Pie Portions

In my mind, I imagine "finishing off" some food is to take the small portion that has been left to linger, lonely and neglected on the serving plate. This is the picture that I envisioned when I heard Jubal say, "Well, I guess I'm forced to finish off the pie." as he opened up the container of Mom's pumpkin pie left over from yesterday. What I saw in reality was Jubal heaping the last quarter of the dessert onto a paper plate bent under its weight. Then came the whipped cream, piled as high as the pie. Today I learned that measuring pie portions is all about perspective.




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The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Nutcrackers

The Maine State Ballet hosts a shortened, behind the scenes version of The Nutcracker each year and last year, while attending that, Atira and I made plans to see the full version together for her 13th birthday. We initially asked Jim if he wanted to come with us. When he asked, "What is this Cracker Barrel ballet all about anyway?", Atira and I agreed that it would NOT be worth buying him a ticket. Well, wouldn't you know, almost as soon as the tickets were purchased, Atira came down with a terrible chest cold. We hoped that it would clear up before the evening of our event but it was not to be. December 5th found her sick and exhausted enough to be falling asleep in kitchen chairs.





I spent the day trying to find someone to fill Atira's empty seat to no avail. With only a half hour left before I needed to depart for Portland, Jim arrived home from work earlier than he thought and agreed to come with me as long as I took him out to eat afterward. He was able to appreciate the hard work put into the production but he was thinking, "I can't believe that I'm actually sitting here at a ballet. This will definitely be a once in a lifetime experience for me." Over his sizzling steak, later in the evening he voiced the thought that even those of us that enjoy ballet might ask: "So, how did ballet come about anyway? Who's the guy that said, 'Let's put on these tight pants and tutus and dance around on our toes.'".

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