8:34 PM |
That's what it said on the nursery's sign as I dashed to boarding school twice because the kid forgot his phone.
Ok, I hate blogs that document the writer's kids' boring things that the writer thinks are fascinating and no one else does. But I just must document the promothon (my kid's date's mom's term) or promorama (mine). Just for me. So that when my memory gets even worse than it is, I'll be able to call this up.
My son is going to two proms, his and hers. Since I don't get to have anything to do with either one of them, including seeing the happy couple in their fancy duds, I focus on flowers. The florist even called me a day in advance to inspect the corsages in case I want something changed. She does this because she knows that the girl is a keeper. Here are the corsages, all three of them. The pink one is coordinated to her dress which is multicolor and her mom couldn't quite describe it to me so she sent me the link to the store's online listing. It was indeed multicolored. Very groovy. I love these little plastic boxes. They remind me of my own prom. I was in the Little Theater which was the community place that did stuff like HMS Pinnafore and The Fantastiks. I was in The Music Man and also the junior prom committee. We had a performance that night so I was going to miss the prom. I hated all my classmates and they all hated me so I didn't really care (well only a little, okay I cared a lot). My theater friends were way cooler. Anyhow, a great looking college (!) guy told me he would take me to "that thing" when the show was over. He wore a powder blue tux with a ruffled shirt. I wore a polyester light blue thing that was, to tell the truth, a bit provocative given its slippery texture. We went late and everyone was astonished. My archrival with the pushy mother oohed and aahed over my double orchid corsage. From that time on, the flowers meant the success of the prom. Thus, my attention to Miss Sarah's flowers. This is my kid with corsages when we went back the next morning to pick them up. I could fix that complexion if he lived at home.
The kids were coming over between the two proms for lunch. I had some errands to do, but I passed the Jenkins Arboretum on my way. There was an iris show. I had never been to an iris show. It was too early to look but I couldn't come back so they let me peek in the room. The irises are very pretty. I have no idea what a winning iris looks like so I had to ask. This is Bill. Bill told me that grooming and cultivation are the two biggest things. Grooming means taking off all the dust with a q-tip and so on. Cultivation means you should have the things growing so that the stems are straight and the flowers in the right spot. 
This orange and purple one is not straight. It will not win but for all I know it could be a rare one or something which is why it is on the entryway table. This purple and white one is very straight, but even I can tell it needs grooming. I asked Bill if the peach ones are a new trend or something. No, they are not.
This one is special because it has all these branching stems. These are the serious iris lovers getting their flowers together. They are all in bottles with labels on them about the name of the entrant, the name of the iris and some more stuff that I couldn't read. I think they are grooming.
This is Denise and Nancy. Nancy does not garden. Her husband Bill (that Bill) does. She is on the membership drive. I joined the Delaware Valley Iris Society (who knew?) and I can come to the picnic when they give iris away. It was $25 to join both the national and local clubs.
On to fancy supermarket for lunch stuff. Kid asked me if I could make lunch. I'm not sure I know how, as he only eats pizza. He suggests paninis because he can make a grilled cheese. Here in Pennsylvania, we have state liquor stores. You cannot buy alcohol anyplace else except for beer which you can buy in a six-pack or a case or a keg from your local bar or a "beverage distribution center" which also sells soda and potato chips. They don't need decor because you just want the beer and to get out of there to drink it. So here I am in the supermarket and there is this vending machine for wine! I guess this is the substitute for all those cigarette machines we used to have. Remember those? They had chrome fronts with a slot for the quarter and then these white knobs that you pulled. Not that I would know. I wonder if the state still makes the profit on the wine or if the supermarket gets some.Got on checkout line. I hate to shop on the weekend because everyone else has to so it's too busy. Made strategic decision on which checkout line to use. Girls are usually a little faster with packing, but some of the guys take it pretty seriously. Did you ever get behind someone with so much stuff in the cart and it keeps coming out like clowns from the car? Doesn't matter. Through my lengthy research, I have deduced that it isn't the number of items, it's the number of payments that have to be made. It's pretty much the same time to check out someone with one item and someone with 30. Really. Try it. Anyhow, I picked a girl with only one lady ahead of me. I had local strawberries. She wasn't sure what to ring up. She finally found strawberries on that lookup list that they have and punched in the number. She then needed to enter quantity. She paused. She faultered. She winced and punched in 1. It charged $4.99 so she knew it was right. It's a good thing, she said, I really didn't want to count all those berries. She was serious. I can't make this up.
Drove back to boarding school with phone. Miss Sarah thought I'd like to see them dressed up. I told you she's a keeper. All the couples were posing for pictures in the Headmaster's garden. The girls wore dresses just like on Glamour Belles but maybe with a little less sparkles. Just a little. I wonder what happened to Glamour Belles? Two weeks then nothing. I suppose you have to be a toddler with a tiara to get renewed. Pervs. (and me!)
It will be a long time until Lila Rae's prom. Thank goodness.