Posts Tagged With: ballet

chaos and big love

Oh God! Will it ever stop raining? ~ The Saw Doctors

Chaos rained down in big fat drops!

My birthday was actually quite lovely. YBW surprised me by staying home and greeting me with kisses and pressies as I woke up. Then took me to my favorite “dump” for breakfast! Heading into work late, he dropped me off with Sundance. She and I went to see her folks and had a little lunch with her mom.

Graduation was long, but not at all boring. And though he’s not “really” my kid, I was filled with love and pride as Thing C crossed the stage in his green cap and gown.
The added surprise of seeing a girl who was absolute best friends with my own Thing 1 from the time they were four cross the stage brought me so much joy!

I woke Friday morning (Friday the 13th even…my favorite!!!) to the news that my darling friend and mentor’s beloved died the night before.
Yes, he had been ill. But after the news of “four to six months” his illness took his life in one short week.
I started my drive to Charleston at four o’clock Sunday morning and spent the next three days loving my friend through her initial grief. There was much wine and laughter and some sadness as we celebrated the life of this man we all loved.
She kept thanking me for being there. Truthfully, there was nowhere else I would have been. My place in the world in those days was with her. There was no question. I was where I belonged.

I was able to squeeze in time with my sister-in-law. (I got to keep her in the divorce, the love we share made us sisters in our own right, it just so happens she was the former husbands sister first.) Got to spend time with my nephew and niece. That little girl is a bundle of kookiness if I ever saw one! She so reminds me of Thing 2 when she was that age. All “chatty Cathy” and bouncy arms and legs, trying so hard to be grown and still so little. She’ll be ten next week. I can’t believe how quickly the time passed!

I came home in time to celebrate Thing G’s birthday on Wednesday. Celebrating sixteen is so different for boys than for girls. It isn’t quite as big of a deal. Thing 1 had a huge “Punked Out Wonderland” party for her “sweet sixteen”. Thing 2 and I spent the day at the spa…facials, manis and pedis and lunch. She didn’t want a big party. That’s her personality though…

Last night my Arizona friend and her two daughters arrived! So much Robynbird joy!! They’re here for the weekend and then just as they leave, her eldest son rolls into town. Getting to love two thirds of their family is nothing to sneeze at!
She and I will go to the ballet this evening while the girls go visit old friends.
The oldest sister, my Goddaughter, just woke up and now we’re going to have tea and visit before everyone else gets out of bed.

Yesterday afternoon, YBW and I were up the street at our neighbors for cocktails. I remarked that I felt like I hadn’t seen him in a month!
It feels like I got on a hamster wheel on my birthday and just yesterday finally got off. The last ten days were fast, furious, and chaotic, but filled with great big love.
It’s time for me to keep the love but say “Bye Felicia” to the chaos…I need the rest.

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dreaming Clara’s dream

Eeeeeeeeee!
Last night was The Nutcracker!
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We found our seats and had a little clap and squeal!
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The curtain was late going up by about ten minutes and it was as hot as hell in the theater. But we were honestly the happiest girls in the world!
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I adore Septime Webre, The Washington Ballet‘s Artistic Director. He’s an absolute genius!
Take a peek at his note from the playbill.
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I love his American vision for The Nutcracker. George Washington as the Nutcracker was precious.
Thank you Clara, for sharing your beautiful dream with us!
I experienced a few happy tears during Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Here’s a little treat for you:

Categories: love, me, on being a mom | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

may the force (of Christmas) be with you

YBW and little D’s daddy, S went to see Star Wars this morning. They’re like kids in a candy store. I think if they weren’t “grown up men” they would have been clapping and squealing like ballet going little girls. Apparently they’ve got more self control than others of us.
I can’t wait to hear all about it when he gets home! I love to see him be happy and excited about the things he loves!

Speaking of (lack of) self control, Thing 2 will already be on the plane this time tomorrow! (I may have clapped and squealed.)
She just sent this to me in a text: SO excited to be with all of you! And the ballet and the nativities :3 ah! I can’t wait, Chriiiistmaaaas! (Sing-songy at the end there)
Oh, little girl, I could hear your sing-song voice as I read the words!

Exciting things all around this weekend!

I’ve got Christmas music playing, right now it’s James Brown’s Funky Christmas. James Brown singing The Christmas Song. I can’t even!
I feel like Thing 2. Terribly excited to be with my whole family. Ready to dance with the sugar plum fairies. All the baby Jesuses waiting for us at the Cathedral!

Oh how I love Christmas!
It truly is the most wonderful time of the year!

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dance of the sugar plum fairy

Thing 2 arrives December twentieth, three days before her sister. It’s just how it worked out, Fiance N is coming with Thing 1, but boyfriend D isn’t coming with Thing 2. Thing 2 will be here for Christmas, but back in SC with boyfriend D for New Years. Thing 1 and N will stay with us through the new year.

Thing 2 and I are going to oodgey-goodgey our favorite theatrical entertainment and see The Washington Ballet dance The Nutcracker at Warner Theatre.

photo cred: The Washington Ballet

photo cred: The Washington Ballet

We’ve seen this particular ballet before. (More than once, even.) But how could I pass up the opportunity when I haven’t had Christmas with my baby at actual Christmastime in two years?

I left her a message asking if she’d like to go. I got a text back within three minutes that read: Dude, yes!! I’m sorry I didn’t answer, I’m having a deep talk with Anna. (Her BFFL, who just recently returned to SC.) But I would absolutely love to go!

I’m so excited we’re going to the ballet!
I’m so excited both my babies will be with me for Christmas!
YBW is excited he doesn’t have to go to the ballet with me. (Yet…The National Ballet of Canada is coming to the Kennedy Center Opera House with Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale in January…I asked him the moment he got home if he’d go with me…cross your fingers!)
He doesn’t hate the ballet, but he doesn’t love it…he goes because he loves me and I suspect he secretly gets a great deal of pleasure experiencing my absolutely pure ballet joy.

Thing 2 was a ballerina for six years, then figure skater for two. (I’ve always considered figure skating as ballet on ice.) She didn’t do it because of me. She did it because she announced one day at the age of two that she was going to be a prima ballerina when she grew up. (How the eff did she even know what that was at that age?)
The kid was a natural. But when the ballet studio changed ownership it became a place where she grew increasingly uncomfortable. She announced she was finished. I searched for another school, but she had lost her passion. It had become tainted for her.
I wonder if she really even remembers that.

We share this deep love for the ballet, and together we will be as little girls joining Clara on the night of her astounding dream.
We’re going on the twenty second of December, it would have been my mom’s seventieth birthday. Somehow that makes it even more special to me.

Bolshoi Ballet’s Nina Kaptsova Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy 2010

Categories: love, me, on being a mom | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

ballerina time

I’m a ballet whore.
I love the ballet, I love the dancers, the costumes, the music, dressing up and going to the theater. I sit in my chair and clap like a little girl when the lights go down. It makes me feel like a little princess and grown up queen all at the same time!

I’ve compiled a list of all the shows I need to see this ballet season…TWB’s Peter Pan, ABT’s Don Quixote, the Bolshoi’s Giselle and Pennsylvania Ballet’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
I’ve already posted this list to my fb page to see if I have any takers so I don’t have to go by myself because poor YBW doesn’t really want to go to ALL these performances.

A curious thing happened…a ballet I completely ignored has piqued Thing C’s interest…TWB’s British Invasion. The music for this ballet is all Beatles and Stones songs. (Thing C is a big ole Beatles fan.) Just to be sure, I texted him Friday evening: On a scale of no thank you to pants peeing how much do you want to go see the Beatles/Stones ballet?
His response: I would love to go!
So earlier this afternoon I bought two tickets to see British Invasion, one for my darling Thing C and one for me. It’s his first ballet and he is very excited and I’m excited because he’s excited.

I’m holding out hope that other ballet lovers will want to attend some of these performances with me to cut YBW some slack…he said he’d go with me even though he doesn’t prefer the ballet to other theater going experiences.
This morning I got an email from him with the Woolly Mammoth’s season schedule…perhaps it’ll be a little tit for tat…ballet for me, play for him, back and forth until the season is over.
(I’m TOTALLY clapping like a little girl! I might just need to put on my tiara!)

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