Ballet: It's not just for breakfast anymore

I don't know what that means, it just popped into my cilley little bwain.

The ballet was great.  A bit of a pleasant surprise shortly after my last post:  I had been reading the seating chart incorrectly.  Or, at least, incorrectly for three out of the four performances.  My season tickets are the el cheapo, bottom tier nosebleed section tickets.  Except it turns out I'm in the nosebleed section (2nd balcony) only for one of the performances which is in a different theatre.  For the other three, I'm in the orchestra down on the floor but on one of the far sides.  My seat is in Row V, which is the mumble mumble letter of the alphabet.  Hey, it's less than 26 rows back, okay?  And I'm about in the middle of the row.  So the seat turned out to be really quite nice.  Nice people around me too. 

The performance was half Balanchine's Emeralds, then the rest was eight or so excerpts from other ballets they have done.  Everything from classical (like Tchaikovsky) to modern (jazz and hip hop).  My Achilles winced in sympathy pain every time someone went on pointe, which was about 99.6% of the time.  The lady behind me said her shoulders cringed (she'd had a series of shoulder surgeries) in sympathy.  I'm really looking forward to February's performance, A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I love Shakespeare.  One of the excerpts today was from that ballet, although I think the February one has all different sets and costumes based on the publicity stills I've seen.  I still need to arrange for Nutcracker tickets; they're not part of the season ticket per se although you get them at a reduced price.  My ticket today:  $12.75.  Kind of a bummer, though, that I had to pay $6 for parking. 

Watching the ballet renewed my desire to get healthy and stay that way.  With this leg, that means stretching.  I live in a very small townhouse; some friends joke that instead of a shoe, I live in a boot.  Shortly before I moved here, I had purchased four exercise DVDs.  But I have no room in my living room or bedroom in which to do them so nearly three years later they're still in the original packaging.  The only place where I have space to exercise is in my upstairs landing, which has no TV, and my den, which had no TV until yesterday when I set up an old one I was going to donate (it isn't digital and the cable connection is funky so the picture wasn't coming through clearly).  On my way home from the ballet, I stopped and got a cheap DVD player and some additional exercise DVDs -- yoga for beginners and a Jillian Michael's "no more muffin top" DVD.  Now I have room to stretch and reason to stretch and I'm going to do it.

But starting tomorrow.  I was planning to do it tonight, then I learned that last night's dinner is the gift that keeps on giving.  To distract myself from running out of Pepto, I'm going to bed after a few calf stretches.  My Achilles felt pretty good walking around downtown today, just a few twinges in my calf.  I'm planning on running tomorrow, a short 40 minute run.  If all goes well, I'll add a few more minutes to Wednesday and then decide what to do on Thursday.  Saturday I'm still signed up for a 10K and I intend to make it.

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl