My sister MJ is also my goddaughter.  We exchange Christmas presents every year.  In '08, I gave her a stack of used books and she gave me a ticket to go with her to see "Annie" at the Orpheum theater.  I know, it seems like I got the best of that deal but the books are all by Georgette Heyer, whom MJ has never read, so I say she got a darn good deal, too.

My daughter Katie also bought herself a ticket and gave one to her sister, so the other night, the four of us ventured downtown for a night of musical theater fun.  We all dressed up but not too much.  After all, when you go to the theater the truth is you're spending most of the evening sitting in the dark.  We wore comfortable shoes. 

We were all so excited about the show that we all dreamed about it the night before, mostly to the affect that we forgot to go and missed it.  In my dream, we got there at half time and the stage crew was frantic; they grabbed Josie and hustled her into the costume and  made her play Annie in the second half.  Since Josie's never seen it and doesn't know the music, they hid lyric sheets all over the stage for her to read so she could sing her part.  I thought she did a fabulous job, but the rest of the audience wasn't too pleased. 

In real life, Josie's only experience with live performances was one dance recital when she was in first grade.  She was awesome.  The only musical she's ever seen live was a Chanhassen Dinner theater production of Beauty and the Beast, when she was eight.  She loved it and not just because she was eating the biggest piece of chocolate cake she'd ever seen during the second act.

We got to the theater about fifteen minutes before the show was to begin.  The Orpheum is an old theater, right on Hennepin ave in downtown Mpls.  When I was a kid, we saw a few shows there.  I think I may have seen Annie there, back in 1976 or 77.  I also saw one of the many incarnations of look alike bands pretending to be the Beatles.  I don't remember what that show was called, but I loved it.  In 1981 or 2 I saw the Boomtown Rats at the Orpheum.  Back in those days, the theater was a dim, faded shadow of it's glory days.  Some time in the nineties, someone refurbished the place and now it's magnificent once again.  MJ, Katie and I had all been there since it's make over, but we're all still impressed.  Josie fell in love with it and wants to live there.  Before the lights went down and the overture began, she was making plans to get a job there as soon as she's old enough.

It was kid's night, so the theater was packed with little girls.  Most of them were dressed to the nines and a few even wore red dresses like the one Annie sports in the finale.  The kids were all pretty well behaved.  So were their parents, who were very quick to whisk any tiny tot out of the place the moment they showed signs of sniffling.  During the second act, some little girl got so into the music that during the set changes, she began to sing "Tomorrow" at the top of her voice.  Someone tried to shush her and she explained "I'm singin' Annie!"

We all thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Afterward, we went to a place we know of that serves yummy deserts.  The wait staff was not pleased to see us, as they had already had last call for food.  There were two or three couples just getting their after dinner coffees.

"You could get a quick dessert, but that's about it." the waiter said, clearly hoping we'd turn around and leave.

"That's all we want." I said.  We sat.  He brought us menus.  After five minutes of vigorous debate, we decided to split three desserts between the four of us.  We chose a piece of lava cake, a chocolate turtle truffle and a heath bar cheesecake.

Now, I don't blame the waiter for being disappointed that we came in ten minutes before they were home free.  I don't suppose a table full of women nursing huge chunks of chocolate pastry is what they dream of serving at ten to eleven.

But we're Hubbell women.  Plop chocolate in front of a bunch of us and it's a mad race to see who can wolf down the most before it's gone.  There was very little talking as we attacked.  After a minute or so of frenzied eating, Katie stabbed me with her fork and said "I'm not the only one worried that someone else might get more than me, am I?"

Those cakes didn't last five minutes. 

We were back in the car on our way home before any of those couples finished their coffee.

It was a lovely night out on the town.