Date Nights

This week just concluded was Staff Appreciation Week at my place of employment. A week with perks like free concerts, tours, giveaways, food discounts, etc. Now, I could have saved some folks a lot of trouble putting this week of appreciation together if they had bothered to ask me my opinion. My opinion is that what really would make me feel appreciated is if the powers that be would lift the morale-killing salary freeze they have imposed. But I'm sure the powers that be are under the assumption that we, the masses, are just so darned happy to even have a job that we really don't mind taking one for the faculty team. What starts here changes the world and all that.

Ahem ... I seem to have veered slightly off topic. Where was I? Ah, yes ... date nights.

Of the wonderful perks offered to the staff this week were free concerts (2 tickets, to be exact) from the School of Music. I checked out the calendar and found there was a concert scheduled each night of the week. My first impulse was to take my son, who recently participated in the All-City Music Memory Contest and who has a taste for beautiful music. Upon further reflection I realized that I could not possibly leave my daughter out of the special treatment and decided to take each child on a separate night.

My son and I decided to attend Wednesday evening's concert, featuring the Wind Ensemble. The concert was long, and I wasn't sure my exhausted 11-year-old gymnast-in-training was going to make it through. I gave him the opportunity to leave early, but he declined. My favorite part of the evening was at the end when I looked over at him and he flashed me the sweetest smile and spontaneously exclaimed how great the concert was. I also was quite tickled when at one point during one of the pieces I looked over at him and he was attempting to stifle some giggles. When I leaned in and whispered to him to find out was so amusing, he quietly responded, "I tooted!" Yep. He's eleven.

My daughter and I chose to attend the Thursday evening concert featuring the Jazz Band. I had mentioned to her earlier that people sometimes dress up when they go to a concert and my girlie girl ran with that little tidbit. She appeared ready to go in her fancy long black skirt and a black sparkly top and had pulled her hair up in a fancy little ponytail. I wore jeans. Two things were learned this evening: 1) My daughter likes jazz, and 2) I do not. Like her brother before her, she was given the option of leaving the concert early. She was ambivalent, expressing that though she was very tired (and cold), she really liked the music. In the end, the jazz won, we stayed.

Notwithstanding my earlier comments, I am very happy to have been appreciated this week, as it afforded me the opportunity to spend some sweet one-on-one time with 2 of my favorite people on the earth.

My glam girl on the way to the concert