I disappeared from their sight below a half wall separating the foyer from the living room and everyone shouted
OH!
in unison as I hit the ground.
Well, laughing, I started to try and claw my way back to standing and kind of did but then as I stood, my forward momentum pulled the door shut behind me and pinned my left foot outside, still stuck in the doorjamb and
BOOM!
I went down again and everyone said
OH!
and I called out from the floor laughing, “I’m fine!”
and tried to claw my way back to standing but the door swung shut again and
BOOM!
James Brown again.
OMG!
I think I did it four times getting the same reaction from the crowd. I never dropped my cookies and I never stopped laughing but did finally admit defeat and croak, “I’m stuck…”
at which point it occurred to me to let go of the doorknob but that meant I fell to the ground like a worm and then managed to roll over and free my back foot to pull it inside the house and THEN I was able to stand up, pull the door shut and hand my hostess the cookies.
Not long after that they threw me into the final round of the charades game where I deftly led my team to victory. I went home an hour later with a chocolate-peanut butter cupcake and two prizes – one for being on the winning team and another for being the top scorer of the game.
IN case you’ve forgotten the sheer genius and sex appeal of one Mr. James Brown, please remind yourself of why he was a world-class entertainer. Move ahead to 3:50 in the video and from there you’ve pretty much got a reenactment of my grand entrance to the party. Sadly, I wasn’t making men at the party scream for me in quite the same way that Mr. Brown had the girls in this video shrieking for more.
CurlyQ 