So I Think I Can Dance (and you can too)

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Health, Media, Pop Culture | 11 Comments

Connie Stetson mixes it up with inspiration, perspiration and dizzy dancing feet.

Dear readers, we have become so close now, I feel I can tell you anything. I know you won’t judge me harshly when I confess to you how very much I love the “reality” game show. The contestants, the competition, the prize—the whole format, well, it’s all just so darn much fun.

I love Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Idol, The Bachelorette, Top Chef, Project Runway and even the great American cheese-fest, Dancing With the Stars. But by far and away, I love So You Think You Can Dance. Partly because at one time I did think could dance, and partly because I now wish I could dance as well as I once thought I could. Watching these beautiful, talented, athletic young dancers sends me into a pulse-pounding frenzy of vicarious joy; and I am with them every soaring step and heart stopping stumble along the way. I am hooked and I am also impressed.

In 2009, producer Nigel Lythgoe, actress Katie Holmes, dancer/choreographer Debbie Allen, and a host others, began The Dizzy Feet Foundation . Its mission is to support, improve and increase dance education in the United States, provide scholarships, set standards for dance education and insure that disadvantaged children have access to dance. The Dizzy Feet Foundation has also declared Saturday July 31st, National Dance Day. View the cool choreography that Napoleon and Tabitha have created to get America off our collective asses and onto the dance floor. They have made it easy enough for anyone to learn and I’m getting down right now with my very bad, very funky self. Read more

Spring Cleaning

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Seasonal | 17 Comments

Planting, cleaning, renewing and redoing, Connie Stetson’s got the fever only spring can bring

I have spent my Memorial Day weekend outside, in my garden, working like a sod farmer, weeding, mulching and feeding, because at long last it isn’t pouring down rain. I’m not complaining, mind you, I was born in Seattle, so extended periods of drizzles, drips and downpours are in my DNA. Also, I have lived in central California long enough to know that any moisture is good for the skin — HELLO, this is raisin country…‘nuf said. I have also today planted my tomatoes, peppers, herbs and flowers, got the fountain going and put up my hummingbird feeders. It’s really green, lush and pretty here right now, and I feel busy and happy.

In other spring cleaning news, the “Frock Swap” is coming next month, a fundraiser for our local yoga studio, Downtown Yoga. A great place for yoga, Pilates, and, oh—by the way, Acting 101, taught by my own little self. I love the Frock Swap, it’s an opportunity to cull my closets and drawers of gently used, badly bought items—clothing, shoes and bags—and send them out into the universe for re-sell; it makes me feel less ashamed for buying impulsively. The last Frock Swap bought the studio its outdoor sign. It’s also fun to see my poorly thought out buys strolling down the street fresh and new, looking much, much better on someone else. Read more

Canyons, Cactus, and Casinos, Oh My!

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Courage, Travel | 14 Comments

Connie and Lee tackle their first rapid

Connie Stetson discovers a brave new world with adventure around every curve

As I write, it’s been a little over a week since Lee and I completed a month-long, nearly 300 mile journey through the sands of time. Literally. I am still rinsing the freaking sands of time out my gear.

My husband, with the Greenwood Expedition, party of 11, began a river trip at Lee’s Ferry near Glen Canyon Dam on Jan. 27th to raft the upper Grand Canyon. I left Fresno on Feb. 4th, flew to Flagstaff, took a shuttle bus to the South Rim, checked in at the Bright Angel Lodge, and at 8:30 am on Feb. 5th, I began my journey down, down, down, through snow and ice, mud and streams, more than ten miles, seven oceans, and millions of years of geologic time, (sorry, fundamentalists…that would be more than 6,000) — to meet them near Phantom Ranch on the mighty, muddy Colorado River. The next day, in a driving rainstorm, two walked out; and then we were ten, in four rafts, launching off into the rapids of the Grand Canyon.

How was it, you ask? It was exhausting, thrilling, challenging, beautiful, vexing, uncomfortable, cold, painful, quiet, noisy, scary, soothing, hard, transcendent, and nourishing. Read more

It’s 5:00 PM. Do You Know Where Your Vodka Is?

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Relationships | 8 Comments

Keeping up with your girlfriends can be a challenge. Connie Stetson offers up a solution that is shaken, stirred and intoxicating.

“It’s 5:00 PM. Do you know where your vodka is?” Okay, I actually stole that line from my pal, Barbara. It was just too funny not to use and she’s a funny girl, especially around cocktail hour. I’m not sure exactly how much vodka she and I have consumed over the last 20 years, but certainly enough to be awarded Russian citizenship with full honors. “Nostrovya,” ya’ll!

When I moved up here to Yosemite 23 years ago, I fretted as to how to keep my friendships in L.A. thriving. For a long time, I’d find any excuse possible to get back there. I needed a haircut, shoes, movies, the theater, the Apple Pan, or just the smell of good, salty ocean air, (which I still long for every day I’m in the woods.) But mostly, because I was so bloody homesick for everyone who knew me, and because I had not yet reinvented myself into the mountain bitch I am today.

I’m not sure anymore who’s idea it was to start the Monday Night Martini, but Barbara and I agreed that Monday was good, because nothing was on TV anyway, and who doesn’t need a cocktail on Mondays, yes? Read more

Get Up Offa That Thing

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Group Posts | 10 Comments

Get up, warm up and get funky with Connie Stetson’s choice for post-holiday cheer.

Urghhh…It’s after Christmas. I feel fat like a stuffed Christmas goose. I need to feel the funk…. So, let’s “Get Up Offa That Thing” and dance so we can feel better in 2010. 2010???? I feel so space-age.

Much love and luck to all in the coming year. 


The Weight of Age

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Politics | 10 Comments

Connie Stetson reflects on what shaped her views of democracy and what fuels her hope today.

With the passing of Teddy Kennedy, aside from feeling real grief at his loss, I am feeling, profoundly, the weight of my age. Not my chronological age, I just turned 58, but the age that has shaped my sensibilities, the age I am passing through. As I write this I feel like a trauma survivor, as though I’m watching my life pass before my eyes.

The year of my birth, 1951, Harry S. Truman was president, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected in 1956. The first presidential election I can remember was between Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy. It was as hotly contested in our family as it was in the nation. My grandparents were staunch Republicans, supporting Nixon, and my mother was a Democrat, mad about Kennedy.

That first televised debate, Sept. 26th, 1960, at nine years old, made me a life-long Democrat. Those impossibly handsome brothers, Jack, Bobby and Teddy, whose passions fueled the passion of a generation, were the real standard bearers of hope and change, the very words I am sick to death of hearing politicians spew now.

It was late November in 1963, I was in my Home Ec. class (which was mandatory for girls then), anticipating the Thanksgiving holiday long weekend, when our school principal announced that Kennedy had been shot in a motorcade in Dallas. Read more

A Bird in the Hand

Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Media, Pop Culture, Travel | 12 Comments

For Connie Stetson, accompanying her actor husband to New York City was all glitz, glamour and excitement, but coming home was a true revelation.

Hi all—the lovely Mrs. Stetson here.

Lee and I had a perfectly wonderful trip to New York City enjoying the many sights (our hotel was right in the shadow of the Empire State Building) and sounds (does the horn honking never stop?) and smells (ahhh, the smell of falafel in the air….) We hit the ground running our first night there and had a great Turkish dinner with my dear old friends, Barbara and Jim. Day two we set off walking, did some shopping, and then readied for our black-tie gala celebrating the premiere of Ken Burns’ The National Parks—America’s Best Idea on Ellis Island.

I showed up quite glamorous in my black satin trousers, white tuxedo shirt, stiletto strappy sandals, Cathy’s fabulous black and white embroidered shawl and oodles of pretty great looking faux pearls, and except for the satin, the shawl, pearls and stiletto’s that’s what Lee wore too (the lucky, cuz’ my feet were killing me!!). He looked mah-velous, darlings. We sat at the muckymuck table with Ken Burns, Dayton Dalton, Shelton Johnson, Gerard Baker and their lovely Missesses, Roxann and Mary Kay. We enjoyed our desserts to a live performance of Alison Krauss and Union Station. Pretty darn good. Read more

keep looking »