The Nutcracker

It was a Sunday, December 21, 2025. I just came off a week working for four different entities. There was nothing to do as my wife had to work. Watch football…. nope. Go to the ballet!

Now, let me admit, I have no interest in dance, having endured a childhood of our daughter engaged in competitive dancing. I LOVED watching her dance. I loathed watching anyone else dance. So, for 5-10 minutes of joy, I often endured hours, days and weekends being at these competitions. But to put on a dress, go to the fabulous Playhouse Square and watch The Nutcracker a few days before Christmas, why not?

I both literally and figuratively purchased the last ticket. In my price range, there were only a few tickets left (making the purchase a bit over 24 hours from the performance). I purchased the furthest possible ticket from the stage, literally four flights of stairs up and no one except the birds were behind me. I was in a small box with a few other people. Directly in front of me was a number of mostly young ladies from a local dance school. One young man (almost everyone is “young” to me), one of the teachers, was so sweet to me. He said hello as soon as he saw me and then introduced himself and chatted me up at intermission.

My experience was wonderful, if not all that interesting to me. I had never seen The Nutcracker before, knowing much of the music, but not knowing that it was from this production. It was just nice being there, dressed as I was, waiting in line like any other woman to use the restroom, chatting with the lady in front of me. It was a delightful few hours.

As I left, one of the women that work at Playhouse Square called me out. She remembered me from my years working the Cleveland International Film Festival and was so sweet! She said (as she referred to me as “she”) that I was always wearing pretty dresses. That’s me! The handful of complements were an ego boost. This dress is vintage and soooooooo adorbs!

I made a frequent stop at a specific liquor store on the way home and the young lady working the register just gushed about my earrings and overall cute look.

What you see here is one of my final Christmas photo shoots before I left as well as a few pics to prove I did go out and then a few more, taking advantage of the very, very hard work my wife put in to prepare the house for Christmas and the return of our children, a spouse and our beloved grandson for the first time. You may have noticed a nursery in my pictures yesterday. We spent a lot of time and money creating a nursery that may get used for about a week over the next few years, but it was a labor of love!

It was very difficult to tear it all down on this day. I have days where I don’t have the energy and days where being Kandi is all I want to do in life. Ying/yang. Boy/girl. Me/me.