Prom week

Yes, this was the week of Prom, a rite of passage that I had almost no knowledge of until this year, since my high school didn't have a prom. We had something called the Tri-School Formal, which may have been similar, I don't know. The three high schools in town (there were three back then, but soon after, it dropped down to two) had a big joint dance every spring. I think my little sister went one year. My boyfriend and I went to the Winter Formal -- me in an absolutely dreadful dress, black with red roses. I was thinking about that dress as I scrolled through pictures from last year's After Prom yesterday. All these pretty dresses. Why couldn't I have had a pretty dress? 

My high school had a big party on grad night, which I think most schools don't do. That was sort of our prom. It went until late at night and you weren't expected/required to have a date, so all my dateless friends went to it too, which was nice. I think there were games to play -- I don't remember very well. What I do remember is that I had a dreadful dress for that, too. It was sort of beige-y, with puffy sleeves, I think vaguely prairie style. So unattractive, so juvenile. Why couldn't I have had a pretty dress for graduation? Were there no pretty dresses in the stores? Well, it was the late 70s. I know my mother and I worked hard to find me something nice, but we failed.

I guess that's why it was important to me to buy Teen A a really sharp looking suit for prom. I want my kids to look nice. I want everybody to look nice!

At the last minute, practically, Rocket Boy got interested in Prom, or more specifically After Prom. He donated $150 and signed up to help with setup. He did some setting up Friday night and a little more on Saturday afternoon. This photo shows the game room being set up in the East Boulder Rec Center gymnasium.

We studied the online sign-up sheets with great interest, spotting the names of parents of two kids that our kids went to elementary school with. (We haven't had any contact with these parents for a long time.) But Rocket Boy didn't see either of them when he was helping out. Maybe he wouldn't recognize them. People change a lot, going past early middle age to late middle age. Menopause has a big effect on women's looks, and hair turning gray does a lot too. And men's bodies often fall apart.

There were still some slots available, such as bathroom monitor from 2 am to 3 am, and I actually considered signing up. But at midnight, when we were tucked into bed and getting ready to turn off the light, I was really glad I hadn't. When I was younger, staying up that late was possible, but I think I'm past that now.

Rocket Boy went by the East Boulder Rec Center around 1 pm this afternoon, but they were all done cleaning up already. Someone told him there were 1500 kids there last night! That's kind of hard to believe. The two schools only have about 1000 students each who were eligible to attend (500 in the senior class, 500 in the junior class), and you know they didn't all go (for example, Teen B). So that was a lot.

Of course, Teen A didn't go to dinner with us last night (he stopped by to get his suit and tie and then was out the door in a flash). We considered going to the Bohemian Biergarten, which is basically right across the street from where our kids' school's Prom was held (at the Boulder Theater), so that we could watch the kids arriving. I nixed that idea, suggested we go far out of town to get away from it all. So then RB thought of Helga's, a German restaurant near where he works. It was a 45-minute drive to get there, but they stay open until 10 pm, and we had time. 

It was OK. When we got there, a man was playing the accordion -- really well, but really loudly, and I wasn't sure Teen B was going to be able to stand it (he's pretty sensitive to noise). Fortunately the musician finished up, said he had to catch his bus, and left.

I had pork jagerschnitzel, which was such a bad choice, I don't know what I was thinking. But the spatzle and red cabbage were good, as was the goulash soup that we started with. And we brought home delicious apple strudel. So I would go back, just order something different next time (like the vegetarian plate).  

I'm feeling a little spacey right now, because (a) I'm coming down with Teen B's cold that he's had all week, and (b) I just had my second shingles shot, about an hour ago. I am anticipating that the week ahead will not be a good one, at least the first few days. Unlike Teen B, I will dose myself with cold medicine religiously, but that's not going to help with the shingles shot reaction. Plus, I have to give myself my Mounjaro shot tonight. Oh well.

But I will try to make it through the week, keep trying to follow my new resolutions as best I can. This past week I did OK, some good, some bad. I only managed four walks, but four walks is much better than zero walks. We had SNOW on Friday, so amazing, so I didn't walk that day. In this picture, it's just getting started, but later it got really heavy and coated everything with white. I didn't get a picture of the snow on people's lilac bushes, but it was so beautiful, the purple and white.

And then it all melted, most of it before it even got dark. This was a very quick storm. But more is predicted this coming week, maybe Friday to Saturday. It won't help the snowpack much, but it will be wonderful. 

You can see all those leaf bags lined up by the compost & trash bins in the picture -- that's my hard work cutting down junipers and picking up sticks. I did yardwork on four of the five weekdays (the fifth was Friday, when it snowed, and I decided it was OK to take that day off). And I did yardwork all five weekdays the week before. So that's 9 days = 8 leaf bags plus the compost bin itself.

I will try to do the same this week, with the caveat that the shingles shot and the cold may prevent me from doing so. It will be OK.

As I noted above, I took some walks, but not as many as planned. I lifted weights on Tuesday, but not Thursday, and I did not do any stretch videos. I just seem to have no energy these days. But I will keep trying.

I did some writing, including writing a letter to an old friend who I haven't heard from for a few years. I should probably stop writing to her, but she's such an old friend -- I met her in 1979 -- and she's had times before where she got depressed and didn't write. So I figure I'll keep writing occasionally, at least for her birthday, which is in May, until/unless she tells me not to or I hear that something's happened to her. 

I should note that it was a strange week, because our email was shut off from Tuesday night to Friday morning, when Rocket Boy finally managed to get our domain name reinstated. Any emails sent to us during that time just didn't get through -- they're lost forever. I hope there was nothing important. Nothing I can do about it if there was. 

Housework this week was mostly a bust. The house is really getting very dirty, and I have the book group coming in a few weeks, not to mention my sister's brief visit for the twins' graduation. Finally, yesterday, I thought -- what if Teen A stops by with his girlfriend -- or even, horrors, the girlfriend's father -- not that that was likely to happen -- but what if it did -- and they needed to use the bathroom -- and it looks like this. So I set the timer on my phone for TEN MINUTES, and I got busy. I cleaned the sink, the top and sides of the toilet, scrubbed the toilet bowl, and worked on the weird orange stains in the shower.

(Later, Rocket Boy said to me, "Why is the shower wet?" I said, "I cleaned the bathroom, can't you tell?" He hadn't noticed. But if Teen A's girlfriend's father had stopped by, I'm sure he would have noticed if I hadn't cleaned it.)

And then I took a break, and then I set my phone timer for 10 more minutes and cleaned the kitchen (mostly just did dishes and wiped off counters).

Ten minutes is a very bearable amount of time. I will try to remember that this week, do a few more ten minute sessions.

Today I am doing a lot of laundry, speaking of housework, because last night our cat Sillers lost control of her bladder (I think?) while sitting on my pillows. She likes to do this when I'm in bed reading at night. Baby Kitty settles himself on my lap, and Sillers perches on the pillows above my head, nestled close to me. Last night I was reading as usual, and suddenly it felt like someone was pouring warm water down my back. I sat up, looked behind me, and there's this smelly liquid coming down from the cat. She didn't seem even slightly perturbed. I grabbed her and put her on the floor. The stuff was on both pillows and their cases, my nightgown, a little on the sheet, probably in my hair. 

Today, everything's getting washed. I hadn't washed those pillows in ages, so it's probably a good thing. They're currently on the clothesline, baking in the sun (we're beginning a heat wave today).

I don't know what to do about that cat. I think I will call the vet tomorrow. What could have possessed her? She poops all over the house, has no control of that, but she's never peed on anything that I know of. And to pee on the pillows and on me! Sigh. Problems with companion animals.

This might be the place to mention the dead raccoon we found on our neighbor's front lawn a few days ago -- Tuesday, I think it was. Our neighbor on the other side had mentioned seeing a possibly sick raccoon on Friday or Saturday, she'd even called Animal Control and they came out, but couldn't find it. So it somehow made it past our house and died on the other neighbor's lawn. She called Animal Control, but they told her to just double bag it and put it in her trash. I helped her. I lifted the raccoon by its tail and put it in the garbage bag, which she then tied, and then we put it in a second bag. 

I was very glad when the trash was picked up on Friday, knowing the dead raccoon was gone (no, I didn't take a picture of it).

So, the week ahead. Teen A has a dentist appointment on Wednesday morning, and then he and Rocket Boy are flying to Los Angeles on Thursday, to attend Cousin June's memorial service on Friday, and then flying back on Sunday. Teen B and I have several things to do while they're gone: he has his yearly physical on Thursday, we're going to the other high school's spring play on Friday night, and on Saturday he has a haircut appointment. I am HOPING to cram all my sickness and feeling crummy after the shot into the next three days, so I'll be up for things getting more complicated later in the week.

Speaking of which, I think I might go back to bed for a little while. Maybe take some Tylenol for my sore throat, maybe some herb tea with honey. Take it easy. We old people have to look after ourselves.