Not Quite back from the dead…

So I have some good news and I have some bad new and I have some meh news.

The Meh news is that I still haven’t found the cord to my camera, so there’s not a lot to talk about knitting wise when I can’t show you! So I’m not quite back from the dead yet, but I’m still here.

The good news is that I start a new job on Monday. This is an Office Administration position (in my field) and is going to bring in a much bigger paycheque with benefits than my waitressing job did. So it’s a bit of a relief now to know that we’re on our way out of debt and that things are looking better.

The bad news is that we may have to move at the end of May. In fact, it’s very likely we will. This is because C’s mother is moving back into our apartment building, one apartment over and a floor up from us. She’s a lovely woman and the one who raised C, so while she’s difficult to deal with at times, I still like her. However, C does not want to live in the same building as her.

She tends to be… nosey, pushy, needy. We would have her calling and coming down and knocking on the door on a daily basis asking for things or needing people to talk to or wanting to complain about her SO.

So now, just as we’re finally getting settled and I finally get a good job, we have to uproot and find a new place to live. Otherwise our lives will probably go to hell in a hand basket.

*sigh*

-Till next time.

A Theatre Rant

Before I get to the show, the FO and other good things (still need to get my Stage Door pictures online) I have a rant to do with parents and theatre.

My big issue is involved with bringing children to inappropriate shows and either shrugging off what they’ve seen or being angry about what was on stage!

While I was at the show last night, from my seat, turning around, I could see no less than 10 children that were 8 or younger. Now, 2 things sprang to mind. First… it was a school night. The show wasn’t over until 10:30-11pm. Also, there was no real discount for going on a Tuesday versus a Friday. It wasn’t like they were saving money. Second, there were some VERY mature themes in this show. There was multiple sexualities displayed on stage, there was groping, revealing costumes (including one number that had a group of girls in rather sexy undergarments, not that anything was shown mind you but still).

Now, I’m all for exposing your children to theatre, heck I’ve been going to the theatre since I was 6 and got to see the Nutcracker the first of 9 times. However, I think it is the responsibility of the parent to research the show and see if it is appropriate for the child.  Even if it means going onto a theatre forum, like say Musicals.net, finding the show you’re going to buy tickets to, and putting a little post there that reads “Hi, I’m planing to go see this show and I’m thinking of taking my kids with me, is this a show for kids under x age”. By doing this, you will be given opinions and reasons for or against taking your child to the show from fans who have seen the show, not once, but probably multiple times, and who know the show well enough to say “yes” or “no”.

For example, there is a show called Avenue Q. From the posters and such, you see that it is a show involving puppets.. and in a way it has a Sesame Street kind of feel to it. HOWEVER! This is an adult parody of Sesame Street and were it a movie, the show would have at LEAST an R rating, if not NC18. I was in New York a couple of years ago, and watched a woman yell at the box office people because they wouldn’t sell tickets to her. She had 2 children with her under the age of 6. The box office person said that this show was not appropriate for children and she was just focused on the puppets and that her children loved puppets.

Well, in one scene, these puppets have sex, loud rambunctious sex, and there’s a song all about it! Plus the profanity, the topics, all sorts of things that she might not have wanted her children to know about.

I’m getting to the point that I’m almost thinking that if the parents aren’t going to check out the shows, even do a little research themselves, these shows need a rating system like movies. Parents wouldn’t take their children to see a movie rated A, or sometimes even PG-13 depending on the age, but they’ll take their children to see theatre where there’s burlesque, profanity, sexual innuendos and all sorts of adult topics that the kids aren’t really ready to deal with.

All in the name of exposing their children to culture.

I personally think that theatre isn’t really any different than movies, you just have the bodies and sweat and everything right there in front of you, making it that much more real.

There are plenty of child appropriate shows, you just have to find them, or research them and use your better judgment. I think that’s pretty much all I have to rant about or I’ll begin to repeat myself even more. This is just something I’ve been noticing on increasing occasions and I think that it needs to come to people, or society’s, attention.

Till next time.