Who Arted

By Tonia

Three girlfriends and I recently attended a Vino van Gogh evening of wine and painting. I knew I had no artistic abilities when I made the reservation but, hey, there was wine! And I hoped that the more I drank the better my painting would look.

You see, my artistic ineptitude began a long time ago…..

MY MOM, “Honey, that is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen!”
ME: “It’s a blueberry pancake.”

            and

MY MOM, “Oh, Sweetie, your doggie is adorable!”
ME: “It’s another blueberry pancake, Mom.”

My only other art experiences have been painting by numbers, finger writing on dirty cars, penciling in mustaches on photos, and drawing dirty pictures inside bathroom stalls. The public graffiti I’m not admitting to.

So our evening began with our friendly resident artist assuring us that there were no mistakes (ahhahaha!). She patiently (did I say how patient she was?) led us step by step through a water lily painting. And, despite her excellent warning to be sure to dip our paint brushes in our water glasses and not our wine glasses, my unruly paintbrush found its way into my wine glass. Bastard brush!

So we drank and painted away and I was amazed that my water lilies didn’t turn out looking like blueberry pancakes! We had a fabulous time and I highly recommend Vino van Gogh for your next girlfriends’ outing. (Click HERE for their website.) In fact, I’m feeling so confident now in my artistic abilities that I think I’ll go draw myself a boyfriend……

Posing on the Pole

By Tonia

I’ve been hearing how pole dancing is such great exercise. It’s endorsed as a performing art and there’s been talk about adding it to the Olympics. It's also a popular stage performance at….uh….a certain kind of club.

So I decided to try it. Why not? Ya gotta’ love a sport where the gym shoes are high heels! Besides, I needed some new blog material.So I invited twelve girlfriends and booked a pole dancing party at Tulsa’s Studio 7.

But first, let me say, I am NOT a coordinated person. Bruises mysteriously pop up on my body like zits on a teenager’s face. I walk into door frames; I fall walking on flat surfaces; I break things by simply carrying them. Growing up, sports were out of the question for me. My high school couldn’t afford the liability payments. And PE was my own personal hell - detention was less of a punishment.

But what could go wrong with pole dancing? I mean, you’ve got a pole to hang onto, right? Kind of like the safety bar in the bathtub. Just hang on and step safely.

The first part of our lesson wasn’t even on a pole – it was a lesson in lap dancing. Seriously? I love my girlfriends but this took on a whole new meaning.

Some places in the US enforce a minimum distance between lap dancer and lap dance-receiver but, with my coordination, I was bumping and jarring my partner the entire time. If penalty flags had been dropped, there would have been no floor space.

So we moved quickly to the poles. Some of the moves we learned were:

THE BODY WAVE. You straddle the pole and push your chest forward onto the pole and your hips away from the pole; then you move your chest back and your hips forward in one fluid motion. Uh, my back and forth movements pretty much looked like I was trying to dry hump the pole.

THE BACKWARDS WIGGLE. You stand with your back against the pole and reach up behind your head to grab the pole with your hand. You slide down the pole with a sexy wiggle until you are crouching with your knees apart. Then you’re supposed to go back up the pole. Getting down worked OK but getting back up was a NO GO. I finally just decided to have a seat on the floor and do my nails while the others were wiggling up and down their damn poles.

THE FIREMAN SPIN* (*no firemen were harmed in the performing of this move). You wrap your legs around the pole and give yourself a spin. And, if you’re lucky, you don’t throw up on your way around.

At the end of our evening, our instructor did a fabulous demonstration of her skills and then let me copy her upside down move. I think I nailed it (see pic).

So, for your next girlfriends’ get together I highly recommend a pole dancing party. It's great exercise and good for some laughs. I think I'm going to go back (if they'll let me)!