Concert Night

Last night, we got to see a concert of the Honors Orchestra, Honors Band, and Honors Chorus of our town.  Julia is a member of the Honors Chorus, and this was her first formal concert (meaning she had to wear concert attire, rather than the Honors Chorus t-shirt and jeans that she wore for the Veteran's Day Performance.)  We had to get everything ready for the concert ahead of time, go to the Y for Swim Team (at which Julia only participated in Dryland practice, while Madeleine swam), change into concert attire, and head over the the auditorium.  A totally frazzling comedy of errors ensued, including but not limited to the following issues:


-We discovered, as we packed for swim team, that Julia does not have a pair of black tights that fit.
-We found her footless black tights, but could find only ONE black nylon sock to go with them.
-We found two different pairs of black socks as an alternative, but both had silver stripes and/or patterns on them as well, and the dress instructions were for all black on the botttom.
-We discovered that Julia's black dress skirt had fallen off her hanger and lay underneath almost everything in her very cluttered closet, leading us to begin frantically pulling things off her closet shelves and tossing them behind us, until we finally found her skirt, crumpled and badly wrinkled, underneath a pile of heavy things on the closet floor.


The fun continued once we were at the Y and both girls were in their workouts.  I hoofed it to a nearby shoe store to buy not one but two pairs of black tights, in case the size 8-10 was too small or the 10-14 too large.  I then stopped to pick up take-out for dinner; a pizza for the girls, and a bag of what should have been a salad for me and a calzone for Ethan.  I walked back to the Y and had the pleasure of repeatedly walking through hallways with my pizza box, bonking into the various Dryland athletes who were doing wall-sits or other types of exercise in formation.  After Julia wrapped up and began the process of downing some pizza and changing into her concert clothes, I showered Madeleine so quickly that she still had half a head of shampoo suds (can't do anything about that now.  Let's just brush your hair and stick a hat on!) and we all got into the car.

Upon arriving at the concert location, the next round of comedies of error began:

-I wanted to quickly brush Julia's hair before sending her in, but my brush was MIA. I finally found it in Madeleine's pool bag (ahh, yes, the let's brush it and put a hat on it and leave the shampoo in situation bit me in the butt...)
-After brushing Julia's hair and sending her into the building, I discovered that I had misplaced my keys.
-Madeleine and I spent the next 10-15 minutes crawling around the car reaching under every seat and into crack in an attempt to locate the keys.
-Madeleine and I searched along the ground outside the car for my keys.
-Madeleine and I emptied every bag we had in the car, including her swim bag, the bag of Julia's workout clothes out of which she'd changed at the Y, my purse, and the bag of take-out.
-I finally discovered my keys had been in my purse all along.
-Madeleine and I scrambled inside the building to eat our take-out, only for me to discover that a) Ethan's calzone had not been included in the bag, and b) there were no utensils for my salad.
-I wandered around the cafeteria outside the auditorium looking for plastic ware, finding only spoons.  I grabbed two spoons to try and use as tongs to eat my salad.
-Ethan arrived at the concert venue, remarking to me as he spotted me, "Do you know you left the car parked with one of the car doors wide open?


I think I might be truly losing my mind.

We had a little while longer to wait before the auditorium doors opened to the audience, so Madeleine did a little people-watching.

MADELEINE: Hey!  Mommy!  I just saw a girl that's on my swim team!
ME: You did?  What's her name?
MADELEINE: Well, I don't KNOW her name, but...(cheerfully) in her swim cap, she looks like a MONKEY, so when I saw her, I just thought, "Oh, hey!  There's monkey girl!"


Ummm.  I mean, that's no "Happy New Year to the Blacks," but it's still not a particularly appropriate thing to think about a person.  Awesome.


At any rate, once we got into our seats, everything was calm and the concert was lovely.  Here's one of the songs they performed:




And with that lovely piece, I am going to let all the stress and troubles of my evening fly out my own window!  (Or maybe out of my wide open car door.)