Savannah has been taking ballet at school, so I thought it'd be fun to surprise her with a family outing to see "The Nutcracker" danced in December. Originally, I wanted to go to the San Francisco Ballet, but they very politely request that no child under 5 attend their performances...sooo...I turned my attention to Ballet San Jose. As per usual, you can not book accessible seats through the online ticket purchasing system (this is a big frustration in and of itself, because it turns the purchasing of tickets into a drawn out affair, and ensures that I have to plan any outing like this several weeks in advance--getting our tickets for next week's Disney on Ice performance took one week start to finish...thanks Ticketmaster!) Anyways, no go on the online tickets...so I called the box office yesterday, only to learn that you can buy only one "companion" ticket with each accessible seat, so...either Jason would have to sit on his own, while I tried to get tickets for me and Savannah close by (the lady on the phone thought she might be able to get something across the aisle from J's seat), or Jason and Savannah would sit together, while I was on my own elsewhere. Neither of these fit my idea of a family outing...I want us to sit as a family, which really shouldn't be so hard to do. I didn't really handle this well, and was not terribly kind to the lady at the box office--I think I went off on some rant about how it's hard enough to make sure that J is not simply a spectator in Savannah's life, without the ballet making it nigh impossible to sit as a family...obviously, these are bigger issues that I'm grappling with, and the poor sales person was just the unfortunate person to set me off.
When I talked with Jason about this last night, he seemed unfazed--he doesn't really let any of the "minor" inconveniences that come along with disability bother him (though, it must be noted that J was not exactly jumping at the chance to go to the ballet--the last time we went, I looked over at one point in the performance to see him passed out asleep in his seat...). Perhaps I need to be more laid back about it all, and not let righteous indignation overtake me at every small bump in the road...because there are lots of bumps in the road with SCI and I'll be all out of fire if they all enrage me.
I'm not one to let things go too easily, though, so I've spent this morning with seating charts for the ballet, and I've found four spots at the theatre that would allow us to all sit together. There are only 14 wheelchair accessible seats in the whole place (out of 1,122 seats mind you...but that's another rant for another day), but four of them appear to allow multiple people around them. These are all in the orchestra section, so heaven knows what they'll cost, but, this time when I call to inquire about tickets, I will ask for these specific seats. Hopefully, out of 12 or so performances, I can find open seats for us. And I'll be nicer to the person on the other end of the line this go round, to atone for my not so nice behavior yesterday...
Anyways...thanks for putting up with this rant...I'll end with something happy: our sweet girl dressed up for her ballet class!
Love you all,
Ashley
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