Homecoming dance

Mark had a date Saturday night to the Homecoming dance.  He had asked one of his friends and 6 of them went together.  He told me their loosely laid plans a few days before the dance and I encouraged him to hone them a bit.

By Friday night, they had plans more solidified and then by Saturday morning, they seemed pretty good.  I was straightening the kitchen and asked Mark about a box on the table.  It was the tie his date's mother (a.k.a. his drama teacher) had bought for him to wear to the dance, complete with pocket square and cuff links.

He went on the day date which is a thing I am still not used to and Adam and I did errands.  Later we were home when Mark was back home getting ready for the dance.  He was wearing a vest without pockets so the pocket square had to have a pass.  We couldn't figure out how to make the cuff links work in his white Stafford shirt.  He did look handsome though.  He's my boy.  Of course I think so.

About ten minutes before he was to leave, it occurred to me that 1) he didn't have a corsage for his date and 2) this was obviously a big deal because her mom had given Mark a tie so he would match.  Mark insisted it was not a big deal but Adam and I disagreed with him.

Adam and I immediately started problem solving.  We would go to the store and buy flowers and create a corsage.  Neither of us had ever created a corsage before but that didn't hold us back.

Years ago Braeden had pinned a boutonnière from one of his high school dances on the garage wall, which is our family staple-it-up scrapbook.  We went out and studied it and slid the pin out of the stem of the dried up boutonnière for our own use.   I remembered I had florist tape.  We grabbed my small pruning shears and hit the road.

I texted Desi for a floral consultation.  She was cooking for a mission reunion but called me later.  I said, "I know that if I ever have a true floral emergency, I can't count on you."

She said, "I feel awful!  You can count on me!" I shouldn't tease Desi.  She's too sweet for teasing.

We stopped at a grocery store and bought two bouquets that each contained one rose and some baby's breath and some greenery.  We were hoping for that fern leather stuff that every corsage I've ever seen has but the bouquets had different greenery.

Adam saw a different, bigger bouquet that had the fern leather we were after.  He felt it. "It doesn't even look real," he said.

Then it came off in his hand.

He looked so shocked and guilty holding the tiny piece of fern in his big hand that I started giggling.  I don't think I stopped for about 30 minutes because it was a ridiculous situation.  We were frantically making a corsage for our son who didn't really want us to do it and we had no idea what we were doing.

We persisted.

We opened the back end of Joan in the grocery store parking lot and that became our workshop.

Here I am modeling the finished product:

We got to the restaurant well before Mark and his group (I guess we didn't have to be quite so frantic).  We ran a few errands that were nearby and when we finally met up with Mark, he was wearing a boutonnière.  We knew the corsage mattered!  (We just didn't figure it out early enough!)

Mark sent me this picture later.  They had dinner at Mod.  He said the guy asked if they'd been there before then he looked up at Mark and said, "Oh, I know you've been here before."

Guilty as charged.

Mark's date is the one in green.  She's holding the corsage.  Darn.  Mark said she didn't really know how to put it on.  That's why we should have had it there when her mom could have put it on! (sad face)

They had fun though.

They came here after the dance for milk and cookies on the deck.  They were a loud and raucous group and then they went to the basement to watch a movie and I went to bed.  Basements + loud enthusiastic teenagers are a lovely combination.

P.S.  Eden left the corsage in Mark's car accidentally and Mark put it in our fridge.  She and her mom stopped by yesterday because she wanted the corsage.  I was able to apologize for our folly and she gave me a warm hug.

I sure like nice kids.