Big Exciting Weekend.

Friday night took us to the Carnegie Arts Center in Covington, KY to see the Cincinnati Men's Chorus perform. The performance was part of a city-wide free arts sampler; the theatre was beautiful and MUSE, the women's chorus that opened the event, had an acompianist that reminded me of my mom. All of the ladies looked so happy to be singing together, and it just made me happy. Also, their performance attire was black outfits with accents of turquoise (although there was a debate about the name of the color over dinner later). There were some artistically critical voices beside me (*cough*, TIM, whose mom is the choral director at NDSU), but I get the most satisfaction from performances where the artists are still in the "i'm so lucky i'm on stage!" phase, not the "you're so lucky to see me on stage" phase. Mmmm.

The high point of the evening was a song by the men's chorus called "Middle Child." It started out to the tune "Sometimes I Feel Like Motherless Child," and went a like something like this, but in a warm baritone solo from a handsome guy with a nice pastel tie:

Sometimes I feel like a middle child,
sometimes I feel like a middle child.
Sometimes I feel like a middle child,
in a split level home.

The song turned out to be a ballad about Jan Brady and included lines like:

Greg's out on the astroturf with a hose.
NOBODY CARES ABOUT JAN!
Marcia's in the backyard sceamin' "Oh my nose!"
NODBODY CARES ABOUT JAN!
Dad is in the closet tryin on mom's clothes.
NOBODY CARES ABOUT JAN!

Oh, it was so good! And then afterwards we happened upon the Korean restaurant that Tim has been pining for since we got back to Cinci this fall. Then straight to bed for Tim and I; I had a long day on Saturday.

Doing what? Well, hosting the Fine Arts Fund Sampler, the free city-wide event, at my theatre on RWC campus. Last year it was horrible, no one showed up (ahem, this time, not my fault), and the performances were a little weird anyway. This year, the Fine Arts Fund actually sent a representative AND VOLUNTEERS?! what? Amazing.

The groups that came included Blues in Schools (a blues band with kids ages 8-18. the eight year old sang this song he wrote about MY ICE CREAM! MY ICE CREAM! in this tiny little kid voice, and it was about how his ice cream always melts before he gets to eat it. ohhhh, oh yes), a Suzuki group of young string players with teeny-tiny violins, an AMAZING classical Indian dance group, and finally, yes, totally upset parent with a child too young to enjoy it anyway, the Mason Children's Theatre was postponed. I'M SORRY.

But what did i REALLY learn yesterday? That children are not cute, they are crazy.

First of all, I had a small epiphany when I saw a mother changing her daughter's diaper in the back corner of the theatre. Now first, this did not seem inappropriate, because the bathrooms at a campus are not necessarily family friendly. But while this mother crouched over her child and hurriedly grabbed wipes and a new diaper, this 1.5-year-old was completely self absorbed---her legs were all over the place, bending and swaying in the non-existent wind, and her hands were doing something that looked important---balancing her check book? finishing a sudoku? don't know, but she looked like she was completely unaware that someone was doing her a personal service, kinda like someone getting a manicure while talking on a cell phone, reading a magazine, and eating nachos. Then I saw the same parents pushing a stroller out of the theatre a few minutes later, and the same kid was devouring some sort of something. Grahm crackers? granola? don't know, but all i could think of was the constant cycle of "in the in-hole, out the out-hole," over and over, and how many diapers it would take to get said child to her second birthday.

I also saw the Queen of the Temper Tantrums. Wow. I have never heard a tiny blond two-year-old scream as long and hard as this child, and for no apparent reason. Her dad escorted her out of the theatre as a tearful mess, and her mother had to take her into the bathroom. All i can assume, from over-hearing a conversation with the child after leaving the bathroom, is that she was not supposed to touch the toilet ("I told you not to touch the toilet!") but once inside the bathroom, the waning cries of a crabby child quickly escalated to explosive sirens of terror. There is no over statement in that last sentence: there were two concrete block walls between us, and the screams sounded like her mother had just announced she was going to boil the family's puppy for soup tonight. Repeatedly. For about 8 minutes. The screams, i mean, not the puppy. Yikes.

In conclusion, I want a dog.