Tripod Tribulations, A Sore Foot and The Hoochie-Mama Store

Having planned to film on the beach last night I then had to cancel everything because none of the tripods I had been planning on borrowing had the camera-tripod connectors with them. This was so frustrating because despite the fact that I had the choice of 4 tripods, two of which were belters, without the connector they're useless. We exhausted all the possible solutions, hiding places, who might have had them last, whether anyone had spares which would fit, and it was all fruitless.

Then, Atalee came in and saved the day. She offered to buy a brand new tripod which I could use before anyone else had a chance to lose any of the parts. She even turned up to class at 10.30am this morning to drop it off for me. How nice is that? She is amazing and my new favourite person in Chicago.

The filming has been rescheduled for next Tuesday so I'll let you know how it goes next week.

Yesterday in Cindy's class I managed to hurt my foot doing a cartwheel into a plank. I landed on the side rather than on the ball of my foot and it's been a bit niggly ever since. It's mostly painful when I'm walking on uneven surfaces, landing or twisting it which is a real pain in the proverbial when I've been walking everywhere (Chicago's pavements are worse than ours) and dancing every day. Luckily there isn't that much jumping in the class but there is a lot of handstands and cartwheel moves which are a bit tricky at the moment. It's all strapped up though and I'm expecting it to be fine by tomorrow (yes, I said that yesterday too!).

It was another grey afernoon so I decided to go dance clothes shopping. All the dancers I've met here have really nice long vests in lovely colours and soft, cotton, cropped trousers to wear to class and they all go to either Target or Discovery aka The Hoochie-Mama Store. The nearest HMS is on Pulaski at Lawrence, about 3 miles west of my flat here, so I hopped on a bus and headed out. Walking into it at first I thought I'd been had. The place makes Quiz and Logo look like they should be in Princes Sq, full of tacky, tight-fitting, nylon clothes, hence the shop's nickname, but when you head further into the shop past all the man-made fibres and lace inserts you discover a whole section of vests and jogging bottoms all really well made, nice and long, in gorgeous colours and cheap as chips. I got all this, 2 pairs of jogging bottoms and 3 tops, for 15 quid which is about the same as I'd spend on one pair of jogging bottoms at home.