I was able to get two free tickets to the ballet from my work place this week, as a part of a promotional deal. They were tickets to The Nutcracker. I decided to take my mom, she appreciated it more than Mark would have, even with free tickets I would be hard pressed to get Mark to the ballet :) What was a little odd, since the tickets were through a work promotion, is that we were seated with coworkers... including my boss. It was just odd to be out with my mom *and* coworkers, it would have been different if it was Mark and I out with coworkers... it was just odd. Afterwards, I treated my mom to dessert at Lidia's, a place she has never been and now I need to take her there for dinner! We shared the dessert sampler... this was the perfect dessert! We each had a small canolli, a small piece of tiramisu, an eggless custard with fruit confit, pine nut cookies, mango sorbet, grapefruit sorbet... it was perfect, a little taste of every dessert I was interested in!