There have been a few times when I toyed with booking tickets to Broadway. The twins are so keen on theater, I thought what fun it would be to surprise them. One summer I got so bold as to start clicking, believing I was getting three tickets for two hundred dollars, and decided to buy. In a few seconds I realized that that was the price per person! I had no idea how to say "OOPS! That is my heating bill for a month! I didn't mean it, I take it back!" but there were no such buttons. 

I called a number and after a run around with their various departments was connected to Last Hopes. I begged the woman to overlook the formidable Purchasing Conditions and No Return policies, and basically save my marriage. She had mercy. 

Last month Hope, my Hope this time, told me that she had an app that alerted her of sales, and there was one for Anastasia the first week in September. This time we really could all go for that price. We plunged, and even invited Hosanna to drive down from Boston. Anastasia is after all Hope's middle name. 

We drove to the Trenton train station, and the adventure began. We even did the consummate New York stop at a coffee shop before the show. I considered it research for the play we are putting on in December, which has a number called NYC.

I did not expect to cry and laugh and cry again. The theme of finding your people, and coming home strikes a familiar nerve for most of us. Belonging is what we trudge through the snow for. 

The woman who played Anastasia's grandmother had a powerful voice and I wondered if she was really advanced in years or it was just her make up. After the show Aurelle looked online. She is 78. And does this every night! My picture of myself at that age involves going to bed early and watching classics, not being in them. By then my own granddaughter will be a young woman. Maybe I will give her a music box.