Prom Night is a Bomb Night

Captain's Log: Day 3

Skee-lo coming in clutch with the 90's lyrics that live rent free in my brain...

Ok, first of all, I have decided that I'm not going to write every day. That is just too high of a standard to hold myself to. It was super easy to write daily when we were living our best lives in the comfort of our own homes and the people and animals inside them and the most exciting thing may be what Pepper the Savage brought home today (Nothing. Absolutely nothing lately, if you're wondering. He's either a slacker, or the rats and lizards are migrating.) But I will do my best to write a few entries every week as often as possible.

Saturday was the Middle Child's prom. This was a very different experience from the Eldest Child's. It is also a CRAZY different experience from when I was a kid. For one, Prom was for upper classmen, unless you were awesome enough to be invited by said upperclassmen. None of this Junior Prom, Senior Ball stuff. It was also just a dance. In the gym, or if you were lucky like my class, at Arnold Hall on the Air Force Academy. Because we had connections...and my high school was (and still is) actually ON the Air Force Academy. Which is a topic for another day. I digress. You got all dolled up, your date picked you up, you took some pictures in your backyard, scrambled over to your date's house so you could take some pictures with his family, and then went to dinner somewhere. One year we went to the Broadmoor, which, in retrospect, is a terrible idea to let a bunch of high school kids into a fancy establishment and expect them to act with dignity. In fact, I do recall the maître d coming over and telling us to settle down at one point... And then you head to the dance whenever you get there, and then see where the night takes you before you end up at Village Inn for breakfast and/or pie.

For the Eldest, this adventure began months in advance, trying to find the perfect dress. Then there was the stress of trying to figure out who was going to go in your limo - difficult because you don't want to leave anyone out of your limo, but if you invite THIS person, then you have to invite THAT person, but THAT person is really not part of this friend group, etc. Pictures have also become a whole experience. To the point that when the Eldest was a senior, THE ENTIRE CLASS was invited to a certain house where they actually had parking attendants trying to manage the flow of traffic on the street because there were so many people trying to get there. It was bananas. But I will say it was fun to see everyone dressed up and to get that picture of the whole group of ladies (she went to an all girls Catholic high school). But I definitely required a glass of wine and debrief with a girlfriend after that experience. The dance itself was held at a venue that included dancing, food and other things to do for those who didn't want to get down with their bad selves, which was pretty awesome.

The Middle Child was a totally different experience. First of all, came the Prom-posal, which is adorable in my opinion. The latest trend is to make a poster and to present it to the lovely lady who he is currently "talking with" (she's a doll!), which he did about a little more than week (!) before the big event. Secondly, he is of the male species so it is super easy for him to figure out what to wear. He went with the Ex-hubs to a store at the mall, (super ghetto mall BTW - when did indoor malls stop being a thing?) where he purchased a complete suit, with a tie, vest, pocket square and everything in one afternoon a week or so before the big event. I think the most difficult choice was what color shirt (white) and tie (emerald green to match his date's dress) to get. Fancy shoes were bought a day before Prom and arrived via Amazon. Easy. The hardest thing for him was, despite my asking him to make sure he had everything a few days before, realizing about 10 minutes before he was supposed to leave that he didn't have a belt. The good news was that there is a Ross near our neighborhood, so I swung in on my way home from dropping the Youngest off and grabbed a couple belts, and waited in the parking lot for him to come to me. (Side note - when I went back in to return the second belt, I was actually in line behind a friend of mine with a son the same age who was ALSO purchasing a last minute belt...Ross to the rescue!) The kids then popped to a couple houses for group pictures before ending up at the school to be bused to the marina where they went on a ridiculously large yacht. A yacht. Seriously. This is a thing. It was a multi-level yacht, complete with food, dancing, a silent disco and other activities the kids could partake in while sailing leisurely under the Bay and Golden Gate bridges and enjoying a beautiful, twilight view of San Francisco. Isn't that so fancy? I seriously don't think that these kids even realize that this is not something that other people in the Prom Kingdom get to experience. I also asked the Middle Child if he took pictures. He said no (face palm... doesn't he know his mother wants these things?!) Regardless, of my lack of pictures on das boat, the kids had a great time, the weather was amazing (always tricky in SF - you never know how the fog will behave) and they totally made some special memories.