Finding pork gravy was one of the hardest things I did yesterday. Let me come back to this.
I talked the boys into accompanying me on a trippy trip to the Rock Hall of Fame at the Daniel M. Soref Planetarium. I've wanted to take my sons to this sound and light show at the IMAX Theater since hearing about it several months ago. I attended a similar-sounding show at the Horwitz Planetarium last April and wanted to see how different it would be on the larger screen.
The Rock Hall of Fame plays just one show at 8:30 Thurs., Fri., and Sat. evenings. It was easy to get to but parking was a little trickier than I imagined because of the popularity of the Auto Show. Passing a couple of people warming themselves on a steam grate attached to the museum, we entered and had no problem buying tickets. As we entered I noticed there is now a concession stand inside offering popcorn, and half-empty popcorn boxes littered the once spotless theater. (The seats also now have cup holders.) The show was 45 minutes of pure entertainment. Eleven familiar songs with pictures and geometric shapes so active and large that they came close to swallowing the audience several times. (If I'd have been drinking it would have been just the opposite of swallowing.) The show was very enjoyable and priced right - $20.00 for the three of us.
As we walked back to the car we passed three people lying on the steam grate. It's about 9:30 at night, temps are in the teens, and I'm presuming they're going to spend the night there. I use to see this a lot more before the city decided to enclose steam vents to keep homeless away. I'm not sure my boys have seen it at all before. We kept walking.
We're pretty sheltered living in Waukesha and I didn't know if I could use this as a teaching moment. We talked about it a little bit. There's not much we can do to save the world tonight when maybe it's their choice to be there. It's entirely possible they are there because they don't like shelters, so I didn't offer them my jacket or anything.
It gets me thinking though. The hardest part of my day was finding gravy at the store. The aisle was so crowded and the jar hidden behind mushroom gravy. It must have taken 5 whole minutes! And sometimes it's just so hard to get warm and comfortable at night in bed with my two comforters on the pillow-top mattress!
I know there are homeless in Waukesha, but we don't see them on steam grates - there are no steam grates in Waukesha that I know of. Most of our homeless are in the shelters. I hope. It gets me thinking . . .
