Save the Last Dance, Part Three

And, this is it, I swear.

As I said earlier, today; the theme of this year's prom was The End of the World, which, sounds pretty depressing if one actually subscribes to the belief that the world will end on December 21, as predicted by the Mayan calendar. Fortunately, the Junior class does not subscribe to that belief. The Juniors do, however, subscribe to the belief that Mayan decor makes for wicked cool Prom decor, and, who can blame them?

Because my photographic skills fail to do justice to the decorations, you'll just have to take my word for it when I say; the job that the Junior class did decorating that high school gym was amazing. The centerpiece of the decor was, of course, the temple, which, literally glowed under the black lights.

In addition to the temple, the room featured a waterfall, constructed of fabric that flowed in a pattern similar to the flow of water. The fabric was lit from underneath in a way that gave the illusion of a stream reflecting the light of the full moon. A moon, it should be mentioned, that was also featured in the room.

Numerous plants, shrubs, and small trees were placed throughout the room, furthering the illusion of a lush jungle, while live goldfish swam gracefully about in glass vases set on tabletops near the dance floor.

It was a lovely scene, and it lent itself beautifully to the Grand March. Although, once again, my pictures did justice to neither the decor nor to the beautiful couples.

Luckily, The Teenager doesn't mind that I failed to get a lot of good pictures of the Grand March; she was just happy to have made it down the temple steps without tripping on her four-inch heels. She celebrates life's small victories, much like her mother.

Her father, it should be noted, claimed victory of a different sort on Prom Night; his daughter was home ten minutes early for her curfew.

I can't imagine why....

Save the Last Dance, Part Two

Once the boys arrived at the house, the usual Prom rituals commenced; corsages were secured on three lovely wrists, minor amounts of blood were drawn from three handsome young men when the pinning of the boutonnieres went horribly wrong (I'm kidding. Mostly), and, as mentioned in yesterday's post, formal portraits were taken of each couple.

Happily for me, the kids were less interested in formal poses than in having some fun and I took full advantage of their good natures; fulfilling my desire to take pictures of activities that one doesn't always see in Prom photography, although, one should...

 ...you know, in my opinion.

And, once again, this post is getting really picture-heavy. Heck, I haven't even gotten to the dance pictures yet. Or, mentioned the Prom theme, which was The End of the World, complete with a Mayan decor that was really well done, especially when one considers that all the kids had to work with was crepe paper and chicken wire (ok, not exactly), so; Part Three will have to wait until tomorrow (plus, I'm pretty sure I have broken Blogger's photo uploader, or, at the very least, I have exhausted it).

And that will be the end of the Prom nonsense, I promise. Unless, of course, the girls relent to my constant pleading to don their dresses, yet again, for a Trash the Dress photo session in the park.

Wouldn't be totally awesome? I know! I shouldn't have to beg, girls!

Save the Last Dance, Part One

The Teenager and I spent an awesome day together, yesterday, eating lunch at a favorite restaurant, having her hair styled at a fancy salon, gluing silicone boobs onto her chest for that night's big dance... we clearly know how to party.

It's ok, though; the real party didn't start until her friends arrived at the house to get dressed for the dance, at which point; it was a whirlwind of hairspray, sparkly jewelry, high heels, and, random bouts of uncontrollable giggles.

And, that was before the boys arrived. I swear, these girls were the most easily entertained dates, ever; all the boys had to do was look at them sideways and they were off and laughing, again.

Granted, the boys were pretty easily entertained as well...

They were also really good sports and, in the half-hour that I had them at the house, I managed to take almost four hundred pictures, each more awesome than the last, because; these kids are awesome and you can't really expect anything less than, well, awesome, from them.

Of course, we also took some serious pictures, which, I will share tomorrow since this post is already quite picture-heavy, but; of all the more serious pictures I took, none could compare to this...

The Teenager and her first dance partner. More to come, tomorrow.

Another Day at the Track

Because I am a betting woman, I bet on the Man-Cub to Show. He did.

I bet on Darren to Place. And, he did.

And, I bet on Mikey to win. He did.

While the boys were reenacting the end credits of Chariots of Fire; Jana and I were working on our tans, you know, in the sunny moments that we found between the bouts of rain and wind, otherwise know as few and far between.

And, while it could be argued that I am no fan of track meets that last hour upon hour, in inclement weather; I must report that it was sort of a fun day, nonetheless. Hanging with  friends has that effect on otherwise unpleasant activities, I have found.

It could be argued that the Man-Cub knows this, as well.

  

Following the track meet, the Cub left to spend the weekend with Jana and Darren and I came home to psyche myself up for prom, tomorrow night.

The Teenager volunteered me to do one of her girlfriend's hair despite the fact that I have no talent, whatsoever, in hair styling, but, you know, no pressure.  In addition, I have six kids to photograph, silicone undergarments to paste upon my daughter's bosom, and; Hugh will no doubt require my sage counsel in the event that he finally realizes that his baby is about to embark on a date that will, for all intents and purposes; last all night long (Denial: It ain't just a river in Egypt).

It's going to be an interesting evening, I'm thinking.

Who's Paranoid NOW, Hugh?

You know how, a few weeks ago, I joked about the wind blowing so hard that I was actually concerned about our trampoline taking flight and crashing into the house? And, about how, when I told Hugh about that particular concern, he simply patted my head like I was simple?

Yeah, hey, guess what happened, today?

Yes, I'm serious.

Ok, fine, so it didn't crash into the house, exactly, but the fence took a really good hit.

And, I'm not even complaining, because, had it not been for the fence, one of our neighbors would have had nineteen feet of springy canvas crashing through their house, which would have been even worse.

Plus, our homeowners insurance would have gone up which would have sucked.

As it was, it took the Man-Cub, The Teenager, one of The Teenager's friends, me, and two police officers, who happened to be next door (well, one of them lives next door so it probably wasn't as coincidental as one might imagine, you know, him being there, and, as always, I digress...,) to wrangle the trampoline out of the fence and back onto it's pad in the yard, where; we made sure to remove the netting and the higher side posts in an effort to eliminate the chance of a second flight.

Fingers crossed, I guess.

And, valuable lessons learned from this experience include:

-Tie down your freakin' trampoline.
-Never underestimate your wife's innate sense of paranoia, Hugh.
-Fences make good neighbors.
-But, be nice to your neighbors, anyway, because you never know when you will need one to jump over your privacy fence in pursuit of your errant trampoline.

The end.

(Of this story. And, possibly, of the trampoline, may she rest in pieces)

The Ants Go Marching One by One...

A couple of days ago, I discovered a trail of black sugar ants in the mudroom. The ants had entered the room from a minuscule crack in the baseboard that had gone unnoticed due to its location behind a filing cabinet. I have no idea how long the ants had been stealthily stealing food from Finnigan's dish, but, it couldn't have been longer than a day or so because I am slightly anal about picking up, and cleaning, the food dishes twice a day and; I'm fairly certain that I would have noticed a horde of insects had they existed in that space, earlier.

As it was, I calmly went about eradicating our tiny visitors with the Dustbuster, tracking their path back to that lone crack, filling said crack with silicone, and, spraying the trail with ant spray. Did I mention that I did all of that, calmly?

Yes. Total lie. In actuality, while I did suck those nasty bastards down with the Dustbuster, flushing them down the toilet for good measure; it was Hugh who had to deal with the silicone and the bug spray as I was busy scrubbing myself raw in the shower in an effort to end the imaginary bugs-crawling-on-my-skin-feeling that I picked up the minute the first ant crawled across my hand as I bent to pick up a food dish.

SHUDDER.

I'm not quite over it and can now add PTSD caused by Ant Infestation to my list of imaginary psychological ailments.

Bastards.

Another Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

If I didn't know better, I would think that it was summer. The weather has been gorgeous, the flowers are blooming (along with my allergies, but, I refuse to dwell on the negative), and, my husband has spent the past two days longingly thumbing through a marine catalog in search of new boating toys; if that isn't a sign of summer, then I don't know what is.

Of course, this is all a ruse by Mother Nature, intended to lull us all into a false sense of security so that we are tempted to plant delicate garden vegetables and fragile flowers. Then, She can turn on a dime, freeze the shit out of that stuff and leave us shaking our fists at the sky.

Yeah, not gonna happen, Mother Nature.

Instead, I'm going to thumb longingly through an heirloom seed catalog and mark the days until May 15th, when I will actually put something in the ground.

Fool me, once, and all that shit.