Serindipity: A Night At The Ballet

Bonjour mon amis,

This weekend has be caraayzzzy! Crazy but fabulous! Dylan came home from JMU for our high school's homecoming and I had a bunch of fun friend things to do.

My first love has always been dance, ballet in particular. I was always in love with dancing and ballet, you know how some parents force their kids to do an activity they despise? That for me was soccer and swimming. Dance was always number one in my heart. I danced for 18 years, worked the front desk at my studio for 5 years, and taught for 2 years. It was the best college job ever! I really miss my job since my studio closed. But this year one of my old ballet friends (we've been friends for 19 years!) introduced me to Zumba and I fell in love with dance again. I have never done Latin dance before August 29 and let me tell you, it's not ballet! It's really different, but I'll talk about that later. So we decided to go see a ballet in Philly at the Academy of Music this fall. I always like going to the Academy of Music because not only is it beautiful and have a storied history, but I feel like my Woman Crush, Jacqueline Kennedy. There is a funny quote JFK told one of his advisors in regards to asking Jackie to go to a political function that she didn't want to attend and she begrudingly agreed. JFK's advisor asked him how much it cost him to get her to go to the function and he said, "Worse, I had to buy two tickets to the ballet." I always thought this was funny because boys hate the ballet! *I don't know why because there were tons of hot girls here. Guys, the ballet is Mecca. Ex-dancers by the dozen, hello! Does it get better?) We saw Jewels. Jewels is a plotless full length, 3 act ballet. The first act is Emeralds, the second act is Rubies, and the final act is Diamonds. Each act features different principals, corps, and composers. The costumes were tres belle! Each act is focusing on a different strength of the dancers. We loved all parts of the ballet! Rubies was our favorite because it was fun and light hearted. Diamonds had the best costumes though! (Unfortunately, no photos can be taken of the performance so I can't share with you)

Whenever dancer friends go out, we always run into other former dancers. Dancers are easy to spot when you're out. If you were a dancer you can tell another dancer by the way they stand. Dancers usually stand in first position when they are resting. You can also tell a dancer from a non-dancer when they drop something on the ground. If dancers are wearing pants they will bend over and pick up the item while keeping a perfect ponche. Dancers also always make up 80% of any given ballet's audience. *The other 15% of the population is dancer's husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, parents, siblings, ~~others held against their will~~* So we sit down and the woman next to us starts talking to us about dancing and one thing leads to another and we find out that she is also a teacher (score for both Stef and me because we're both teachers and teachers-to-be) and now she teaches dance on the weekend. After a few minutes of talking about past dance classes, shows, exhibitions, she sealed her fate as a dance friend forever by saying she despises Govna Christie. Win! Can you say new BFF?? She was there on date night with her hubby and he told us they had been together for 14 years and this is the first ballet he took her to. How precious? I want my husband to take me ~~be forced to go for my birthday~~ when I grow up!

At every ballet you are going to inevitably run into people who "got tickets for my birthday/anniversary/from a neighbor" and have no interest in seeing a ballet. These are people that inevitably end up sitting near me ALL THE TIME! These people crack the jokes when do they start talking? and You can see the strings that are holding them up. Not funny. These are overused jokes. If they weren't funny 600 years ago when they originated, they aren't going to be funny now. Spare yourself the awkward silence and keep those jokes to yourself. The people behind us were these people. They were a young couple, probably 23, and they didn't get it at all. The boyfriend kept asking, "What's going on? What's the plot? I don't get it." Ummmm, yea, hi, there is no plot to this ballet. It tells you that on page 2 of your Playbill. Sigh. Then his girlfriend one upped him and decided to take her shoes off. Yup, took her shoes right off and was barefoot. Then she outdid herself and asked her boyfriend for a foot message. I. CAN'T. EVEN.

Anyway, after the ballet, we bid adieu to our new dancer friend and thankfully will never see uncultured swine that were our neighbors, we headed over the 6 blocks to The Melting Pot for some treats! Earlier that week I made reservations for 2 for the Melting Pot. Well, I think they thought this was a date. When we sat down at our table (and by table I mean cozy corner booth designed for snuggling/canoodling) we noticed there was a pink pair of tongs and a blue pair of tongs. We were like yup, yup, we're at the date booth! We both decided that we'd be lucky to have each other and have done worse :) We ordered the Original Chocolate Fondue. Hooooo man was it dalish! I mean total foodgasm. We devoured that dish. It tasted like what yoga pants feel like--amazing, cozy, and perfect.

We also got a really good price on parking...always a double win! While I'm always a die hard Phils girl, and I love me a good trip to Geno's, I think people always forget the cultural side of Philadelphia. The city really does have so much to offer in terms of culture and history and more people should take advantage of it. I think we're going to try and go see The Nutcracker again in December!

Au revoir,

Erin