Nutcracked

by Cathy and Patti

We do a lot for our kids. We sacrifice a lot for our kids. But that's our job; it comes with the territory. There's nothing like the warm, fuzzy feeling you get as you wipe away tears of joy after their ballet recital or choke back your pride after every single one of their sports games - win or lose.

So when we were informed (rather last minute) on a Thursday that instead of our girls going to their Nutcracker rehearsal that coming Sunday, they would instead perform a dance segment from The Nutcracker at an outdoor, neighborhood Halloween festival, we thought: How fun! Yet another proud moment as a parent to have your child, costumed and sausage-curled, prancing around in a beautiful velvet-caped outfit in front of a mass audience. After all, we were told, close to 250 families had signed on to attend!

After being sunny and pretty mild for days, that Sunday arrived with a gloomy change in the weather. There were scattered thunderstorms expected, but "nothing worth cancelling plans over," said ABC 7's Jerry Taft. It wasn't even that chilly that afternoon as we arrived at the ballet studio to get our girls changed into costume - after having spent a good part of the morning curling their hair 'just so' as part of their costumed look.....

Cathy:
I'm a skeptic. I would rather err on the side of caution than take a risk I know deep down will not pan out. But for the sake of my daughter, I did it anyway, despite the fact that my gut was telling me this was going to be more than a scattered thunderstorm, my senses were telling me that it was going to get much colder as the day progressed, and my husband was telling me (via 349 texts) that he thinks it's too cold/are we SURE this was still happening/no one is here/ the girls will get sick/aren't they cancelling? It was too late to turn back now - she was costumed (as were so many other oblivious kids and their giddy parents) and ready to go.

So we braved the drizzle and cold temps, drove around for parking, and walked the two blocks to the 'fest' - me under an umbrella I dug up from my trunk and the girls each holding a plastic Target bag over their heads, which caught wind and were pouffed up like a Saturday Night Live Coneheads skit. We arrived only to see about fifty people huddled under a train viaduct. Kids were costumed and happy, parents were chilled out and relaxed - laughing and conversing. I was annoyed, freezing and ready to turn back and go home.

After what seemed like an eternity, the girls finally performed in their full skirted costumes, complete with bloomers, petticoats and Converse high-tops. The whole train-and-the city scene was a cross between The Little Rascals and Welcome Back Kotter. (How's that for dating myself?) After the performance, we quickly whisked them away to change out of their costumes so we could get the heck outta Dodge. But where to change? Naturally, the only logical place seemed to be IN THE TRAIN STATION, between a pillar and a wall. We quickly started the process while my husband kept watch....

Patti
These Nutcracker rehearsals have become my part-time job. I feel like all I do on my days off is shuttle S back and forth to rehearsals. I'm glad to do it, but let's get real: they are kind of a pain in the butt and have become a total weekend time-suck. So when we got the notice that the rehearsal would be cancelled for an impromptu show that would take up even more time than said rehearsals, my carefully planned Sunday was thrown into a tailspin.

The day of the show, I literally raced from point A to point B to point C, and then got S home with 45 minutes to spare before we had to be out the door again.  The hairstyle for the Nutcracker requires 5,932 sponge rollers, a gallon of hair gel, and a sleepless night spent being stabbed in the head by rollers. Since there had been no time to do this, I bionically curled her hair with a curling iron, scorching myself at least 3 times, and then slapped some makeup on her. She looked like "Clara: The Slutty Years." We got to the studio and she changed into her Victorian party dress, and off we caravanned to the festival sight. S decided to go with Cathy and Bella, so I drove by myself, trying to keep up with them. Of course, the minute I got in the car to head to the festival, it started to rain. Hard. "Surely they will cancel this thing", I thought to myself. I called Cathy. No answer. "Don't you think they're gonna cancel? Look at how hard it's raining!" I shouted into the phone.

When I arrived, I found a parking spot, grabbed my broken umbrella, and sprinted to the event, the umbrella attacking me in the face. I kept calling Cathy to find out where they were, but she wasn't answering. That's when I saw them: The whole crew was running down the street. Cathy, juggling ballet bags and clothes and kids, with her own flopping umbrella, and the girls, plastic Target bags covering their heads, next to her.  I ran up next to her, nearly gouging out her eye with the wires poking out of my broken umbrella. "I can't believe they're not cancelling!"

We hurried across the street towards the "festival", which was actually a sad little gathering under train tracks, trains screaming over us. I felt like we were in Gotham City, all gloomy and drippy and dark. I expected to see a couple of scrawny rats scurry by. The girls ran to meet their friends, and they prepared to do their dance. Meanwhile, the studio instructor walked into the center of the gathering, and began shouting out the Welcomes and Introductions. But because of the trains, rain, and the totally oblivious man banging on a drum, all we could hear was, well, NOTHING. Just her mouth moving. Then the kids began to dance, the beautiful Nutcracker music pathetically trying to work its way out of the boom box the instructor's husband held up over his head. Instead, it was swallowed up by the annoying drums, the trains and the rain, and the kids looked like a Victorian Freak Show, dancing to no music in long, velvet dresses.

When it was over, after a polite smattering of applause, we had to figure out where on earth they could change, since we had to give the costumes back to the instructor. Of course, there was nowhere to do this, so we had to get resourceful and change in the urine-soaked train station. The girls loudly "eeeeeeewed" the entire time,while Cathy's husband, Joe, kept an eye out for any unsavory characters who might want to get a peek at our naked 10-year olds. Instead, a security guard told him we were not allowed to be doing this because on the grainy, silent security screen all they could see was a couple of freaked-out, half-dressed girls being rushed by some frantic adults while a seedy looking man shifted his eyes around. Shady, at best.
......
Yeah, this whole day? Was totally cracked. Nutcracked.