Friday: Tense negotiations and Kouryou-chan's ballet class

[elfs]

Kouryou-chan gets dressed for ballet.

Ungh. So tired. Spent the entire morning at the mediator's office, hashing out a deal with Yamaraashi-chan's mother. I think the general thrust of the agreement is... okay. It's better for Yamaraashi-chan, at any rate; gives her life and schedule more predictability, and that's one thing she appreciates. I regret not bringing my camera; the mediator's office has a great view of downtown to the southwest. Although the weather was miserable and the promise of snow was all over the radio.

But I was so tired when I got home I fell asleep on the couch, which is not at all usual for me. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because all the negotiations leading up to the negotiations kept us up late at night.

All four of us went out to Kouryou-chan's annual Christmas ballet performance. She's stalled a bit in her improvement, but she did fine on-stage. The main scene they played was the opening, party scene, and she was onstage for about half the performance. She did great, although she has to stop scratching her nose. The lead performer is a blond and wore a hair extension of tight curls in a bun behind her head; I told Omaha it looked like she had an octopus on back there, and Omaha agreed with me.

Why is it so many 19th-century ballets are obsessed with the idea of the woman dancer as automaton? This is the third ballet I've seen with that idea. The last one, Copellia, had the mad scientist obsessed with building the perfect dancing girl. Nutcracker has the music-box dancing girl brought to life, after a party guest shows off a mechanical dancing girl. It seems a little creepy to me.

There's a story arc in there. If only I was writing.

Afterward, we went to Red Robin for dinner. We had to ask for a different table because the halogens we were under flickered so badly they represented an epilepsy risk. Yamaraashi-chan has started ordering from the adult menu. Damn, they grow up fast, and they get expensive when they do.

By the time we got home we were all exhausted. Nobody complained about going to bed on time for once. I watered Dinah. She's off her feed and is proving much harder to pill than usual. I wish I knew why, other than the obvious "she's old and pretty close to death" explanation.