First off. There a light at the end of my tunnel. How Freudian is THAT? As a rule, these lights are smack dab in the middle of a train engine. However, I have a 24 hour reprieve and that will, most likely, bring us a step closer to being able to sleep at night. The rat bastards at Wachovia are playing good cop/bad cop with us. Jeez, people, you're a freaking COMPANY, grow U.P.
However this 24 hours with combined with the phone number to our insurance agent which has resulted in an adjustment to our expected payment (because Wachovia maintains we had no insurance and was charging us for it) and the check that the hubster can pick up tomorrow from an employer who uses his skills free lance and had neglected to compensate him recently (no, nothing hostile about that, there was a change in bookkeeping procedures as well as the guy who implements said procedures and we sort of fell through a crack) will, I believe, enable us to maintain the car keys. Along with the ignition they fit.
I've been thinking about the changes that our not quite poverty has brought a lot recently though. We're not destitute. We have managed to keep a roof over our heads and, apparently, at least ONE car in our carport. Food on the table. Granted, there's a lot of rice and pasta but then, on the other hand, have you seen the SIZE of my sons? Yeah, it's sort of the glue that fills in between the protein.
But...some good things. I discovered something called The Treasure Box. Why was I not getting this before? Anyone can buy one. How cool is that? When my ship actually ties up at the same dock I'm standing on for a change I will still order my treasure boxes.
But the best thing is opening nights at the theater. Seriously. I spent I don't know how many thousands of dollars on theater tickets in my lifetime. I LOVE the theater. Especially musicals. Now, thanks to my son, who also loves theater, we have discovered how to go for free. Free theater. Several theaters here have big, opening night galas, press, VIPs, a real dress up night. Because it's such a special night they don't like empty seats. Not that they ever do, but, for some reason, they REALLY don't like them on opening night. So, at curtain time, the unsold seats and the will-calls that weren't picked up and the season tickets that were cancelled are given away.
We dress up and we hie ourselves to the theater about four hours before curtain. We bring a blanket and iPods and a deck of cards. Someone holds our place while someone else goes to the local Burger King and brings back 10 dollars worth of stuff off the dollar menu and one super duper large drink with several straws. And we sit and we play and we talk. And about 90 minutes before curtain we all get numbers and then about 30 minutes before curtain we all pack up and stand up in a single line and get ready.
And about 5 minutes before curtain the nice man from the Theater stands at the front of the line with a handful of tickets and we start. There's no guarantee your group will sit together. And he hands out tickets and he said "hurry, hurry, go straight to your seats" and then he goes to the box office area and we wait and hold our breath to see if he comes back with more tickets. Most of the time, he does. And by the time we get there (because our numbers are usually in the 60s) he's really hurrying us along but we smile and say "thank you so much" and then we RUN. And usually at least two of us end up next to each other.
Honestly? I wouldn't trade those long afternoons playing gin rummy outside the Ahmanson with my kids for for fourth row, center seats, bought and paid for.
We didn't get in once. The nice man felt bad and told us he really felt bad because we were dressed so nice. What part of "PLEASE DRESS FOR AN OPENING NIGHT" don't so many of these people GET? Honestly, appropriate dress does NOT consist of your clean jeans and best hoodie, people. The last time we were there the nice man actually had to bring his assistants out and take them up and down the line and say "THIS is what I expect you to look like the next time you're in this line".
Anyway, back to the time we DIDN'T get in to see "Parade". He gave us tickets to another show at another theater. Comps. The show wasn't doing very good business and we ended up...Fourth Row, Center. And thought the show was amazingly good. We would never have even thought to go otherwise.
So anyway, this Tuesday, we line up for "Dream Girls". We may get in, we may not. But the sheeer fun of waiting in line, goofing with my kids, chatting with strangers is worth the try. Had I not had to drop so much excess baggage from my life the last two years I would never have known about this. And I would have been missing so much.
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