Chip and I got up this morning at 6:30 to go out to breakfast before the day’s activities began.  He was really in the mood for a Perreca’s frittata: prosciutto, capers and caramelized onions, yummy.  I thought to myself, what the heck, I have Zumba today at 10am so I had two eggs over medium, Italian home fries, Italian sausage and toast with butter.  No problem, again, I have Zumba and will burn at least 600 calories in the hour.

I raced out of my house at 9:40 for the 10am Zumba class only to find out that Zumba was cancelled due to a Body Pump launch.  Now I like Body Pump well enough and although I have strayed from it for about 2 months, it is a good workout but IT IS NOT ZUMBA.  Do these people realize I ate PERRECA’s TOAST WITH BUTTER?  The people at the gym, in error, did not tell the 40-50 women who each Saturday burn off the sins of the past with Zumba, that it was cancelled. The little skinny guy eating the bagel with cream cheese was not feeling our pain.

What do we do?  We need to take a class.  We need to exercise. We discussed a Zumba Flash mob, an impromptu Zumba class in the middle of the gym floor and a sit in….none of which we really would have done.  Our gym is a great place to work out and the people there are super.  They offered us some consolation and a P90X class on the fly so we could get a workout.  (Thank you Laurie for lugging in your ‘mobile Zumba class’ and offering to teach in the open floor space!)

In my own selfish way, all I could think of was the toast and butter.  I did not end up eating the sausage after all so I spared myself any additional grief.  It was interesting seeing all the reaction as each classmate entered the gym and heard the news: No Zumba today! I think maybe they each had their own version of that forbidden toast and butter.

“What? No Zumba?”

I think the problem was a combination of having our routines messed up and the hour of intense exercise and social interaction ripped from our weekend.  Extreme you say? I say not really.

In our group we have a wonderful woman with a father that is ill, seriously ill and I know it took a a lot for her to get there.  We have a woman, I call “The Russian” who is sweet and shy and I have watched her blossom into a shimmy-shaking’ Zumba girl, even though I cannot understand 80% of what she says.  At least five of my friends said they did not feel like coming out but they did because we don’t let each other down. Even for me, I received some test results on Friday that are at best, disconcerting.  I go to Zumba to forget it for a while and feel the support and kindness of these women. I went Friday night and Chip gets it…he said you’ll feel better after you go.  He was right.

So, “Zumba is cancelled today” means a lot of things  a lot of people.  It is not always as it appears. It is a social time, a healing time, a girl’s time to complain or cry or let it all out without judgement or ramification.

Again, thanks Laurie for trying to keep it together for us and sincerely thank you to our gym for manning up and doing the right thing.  Next time, I will call the gym first before going to Perreca’s for breakfast.