Iced

I was quadruple booked last night:  a Relief Society leadership meeting; book club; volleyball practice; and the one I ultimately went with, Disney on Ice: Worlds of Fantasy.  A while back, I heard the Comcast Arena was hosting a figure skating championship and I was trying to find someone to go with me.  Sam heard me and excitedly volunteered himself.  "I like watching ice skating, Mom!"  And then I remembered that he would sit down with me and watch skating on Sunday afternoons.  I hadn't even thought of asking him and felt guilty for not considering him as a companion.  I didn't end up going to the show, but to assuage my guilt at being so sexist I invited Sam to go to Disney on Ice with me.

Flash to last night--lots of little girls in princess outfits, but overall, a rather mixed crowd, including those who didn't even feel the need to bring a child with them to get their skating fix.  I had been feeling pretty good about our seats because they were on the aisle, but felt put out when we got there and realized a railing and glass plate were directly in our line of vision.  I checked with the grandma behind me to make sure she could still see if we leaned totally forward to see.  She could.  The dad next to her assured us it was fine with him if we blocked the whole show.  Later, the concessions lady with the 12 foot tall cotton candy tree did just that for an extended period.  That was after the woman with the five tweens, cell phone, and snarky attitude camped out on the landing two feet in front of us for five minutes.  I guess we'll never know how The Little Mermaid ends:)

The show was fun with cool Disney animal costumes and my favorite part, the pairs skating.  And here's what I thought was funny:  some kind of triple jump would hardly cause a ripple of crowd reaction, but send out The Lion King's Pumba and Timon or some other huge headed character and the whole crowd goes gaga as soon as they leave the curtain.  I would poke Sam in the side with mock enthusiasm--"I can't believe it.  Goofy's here!"  When I tried to clap along with the crowd, Sam told me I really didn't need to.  Isn't six years old too young to be jaded?

I think Sam did have fun--when he wasn't obsessing over the concessions of course.  We got take-out pizza before we left and informed him that we wouldn't be buying any food there.  This statement of fact did not penetrate.  We had to ask every vendor how much their product cost.  The cotton candy and snow cones (snow cones at an ice show?) were $12.00 each.  Are you kidding? Cheapskate me paid less for my ticket plus handling than a bag of poofy sugar cost at the same show.  The inflated prices did not deter Sam.  He asked the mom next to him and found out the box of popcorn cost only $7.00.   Seven dollars is a lot less than twelve--five whole dollars less.  I think you can starve a little longer my mathematical son.  When he got home at 10:00 he finished off another slice of pizza after I had denied him sustenance on our entire outing.

Next time, I'd probably take Jake too.  I'm thinking a three year old wouldn't get too self-consicious over thinking giant stuffed skaters were cool.  I also liked witnessing the Disney machine in action.  The entire second act was a plug for the new Tinkerbell direct to DVD.  I wonder how much was spent on the little girl princess dresses before the show and the Cars tie-in safety cone hats.  All together with some nice skating, it made for a fascinating evening.  And I felt like hanging out with Sam was an appropriate way to blow off all my other events that night.