Pink, Blue/White, "Forever Young", and "Take My Breath Away"

"Hey - help me make the hubby understand something" was the first thing I heard when I picked up the phone.

"Sure thing, Sis - what's up?"

"Ok first you should know that you're on speakerphone," she says.

"Gotcha so no talking about how you're teaching my nieces to slowly drive their daddy insane," I say.

"Ha ha," says the brother-in-law. "It's not that slow and it's a very short drive."

"Tell me about your proms" she asks.

Now - the nice part about family members who talk fairly frequently is that details are rarely necessary. So I don't ask her why she wants to know about the proms that I attended. I figure that'll become clear when she hears what she wants to hear.

"Sure thing. Well both of them were in SF proper - downtown, so like either the Mark Hopkins or the Fairmont Hotel - I forget which year was which place. We rented limos to drive us and it was up to the guys to park their cars at the hotel the day before (or the day of) so that we would have a way to get home the next day, after we'd spent the night ..."

And at this point, I can hear the BIL in the background already laughing in disbelief. "So wait wait wait hold up - these were like rooms on the sly or something then, right?"

"Noooo," we sisters reply in unison. "Heck, I think Mom even paid for mine one year" she adds. "It makes sense when ya' think about it - I mean, they knew we'd be drinking so the last thing they'd want is for us to drive and plus, it gave us a place to be sick the next morning before we'd head to breakfast."

"Oh sure - I'm sure that excuse went over REALLY well with your dad," says my BIL.

I responded "Well, not for your wife's choices of dates no - but I was dating the same guy throughout high school and he was damn near adopted into the family so it wasn't an issue with me."

"And actually, after prom was dwindling down", she chimed in, "we'd move the kegs from room to room as various couples either hooked up or drank themselves to sleep. So anyway, the reason I'm asking is that some prom up here got shut down over the weekend 'cause they were dancing too ... suggestively ... for the teachers attending or something. It was on a boat too, so that had to suck, right? I guess they just turned off the music and sat on the water for like three hours before heading back ashore."

"Oh yeah", I said. "I read about that yesterday I think. Yanno, in 1984 the senior class at my high school sank their prom boat in the bay. It was a Blue and Gold Fleet boat and I dunno what all they did but they sank it. There were lawsuits and everything. In fact, my senior class tried to rent a boat a couple of years later and they STILL wouldn't accept our business."

"So seriously - you two had proms in hotels in the city???" asked the BIL, with TOTAL disbelief.

"Yeah," I snorted. "Geez - can you imagine how lame it woulda been to have held it in the gym? Hell - who woulda gone to THAT? 'Wow - the basketball hoop looks just like the moooooon'." My sister and I were laughing pretty well by this point.

"So did you pull up the video that showed how they were dancing?" I asked. "Oh yeah," they both responded. "Honestly it wasn't as bad as it's being made out to be around here." And then my brother-in-law made a comment that I LOVED hearing. "I laughed when I saw it was a girls Catholic high school. Figures."

And I probably SHOULD have resisted, but I didn't. "Well - your wife went to a Catholic middle school and after they saw what she'd become, my folks made sure to send me to a public one - which may be why she's like she is and why I'm like I am. Speaking of which ... sayyyyy my oldest niece has been accepted into the private Catholic elementary school up there, right?"

"Yes," was the rather stoic reply from my BIL. "But" my sister added "both of your nieces are gonna go from being young girls who loathe boys directly to 27 year old women so we won't need to worry about how they dance."

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Ok now for all ... three .... of you readers out there: Your/your dates dress was the color of? and your prom song was?

Because It's Been In My Head

You Are There. I Am Here. She'll Be Her Somewhere Else.

It's true. Wherever you are? You're there. You may not desire that location - heck, you may be mystified as to how you arrived there ... or how you'll depart from there - yet there you are.

Me? I'm here.

A year ago, there were days ... dark and ugly days indeed ... where I questioned if I'd be anywhere at all a year from then ... that is to say, if I'd be anywhere today. I'm still grateful - annoyingly so at times - that I am where I am - right "here". It isn't where I thought I'd be but, considering the alternatives, I'm truly and honestly at peace with "here". Not a heartbeat doesn't pass where I don't realize WHY it took nearly 41-years to get "here".

Even when "here" looks a little too familiar to my "there" of the late 80's, I can review the person I was when I was "there" and see that "she" woulda neeeeevvvvvvver been able to be "here" without having gone "there" first. I'm relieved that I walked away from "her" and from "there". It's not something "she" did alone, but "she" thanked those that needed to be thanked and I'm fine with how "she" and I left things.

And then, soon, I'll be somewhere else as "Her". I gotta say ... I envy "Her" so much. She's so deserving of what the me of now is preparing.

But that's somewhere that isn't "here" or "there". And it's "Her" job to get all of us from Here To There.