Let the Nutcracker rehearsals begin!

Well, actually, my command isn’t what makes them begin, but I may as well feel like I have some little bit of imaginary control over my weekends for the next two months. For those who might say that our little metro area is devoid of culture, I counter with the fact that there will be no fewer than 37 different productions of The Nutcracker ballet this holiday season. (My mother asked last week, “Can’t they do something other than ‘The Nutcracker’?” No. They cannot.)

This is a huge deal, and every weekend from now until performance time we will be dragging our Pink Polchinelle and our Party Child into an overheated estrogen zone of dozens of dancers and their moms (and some dads, of course), and we will wait while they rehearse. (Yesterday, I chose not to wait, and instead wandered around with my cam capturing the aesthetic delights of downtown Albany. Got some amazing photos, and I’m starting with the least amazing, so check them out at my Fotolog.) Today is picture day, so there will be many hours of hair preparation this morning. Last year Lee’s arm was broken, and she was away on picture day, I believe, but we got through it because Hannah is such a good big sister – she was able to get her hair done and then took care of Rebekah’s. They were both clowns last year, which involves braiding and looping and ribbons, and while I’m not exactly the football-meat-beer type of guy, I’m not imbued with the hair-arranging gene, either, so Hannah was the hero of the day. Today, after some flip-flopping on the part of The Man (Miss Madeleine), the clowns are back to their old hair, and Hannah has to have ringlets attached to hers to make it Party-Child-Like.

I think there’s shooting going on over in the sand mine. I’m going to just ignore it, though it’s been a long time since I heard anyone taking shooting practice down there. When we moved here it was much more common.