Note to self: Know what you are taking your kid to see

I am a big fan of performances. I particularly love musicals. For many years I had a subscription to Pittsburgh Musical Theater (nee Gargaro), but then my husband opened a restaurant, I had to take a 25 percent pay cut, and I had a baby, all within a six-month period, so that ended that.

About five years ago, we discovered Gemini Theater, a wonderful production company that puts on reasonably priced interactive performances geared towards children. We attend a few show every year, but J is kind of old for them.

Earlier this year, PMT put on Le Miz. I had never seen it but knew a little about it. Some of it was adult-related, but the musical director (my former choir director) assured me those things would go over J's head, so I took her. He was right; the brothel scene was just a dance hall for all she knew. J enjoyed the performance, as did I, though she admitted parts were confusing.

This summer, PMT had a preview performance for their upcoming season, which included A Chorus Line. I saw that (via the movie) over 20 years ago, and really liked it, but was recalling some of it was not suitable for kids.

Fast-forward two months, I bought two tickets for me and J, completely forgetting that several parts were not kid-friendly. Sunday afternoon, about 10 minutes into the performance, I finally remembered! Oops!

The cursing made me cringe a little, but I could live with that. The dialogue about wet dreams, erections, and sex, on the other hand, made me wish the show would hurry up and end, which was a shame, because it was so good.

Then one of the characters started talking about her tits, using that very word. I am pretty sure I stopped breathing at that point, because I remembered one of the songs I had completely forgotten about: "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" which is also known as "Tits and A$$." Looking at the program, I was guessing I had a few minutes before that came on, so I considered just leaving. I don't normally care what others think, but I was convinced at that point that the people on either side of me thought I was an awful parent, and that bothered me as much as J's hearing the sex, boob, and F words.

I apologized to J for the inappropriateness of the musical, and then I asked if she wanted to go, reminding her we did not eat lunch. She said she wanted to stay. So we did.

We got through that, though not without my wishing the floor would swallow us both up. When a character started taking about being a drag queen, it was a welcome relief. Before I knew it, the excellent performance ended, and as we left, I did discover J was not the only kid under 13 there (a number of performers and musicians were in high school).

In the end, I am not sorry I took my kid. The theater is important to me, as is supporting local arts. And I have certainly sheltered J more than most parents would.

As long as she does not start belting out "Dance: Ten; Looks: Three" when she sings in the shower, I think we will be okay. :-)

What a year 2021 has been (Day 7)

I have almost no words for what happened yesterday at the Capitol. Protesting is one thing (though I truly think it is and has been time to move on). But to storm the Capitol? A friend on Facebook said, quite simply, " Almost 20 years ago a group of people on an airplane sacrificed themselves to protect the Capitol. How far we have fallen!" Indeed. And, yes, it IS storming the Capitol. I have seen numerous videos of people knocking down barricades/fences, pushing police officers, and breaking windows and climbing through them. That is beyond protesting. And even if a protestor did not do those things, if they followed those seditionists past those barricades and into the building, they are just as guilty. I did not support the violent protests this summer that resulted in damages to businesses and public property (I was in full support of the actual protests). But I also acknowledged as a white person, I cannot truly put myself in the position of a black person who is angry a

Melancholy and Gratitude

A few days ago, I decided to do gratitude posts on FB. I was good the first two days. Day 3 I got a little snarky as I posted about "doing the right thing" in regards to Covid. The Covid cases in Allegheny County have been on the rise. For a while, we had daily counts between 50 and 100. After July 4, we saw a spike for a few weeks, and then cases were back below 100. Unfortunately, other than one "low" day this week, where "only" 288 cases were reported, we have had between 500 and 620 daily cases. Fortunately, only a few people have died this week. But of course, any death is too many. I started to keep track of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations on 6/12/20. On that day, since 3/12, Allegheny County had had 2,034 cases, 352 people had been hospitalized, and 172 people had died. On 11/19/20, the county has seen a total of 22,042 cases, 1,724 people have been hospitalized, and 465 people have died from Covid since 3/12. In just over 8 months, we have had

Hug your loved ones!

I hate to say that I am still working through my grief. I mean, in some ways I can imagine I will always be grieving. But I feel pretty confident it will get easier, and I will cry less and less. But, yeah, I guess I am still working through it. Yesterday, a thought occurred to me: I had not hugged my dad since the end of February, and that will now be the last time I ever did. I did not see him for almost three months because of COVID, and then at the end of May, he started his series of hospital visits with skilled nursing stints in between. I was always afraid to hug him then. What if I gave him COVID? And yet when my dad had really bad ICU delirium during a few different hospital stays, I fed him. If I could do that, why not hug him? So I cried a bit last night thinking about that. I am not necessarily a big hugger; I used to hate it, and then probably before Jordan was born, I got back to doing it again. Before COVID, I hugged my friends goodbye (and sometimes hello). I always wou

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