It always surprises me what captures Nick's attention. In most ways he's a typical 10-year-old with the attention span to match. But right now he's sitting on the couch, quiet as a church mouse, listening to the soundtrack to "Phantom of the Opera." And he's clearly listening, because periodically he asks a question about what's going on. JR is filling him in on the story line.

A few days ago Nick came to me and said he wanted to see Phantom. I think they are learning about it in his music class at school. Coincidentally, it's playing here in Tempe right now. When I first heard it was coming I thought about going with JR, who is a huge musical theater fan. But then in typical fashion I never looked into tickets. At this point I just assumed it was sold out.

But after Nick's request I thought, "Hmm, why not look into it?" Money is tight right now, but I had wanted to go to the Nutcracker for Christmas this year so maybe I'll just do this instead. I've never seen Phantom, which is just silly, so why not? The lady at the box office said the tickets are nowhere close to sold out (thank the economy for that) and that if I wait until Monday, the ones I wanted will probably come down in price.