Sometimes things just do work out in the end.
Way back when the baseball schedules were published, I spent a full hour loading the 50+ games on to the family google calendar; I’m sure there is an easier way to import them directly onto the calendar but I am totally not that smart.
With everything up on the calendar, there were a handful of low-level conflicts that were immediately evident. There were a few weeks of straight-from-ballet-to-baseball quick changes, and times when despite her many talents, my wife would not be able to clone herself to coach two teams as once- U10 soccer and 1st grade Farm Baseball, but these were not existential dilemmas, just logistical ones.
However, one large whopper of a conflict was front and center- my 7th grader was scheduled for a night baseball game (under the lights!) on May 6 at exactly the same time as my 1st grader’s dance recital. And as much as we all love night baseball, the ballet recital is the most prestigious event on the 6-year-old’s calendar, and we all wanted to go. Especially the 7th grader.
After I made a pro forma inquiry about swapping start times with the early game and was politely rejected (no hard feelings), we made plans to both ask for more tickets than the 4 we were allotted (which is amusing because we have 9 people on our must-be-ticketed list) and to miss the baseball game. This plan was totally OK with everyone. And then the rains came.
Last week’s prolonged burst of precipitation and dreariness was distinctly less than awesome. It was terrible running weather, it was terrible baseball weather (9 game cancellations in 4 days!), and it was terrible emotional weather that kind of killed everyone’s good mood every morning when we woke up to raw drizzle, again and again. It didn’t get any better when we totally lost in the extra-ticket lottery and were left with 4 tickets to the recital, with 5 people on the outside looking in. No one was happy.
But call it serendipity, or karma, or fate, or a grab bag of all of the above, but the biggest scheduling conflict in Brosgol family history (well, maybe not, but actually maybe yes), ended up working out almost perfectly.
With every dark rain cloud and baseball rainout, a silver lining grew and grew. Wednesday at 4:30 I got an email asking me and the other manager for the 5:45 baseball game if we wanted to chance it and play baseball even though a pretty serious burst of rain was passing over Bedford. After a 10-second meeting at I Field at 4:45 we both said “no way” and cancelled the game. This left me with an unprecedented opportunity to watch the ballet rehearsal instead.
A plot hatched in my mind.
I would take all of the kids to the rehearsal, which would allow everyone to watch the dance performance, and that would potentially mean that on Friday night the 4 tickets would go to the grandparents and my wife, and my son and I would, in fact, be able to go to baseball, provided I found coverage for the other kids. So there I was on Wednesday, from 5:30-7:30 at JGMS, with three other kids in tow, watching the unbearable cuteness of ballet and dance, this year with a COSTUME CHANGE (!!!). And not only did I sit in the front row, but I also had the opportunity to not be super-anxious about the little siblings making noise because, well, it was just the rehearsal. Amazing pictures were taken and timeless videos were recorded, and I felt that unmistakable warm glow of happiness and contentment as I watched my daughter smile, sparkle, and dance her way into an unforgettable memory. I was feeling pretty good about things by Wednesday night.
And it would only get better.
Friday morning dawned with more rain in the evening forecast and with a 7:15 phone call asking if I would be willing to move our game from 7:45 to 5:45. I, of course, responded in the affirmative, and could not believe our good fortune. With a 5:45 start time, the game would hopefully end by 7:00 and every ticketed ballet recital attendee would be able to watch baseball and ballet. And as luck (or bad luck, as we lost) would have it, the game was over in 70 minutes, and a last-minute Golden Ticket acquisition by my wife allowed the 7th grader to proceed directly from I Field to JGMS for the recital, fulfilling his promise to his sister that he would try to go if he could.
When my daughter burst home at 9:00 on Friday, flowers in hand, clad in her green pixie outfit, trailed by proud grandparents, a happy brother, and a happy mother, all was well with the world. I guess it shows that maybe sometimes a little rain isn’t so bad.
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