Wicked

My family took me to Denny's for Mother's day. I'd like to say that the decor was beautiful and that the food was delicious... The carnation the hostess handed me when I walked in ended up smeared in egg yolk. I still took it home but it never made it out of the car. I discovered it (the rotting egg smell lead me to it) under my driver's seat, a few days ago.

The Denny's setting was picked primarily for the novelty (some good friends of ours were going there with their young daughter and asked us to tag along) and secondarily, because we knew that we could take Makena and not lose too much sleep over her trashing the place. Of course, bucking convention, Makena sat politely the entire meal and only left her seat once. She didn't scream or throw her food about. She quietly dunked grapes in jelly, wiped her hands and colored on a sheet of paper. Go figure. She gave me the gift of good behavior. Jack made me a beautiful card and coupons that were good for: cleaning his room, laughing at my jokes, 20% off his allowance (for a limited time only!) and a breakfast in bed. EM gave me tickets to see Wicked. Wicked! And then as I was mucking the horse corral later that morning, thinking my special day was over, EM reminded me that he was taking me to a Phil Lesh concert. I was psyched. Not because I was a Dead head (I'm a Dead Head's wife,) but because it meant an evening out. As I was getting ready, I was instructed to go easy on the make-up. I think EM didn't want me stick out among the aging hippie crowd. Of course I didn't listen to him and slapped on some security eye-liner and self-esteem mascara and left the house feeling good about myself. The shower also helped.(Me, before the make-over.)

We had so much fun.

Moreover since the writing of this post began, we went to see Wicked at the Pantages in Los Angeles. It was AWESOME. We took Jack with us and he was blown away by the show. I felt bad that we had waited until he was almost ten years old to expose him to musical theater, until then his only reference had been the few school plays he had acted in. His mouth was open the entire time. I don't think he knew anything like this was possible. We had ridiculously amazing seats which helped him connect. I do know that he will probably look back on that evening with us as the starting point in his love affair with the stage. He has already asked us to take him to another musical so I will keep my eyes peeled on the calendar section of our paper and hopefully select a show that will keep him engaged and excited.

What an amazing Mother's Day--that stretched into a Mother's Month. And to think it all started at Denny's over a breakfast of Country fried steak. Now if I could only get rid the stench from my car everything would be perfect.

Is- a loved
PS Don't forget the children in China. www.halfthesky.org