perfect strangers...

"We're so happy, we do the dance of joy!"

When I was younger, my brother and I simply loved watching the television show "Perfect Strangers". The main characters, as pictured above, were Larry a mild-mannered newspaper reporter and his highly hilarious cousin from a Greek island, Balki. In my recollections, it must have been on Friday nights because it was always one of the last things we were allowed to watch before bed. Anyway, when ever something really wonderful happened, Balki would turn to Larry and grab him by the arms with this line: "Cousin Larry, we're so happy, we do the dance of joy!" After which lots of happy grinning, bouncing frivolity would commence. Have you ever had one of those moments?

This week, I have. And lots of them. But I'll just tell you about two.

The majority of them have all been courtesy of Heather, the creative Co. of Mr. Doodle and Co.. I simply cannot tell you how much I love working with her and how much I look forward to working with Brian (aka Mr. Doodle) to make it all a reality. Since contracting them to do some work for me for the very SECRET (but probably discernible) project which will be making it's debut rather soon, we have been talking just about every day. And now that I am bringing the new laptop to the shop, I've been able to touch base with her as needed with questions, opinions and lots of ideas. In fact, the bosses have started making note that whenever they can hear my laughter from the back of the shop, they know I'm in a "design consultation long distance".

When she "gets me" and transforms all of my ideas into the perfect visual, I want to do the dance of joy. Oh, and when no one is looking -- I do. In fact, even though we've never met and are technically "strangers"... we share so much in common, our friendship is the perfect -click-. Early on Brian called and relayed that he was waiting on something until he saw that Heather and I were on the same page. We were chatting while he perused the emails we'd exchanged back and forth. He said, and I quote, "But yeah, I can see that you are." Classic, no?!

On other fronts, yesterday was an absolute whirlwind. Clients, customers, the super-talented Tami were all in the store at the same time that I was trying to flip-flop two sofas... and everything that I wanted to do seemed to have an audience or something else needed my attention first. Yikes. Sufficed to say, by the end of the day I was absolutely wiped when a sales rep dropped by without an appointment.

Normally I wouldn't have spent the time to sit down and look through his lines, but boy am I glad that I did. Ralph showed me incredible things. Lamps, art, mirrors, the whole gamut. I'm so giddy about one line that I've shifted some other orders to change the feel of the holiday. Perfect timing? Check. Dance of Joy? Check check.

So go find some Dance of Joy moments of your own. Fair warning though -- it's exhilarating.