Everyone remarked at the dance lesson last night how much better I'm doing. My method: I finally broke down and wrote all the steps on an index card, with little squiggles indicating whether I am turning my wife clockwise or counterclockwise.

I also practiced with Hilary our daddy-daughter dance, and she pronounced me "sweaty."  It was hot in the room where we were practicing, and I sweat. Sue me.

 Tonight I am going to watch George play at the Berkeley. His band is warming up for a Grateful Dead cover band. Here is their MySpace page.

Hilary just left with Noodle, to take him her to his her new home in the Cleveland suburb of Clayton. Let us just say that no tears were shed, least of all by the two incumbent cats in this household, who have barely tolerated him her for several months. Hilary came and got me so I could say goodbye to the little thug.

Katherine made sure that Hilary and Travis have enough food, which means that our pantry is bare.

This morning, we ate at the Rockin' Comet for breakfast, and at the table next to us were some grandparents and their grand-rugrats. The rr's were making lots of noise. One of the kids smacked the waitress on the butt. I saw my future.

The Barkin family may still not be welcome at Smithfields BBQ on Brightleaf Blvd. due to a spillage incident involving Hilary and George around 10 years ago.

Here is a link to the column I wrote today in the N&O.

1. Hil and Travis closed on their house yesterday.  Travis showed me the keys. 

2. The dance lesson went better yesterday.  Although there was some eye-rolling, I wrote down the steps on a legal pad, because that was the only way I could break down the Swing dance she is trying to teach us.  Then I borrowed Bill's camcorder and videotaped the instructor, and Bill (Travis' father), posted it on Youtube so I can break it down further.  Hey, this is the only way I can learn. 

3.  I learned the box step that I am going to dance with Hilary at the reception, and I am doing better with that than the Swing.

4. Last night I dreamed that I'm scheduled to do a solo of Ave Maria at the wedding.  Fortunately, there are lots of versions of this on Youtube, so I think I'll be ready if called on. This is puzzling on several levels, not the least of which is the fact that I'm Jewish.  Also, my daughter is Methodist, Travis is Methodist, and the wedding is in a Methodist church,  and I don't think they do Ave Maria.  

Lots of hot dogs. Lots of presents. But I get ahead of myself.

Yesterday was a challenging one. At 7 a.m., we got a call that Katherine's brother Joe was going into emergency surgery at WakeMed. Joe, who is a farmer in Clinton, had about a 98 percent blockage in his carotid artery, and had been having a series of mini-strokes for a day. On Saturday morning, he couldn't do much on one side.

Finally, the docs decided to go in and fix the problem. So Katherine and I were in the waiting room at the CCU with Joe's wife, Nancy.

Around 11, Joe came out of surgery and -- what do you know -- he could wiggle all his fingers and lift his leg. He was Joe, a little groggier than usual, but still Joe. Joe's daughters and his son-in-law and my mother-in-law showed up, and everyone was very relieved.

Around 11:15, I ducked out to go to Marbles, the kids museum in downtown Raleigh, where we were having a launch party for TriangleMom2Mom.com, the new web site that the News & Observer has just created for local moms. I hung around there for two hours and pretty much got in the way. Towards the end, N.C. State's school of education was having their graduation for new elementary ed majors. They lined up in front of our booth and marched into one of the meeting rooms.

Then I went home, took a nap, and was awakened by Katherine because it was time to go to the church for the 6 p.m. shower. The shower was very nice. Hilary and Travis sat at the front and opened presents with the help of a two-year-old girl who squealed loudly every time a new gift was opened. Which reminded me of how Hilary used to act at her birthday parties when she was very little. Her birthday is in late July, so by the time presents would be opened, Hilary would be a sweaty little thing building a huge pile of wrapping paper and bows as she tore through the trove, squealing.

I left out the most important part, which is that Hilary got her pictures made in her bridal gown at the arboretum at State yesterday morning. She looked very bride-like last night, with a tan, and hair all done up and with bride-picture makeup.

When the shower was over, Katheine and I drove the presents back home and brought them into the house. Hilary's cat Noodle was very curious about the packages.

And that is all I have for you now. I was hoping to mow the yard today, but it's too wet, and so I have asked my son George, who is between the end of finals and the start of a summer job, to take care of the grass tomorrow.

27 days til the wedding.

Hilary has put me in charge of figuring out the transportation from the church to the reception. Evidently, this means something better than my Buick. The problem is different depending on whether it's just Hilary and Travis, or if we want to take the whole bridal party. Or maybe just the bridesmaids and Hilary and Travis.

The more people involved, the more complicated the logistics, because their cars will be at the church, and they will have to find a ride back or we will have to take them in the rented conveyance back all at once, which may not work.  I'm thinking that we will work this out somehow.

At my wedding in 1979, the reception was in the same hotel as the wedding ceremony, so it wasn't an issue. Katherine and I hopped in my Mustang when the reception was over.  We got pulled by a cop because my windshield was covered with shaving cream applied by my best man and his cronies.

Third dance lesson was last night.  

I'm waiting for the primary results to come in. Lots of activity in the newsroom. Pizza will be ordered soon, because you can't do an election night in a newsroom without pizza.

There are 32 days until the wedding. The larger significance of this is that we will soon be saying goodbye to Noodle, Hilary's cat. Noodle will be traveling over to the Cleveland community of Johnston County, around 10 miles away, to live with Hilary and Travis.

Ever since Hilary graduated from the City College of Chapel Hill in December, she has been living with us, which we, of course, love because she is a wonderful child.

Noodle, on the other hand .....

We already had two cats, Baby and Puddy. Noodle, even though she is small, is a wiry little thug who loves to pick a fight with the incumbent cats. Baby pretty much established his turf early on, and Noodle doesn't mess much with him. But Puddy didn't put the fear of God into Noodle early on, and Noodle loves to leap at Puddy and chase her around the house.

Noodle also has this tendency to attack my wife, Katherine. I was in the bonus room the other night, bonusing, when I heard this series of yelps coming from the downstairs, when Noodle was mugging Katherine's ankle with her teeth. The next day, Katherine asked me why I hadn't come to her aid.

I did think about it, but after 5-10 minutes, the screams subsided and so I figured that I could stay put.

I'm not getting any better. The Swing dance I understand in theory but in practice I am struggling with. First of all, you have to relax and focus on what you are doing, and I am tense and easily distracted.

Have you ever heard a baseball player talk about hitting? It's all about relaxing and not worrying about getting hit by a baseball thrown at 95 miles per hour, or what will happen if you strike out, or a hundred other things. When ballplayers say they are "seeing the ball good," that's shorthand for their ability to relax and shut everything out as they face the pitcher. That's why some people can hit major league pitching and the other 99.9 percent of the human race can't. It doesn't have to do with strength or catlike reflexes. It has to do with relaxation and focus.

This is not an unfamiliar situation for me. I don't play golf because I have never figured out how the backswing works. Have you ever watched a golf show? Where the guy goes: Do this, this, this, this and this and he drives the ball 300 yards straight down the fairway. I keep watching these shows, hoping to see how it works, but I can't ever see it. The few times I have tried to drive a golf ball it goes kerplink 10 yards, if i make contact at all. That's on the driving range. I can't imagine what would happen if I was in a foursome on a real golf course. I would curl up in a fetal position at the first tee.

This is also why I don't drive cars with a clutch. I have this fear of trying to work a clutch while sitting at a stoplight on a hill. I wonder if there are psychologists who work with people who are afraid of standard transmissions?

Last night, I was in a room with a half dozen other couples, all of whom are getting it, including my wife, who has been saddled with a tragically inept partner. I keep apologizing, and she is being a good sport because she knows I have my (many) good points.

The dance instructor -- this incredibly chipper dance instructor -- is attempting to choreograph us in an ambitious hybrid of Swing and Cha Cha that will amaze the guests at the reception. But I am falling further and further behind. I probably need to be in a remedial class for really, really bad dancers.

Do you remember Miss Congeniality, a movie in which Sandra Bullock is an FBI agent who goes undercover as Miss New Jersey to thwart a plot to harm contestants in a fictional Miss America contest in San Antonio? She had to learn a complicated dance step for the pageant's opening extravaganza, and, of course, she had never danced in her life, and looked it when the women were rehearsing. She would go right when everyone else was going left. She would miss turns and twirls. It seemed funny until I started taking dance lessons.

I looked like Sandra Bullock last night, metaphorically speaking.

Maybe it has to do with the way I learn. I have to break things down to their basics and write them down, step by step, before I understand them. If I don't understand one thing, I don't understand the whole thing. I ask a lot of questions. That makes it very tedious for people who are training me in something, but once I get it, I get it and don't forget.

So I think I will have to sit down with a legal pad and try to break down what I have seen and figure out what I am missing. I am worried now that I am going to mess up the dance at the reception. Walking down the aisle with Hilary used to be my big fear. Not anymore.

I am not seeing the ball good.

Katherine says to me this morning, here's one for your blog. It's on page 3A of the N&O. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via the Associated Press. We ran the truncated version in our paper. Here's the full account:

A newlywed couple spent the night in separate jail cells - she in her wedding gown - after police said they brawled with each other, then members of another wedding party, at a suburban Pittsburgh hotel.

The fight started Saturday night after a reception when he knocked her to the floor with a karate kick in the seventh-floor hallway of a Holiday Inn and escalated when she attacked two guests from another wedding party who came to her aid, police said.

The melee moved to an elevator and then to the lobby, where the couple threw metal planters at the two good Samaritans, causing minor injuries, police charged.

"It was pretty wild," Ross police Sgt. Dave Syska said.

Dentist David W. Wielechowski, 32, of Shaler, and Christa Vattimo, 25, had married a month earlier in the Bahamas but repeated their vows Saturday at a reception for 150 guests. They were checking into their room when the argument began, police said.

Police arrived to find the dentist lying on the lobby floor and his bride, seemingly highly intoxicated, screaming.

Authorities charged each with simple assault, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct, and the bride with an additional count of public intoxication. They face a May 7 preliminary hearing.

A district judge considered issuing a restraining order against Wielechowski, but his new bride declined the measure.

The couple declined comment upon their release Sunday morning.

She left with her father, still dressed in her white gown.

Wielechowski left alone, sporting a swollen eye, tuxedo pants, a bloody T-shirt and one shoe.