More Catching Up: Prom and After-Prom

Back when I had that long-overdue update, I mentioned a whole slew of events that had happened, with vague suggestions that I might get around to adding details later. So here are some more details on prom weekend, because it was a little nutty.

First, I ended up being on the PTO After-Prom Party planning committee, which is pretty ironic since I knew that my daughter had no plan to attend the After-Prom Party. But the position that I’d committed to for the PTO had basically dissolved due to Covid cancellations, and then they asked me to do something else, and I said no, and they asked me to do another something else, and I said no again, and so by the time I was asked to help with this, it was high time I said yes. And really, it wasn’t too terribly bad, except that the timing was poor when it turned out that our Special Family Project that I mentioned (and that I will explain soon, I swear!) required that Cute W, J, and I travel to New Hampshire immediately prior to the prom, then race back to make it to the event. That made things hectic.

Cute W and I did enjoy a little tourist time in New Hampshire. We’d decided it wasn’t worth it to travel up and back to drop J off and pick her up, so instead we stayed at nearby Lake Opechee Inn and Spa for two nights. We didn’t take advantage of their many amenities, really, because it was a quick stay and we were tired! This was just after I recovered from Covid, and I still wasn’t at 100%. But the hotel was a lovely place, even if the pastoral-scenes-and-gingham decor was a little precious for my tastes.

We dropped J off on Thursday evening after running late basically all day and feeling pretty high-stress about the entire endeavor, but then we immediately went into vacation mode when we arrived at Trillium Farm to Table. We had fantastic sandwiches and cocktails in a courtyard that was entirely empty because we were late for dinner. It was just a lovely sigh of relief.

The next day was unfortunately rainy, but we still went on a short hike. Since this was on a Friday, Cute W was getting work calls, so he literally took a call from a mayor when we were halfway up a mountain. There was a lovely view

And in one spot, people had set up a whole bunch of stone “chairs” to sit and admire the view, which I appreciated.

We had originally aspired to have some sort of a fancy date night for Friday night, but have I mentioned that we were tired? We ended up picking up lobster rolls and eating them at a picnic table in a park during a very brief interval when it wasn’t drizzling, and honestly, they totally hit the spot and made the perfect date.

The next morning we were busy with J and then it was time to get home as quickly as possible. I painted J’s toenails as Cute W drove. J’s friends had already gathered to take pictures as we were crossing the Rexford bridge. J literally ran into the house to do some quick primping and put her dress on. This dress was a different one from the sparkly number in that previous post, and it had a wrap-style skirt that had been quite a project to hem. In the approximately 15 minutes between when we arrived home from New Hampshire and when we left to meet friends for pictures, J was running up the stairs, caught her foot on the hem, and put about a 3-inch rip into the dress. Luckily, it was on the portion of the dress that was covered by the wrap skirt, but there were definitely some tense moments as I tore the house apart looking for safety pins and putting the dress back together. You couldn’t tell at all: she still looked great.

Then it was speed-racing to the photo shoot. After the photos, our plan was that J would leave with friends and Cute W and I would load my car with a bunch of after-prom party supplies, then I would drive the supply-packed car to the high school and Cute W would ride his bike to the high school (because he’s stay home while I stayed at school for party set-up), so we’d both be at the school in time to see J do the prom red carpet walk-in. Instead, there was a miscommunication between friends, which meant that when Cute W and I were halfway home, we had to turn around, head back to the picture spot, and gather and pick up stray teenagers who needed a ride to the high school. We’d already been behind schedule, and now we were way behind schedule. We dropped the kids, then circled back to the house for supplies and Cute W’s bike. After stuffing the car, W took off and I started driving, only to realize that the car’s rear door wasn’t fully closed because of everything we’d just thrown in. I pulled over, rearranged, and slammed the rear door, and I kid you not, my license plate fell off my car and clattered onto the street. At first I tried to hand-screw it back on, and a lovely neighbor, who’d seen the whole thing, called to me from her porch with an offer of tools. But after about 45 seconds, I decided to go with “screw it,” I threw the license plate in with all the other crap, and I headed to school. Where, if you are familiar with this school, you actually go in the main doors and can see the kids approach the side of the stage from the hallway, so I saw J and her friends were about to go on stage and I full-out sprinted down the hallway, around the corner, and into the auditorium just in time to see her step out. Phew.

Just a reminder that all of this was happening when I had just recovered from Covid.

So! With J off to prom, it was time to set up for the party at the high school that was planned for approximately 11 pm to 3:30 am. Normally the after-prom party is at some venue, but we’d been confined to the high school due to Covid uncertainty, so it was a lot of work trying to make everything festive and fun. My friend and I planned the decor, and our main objective was to try to make kids forget that they were in the high school and imagine that they were someplace nicer, and I think we did a pretty good job of it:

I had also crowdsourced a playlist for dancing, so once the party started, I was mostly tucked away in the dance space that was fairly removed from the rest of the party. For me it was a pretty mellow night, although there were a few truly committed fans of the music system. As our committee chair announced over the PA system that it was time to go home at 3:30 am, I was shooing away a few boys who were really invested in the song choice, telling them sorry, the party is now over. The administrator staff who showed up were like, “Hey, we should do this at the high school every year” and all the PTO people were like, “Ummmm.” So, we’ll see.

J had a lovely time at the prom and at her own, non-school-sponsored after-prom festivities, and I managed to stay awake for the entire after-prom, and then I slept in super-late the next morning. I feel like I spent the next week mostly recovering, and as it happened, it was an excellent week for me to do that. I even got a massage!