March of Dissipation

So I pretty much haven't sat down since March 11. Which was the last time I was here at Nun-a-ur-beeswax. Can't really remember what happened: it was just like, Ostrich Festival, blur of days and nights that became weeks, and then I woke up this morning with a actual mountain of laundry on my family room couch (is Everest of clothing),  four Three Musketeers wrappers on my nightstand (mint flavor), six extra pounds wrangled into my pants, and BANGS. Plus the broccoli and one strawberry in my garden are ready to be harvested, I found a palm sized wolf spider (inside) and a scorpion (outside), and Tommy apparently spent the night in a cowboy costume from two Halloweens ago?


And my phone tells me it will be 97 degrees tomorrow.


And I don't think it is an elaborate April fool's prank. I think it is real.  Which means that Spring is over, and I should go get some extra deodorant. Because I will be sweating unceasingly for conservatively 7 months. And I won't be able to pull my hot, damp hair off my face because someone gave me BANGS.


I feel sort of disoriented and nervous, like I missed something important.


This all reminds me of the girls in my freshman dorm, who would come to the study lounge to kvetch and cry about whether they did or didn't the night before:"Whadaya think? I'm pretty sure I was too drunk to have been able to retie this complicated knot in my belt all by myself, but maybe I should go to the Health Center just in case?" Then they'd moan a bit and throw up on the carpet.


But unlike most of the 10 keg frat parties of 1991, there seems to be photographic evidence of my MARCH OF DISSIPATION. Which I will share, because if I get up from the computer, I will be forced to fold clothes.


And just for fun, I think I will go backwards, so that when you see the ostrich chariot racing, you'll know we have reached the beginning: March 11. And don't get antsy. This might take a few days.


 Last but not least, we have an explanation for the cowboy get-up:

Friends and family night at the Rockin' R Ranch (is about 100 yards from our house, yet the kids had never been.) So we grabbed some friends and some family and headed over on Monday night. Big Jim and Sweet Mary Robson run the place. They also go to Church with us. It was fun to hear Jim bless the food with his fake cowboy voice. I wish he would pray like that in Sacrament meeting someday.

Snake oil salesman-slash-biscuit maker-slash-outlaw

Mom and my brother Ryan

Saturday night was the prom. Remember how I never went to the prom and this had stunted my emotional growth and might have cost me thousands in therapy if I had remembered to go to therapy? No? Well, Jake finally asked me. And I said yes. And we went to a fake prom thrown by 17 very sensitive thirty-something North Mesa Men (including Jake's sister Jane's husband Todd) for their lucky ladies at one of the fella's airplane hangar at Falcon Field. And we got invited along, too. 

I got ready for three hours. Most of that time was spent:


1. Trying to figure out how to make my new bangs only look a little bit like Farrah Fawcett,
2. Making Jake a boutonniere out of plants I found in the backyard (orange blossoms) and black electrical tape,
3. Attempting to get my falsies (eyelashes) to stay in place, 
4. Trying to get into the tiny black taffeta I borrowed from my sister (I got it over my head, but then it got stuck at my shoulders. I had to enlist Jake to yank on it for awhile, during which time he grumbled a lot and made rude comments about how the prom date's responsibility is only to get the girl OUT of the dress, not in. And there may also have been some ridicule about triple spanx (but jokes were undeserved, since was only in a single girdle. Plus some tasteful fishnets.)

Jake finally found somewhere to wear this tux he found abandoned in an old rental house. He says it is too big around the middle, but he's willing to grow into it.

So we had a good time, but we didn't get named Prom King and Queen, which was sad because the king and queen got a ride in the helicopter that was parked inside the hangar (along with the airplane, two Harleys, and the adult tricycle, which one woman, in a short white formal, rode around at top speed).


But Jake did get a text from my Mom warning us not to have sex, which was nice. But then she retracted it, saying it was probly too late for such admonitions, because she'd remembered about the five kids we already have.


And I also thought that maybe I should throw my own prom someday. And only play music that they used to play at the ASU Institute dances in the early 90s. This would include: That super annoying 500 miles song by the Proclaimers, and Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes. That's all I've got so far, so it is going to be a short prom if you don't help me out. If you were at an institute dance or perhaps at some club like The Palace or The Edge in Provo during this time, you might be able to help. But not if you were at the University of Arizona Institute. Because that deejay was super old and played Footloose. You Wildcats are all disqualified.


So I haven't gotten very far back into March, but I have to go pick up my children. There is so much left! Pinewood Derby! A tea party complete with clotted cream and orange curd and lots of ten-year-old girls! Jane Eyre! Trips to the optometrist! A really bad hangnail! The baby emptying out my nail polish drawer ten times a day to play with his favorite toy, the PedEgg, which he likes to suck on, even though it sharp and full of revolting bits of dead heel skin!

What did your March of Dissipation hold?
What songs should I add to my prom playlist?