I had a great time with Rose last night. It was her actual birthday, so we had a special date. First, I told her the family would go out to eat anywhere she wanted, so of course she chose Qdoba. My daughter is a girl of simple tastes. Charles met us there after Dillon’s tap class, and the kids got their plain jane burritos with just black beans, rice, and cheese. Dillon has been experimenting by adding a little pico de gallo, but even though Rose likes spicy stuff she will not consider trying any salsas on her burritos.
The next thing on our agenda was for Rose and I to go see the Sound of Music. This is a new family favorite in our house, and the Skylight Music Theatre was putting it on, Charles and I have season tickets but our regular weekend matinee was preempted by Dillon’s lego robotics tournament two weeks ago, and I basically waited until the last possible minute to change the tickets, and couldn’t really get them on the weekend anymore, so I changed them to Rose’s birthday even though the show started at 7:30pm, her regular bedtime.
Unfortunately, we finished our dinner at 6:20, so we basically had an hour and change to kill before the show. We drove around downtown a bit looking at the Christmas lights, and then I decided we’d park in my paid space and just take a leisurely six-block walk (by way of my office) to the theater. First, we stopped at the Milwaukee Public Market to get a snack for intermission – Rose was extremely disappointed that the Breadsmith has mostly left the market, but we found a pumpkin muffin at the fancy bakery place that was plain enough for her. I swear, she is the only kid ever who consistently will pick a piece of bread or a plain muffin over elaborately decorated cupcakes, frosted cookies, cake pops, and beautiful tarts. But I adore that about her.
Then, we walked to my office, where I took a couple of ibuprofen (the ulterior motive for the stop) and Rose was amazed that we didn’t see anyone in the building. It was almost 7pm, though, and I told her that the people I work with were all home with their families. But it is funny to be in the building late at night and not see another soul. Usually I run into someone in the elevator or lobby or whatever.
So we walked over to the Skylight, and found our seats. At first, the usher sat us in the wrong place, the worst seats in the house, and I stewed about that for a bit, wondering if all of the seats were sold out and if we could move during intermission. Because we usually sit up in the balcony but not in the super cheap, obstructed seats… We are in the second cheapest seats, but man, is there a difference, Rose couldn’t see any part of the stage without leaning over the railing. But later on (but before the show started) there was a big kerfuffle involving like, three separate groups of people who thought they were all supposed to be sitting in one place, and it turned out that one of the ushers didn’t know how the boxes were numbered, and the main usher asked to see our tickets too and realized we were in the wrong place, so we went back to the center of the balcony where we usually sit and Rose was like, “This is GREAT!!” No more wishing we were in the orchestra section.
She had a case of the giggles just before the show started, so I was wondering if she was just way too tired to stay out so late, but she settled in right away, and aside from having to remind her that we don’t sing along, even if we really like the songs, there were no regrets about going. She ate her pumpkin muffin during intermission, I gave her the option of going home at that point but she said, “I want to stay until the end, and then fall asleep in the car on the way home.”  This is a girl who always has a plan.
We really enjoyed the show, and on the long walk back to the car afterward, sang the songs she wanted to sing along with during the show: My Favorite Things and So Long, Farewell. She managed to stay awake until we got home, but was completely wrecked, she just couldn’t come up with an answer when her dad asked about the show. Overall, I think it was a pretty great night.
