Not just any Homecoming Parade, MY Homecoming Parade. My alma mater, my high school. I heard the cheerleaders young enough to be my daughters calling out the same cheers they did 13 years ago. I watched school club 'Sweethearts' in Barbie dresses ride on top of convertibles and wave like the Queen. I actually cheered a loud, inappropriate 'WHOOOO!' when the Forensics and Debate Sweethearts drove by. I got a little teen-angst when I saw all the popular girls who got voted Homecoming Maids and Queen smiling their (what I perceived as) fake, condescending smiles. I felt like I had zits on my face all over again.
And I had a lot of trouble believing that they didn't look back at me and see a cool (ish) teenager with red hair and piercings, but a soccer mom in her 30s sitting in the trunk of her mini van looking a little like mutton dressed as lamb.
I'd forgotten how awful high school is.
The parade was fun though. The kids loved it, even Jaguar. There were marching bands and a gazillion cheerleaders and the ROTC and fire trucks and some local businesses with floats. Even though the humidity was torture (particularly for my mother-in-law's Scottish blood), we enjoyed ourselves and were glad we made the effort to go. (We nearly didn't.)
I picked Fifi up from school, and we drove straight to the parade, though it wasn't starting for another hour and a half, to avoid the traffic. We got a great parking spot facing the street and walked down to the ice cream parlour to kill time before the parade.
I say ice cream 'parlour' but I should really call it ice cream 'nirvana'. This was the first time I'd ever visited the 3 Flamingos Frozen Yogurt, but it won't be my last! The place was amazing. It was a self-serve frozen yogurt bar on steroids with every conceivable flavour of frozen yogurt you could imagine* and every possible topping you could ever literally dream up. You choose your fro-yo, top it up with sugary awesomeness and weigh it to determine the price. It was A.MAZ.ING.
(*Redundant wording, yes, but necessarily so.)
Ice Cream and Gran - what more could they want? |
Buzzing with parading patrons. |
Tahitian Vanilla and Gummy Bears for Lolly. |
This is how much Jaguar loved the fro-yo. |
I will be going back there often, with or without children.
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Oops I think I blinked. |
I wore The Dress at a top today, tucked into my jeans. I loved the look, but it was too daggum hot today for it really, and I pretty much cooked all day long. The bird scarf and the pinstripe hat didn't really help with the heat. The shoes were my $5 number from Kmart.
Fifi wore The Dress under her school t-shirt, with a pair of pop socks and light-up graffiti sneakers. She wore a matching red ribbon in her hair. The t-shirt came off halfway through the day at school, because it was so hot, and then she swapped the dress out for running shorts and the t-shirt again for the parade. Fair enough, it was really humid and awful today.
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One last thing. Last year, if you'll recall, I participated in the October Dress Project to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support in Scotland. This year I still want to do the project for a cause, so I'm opening up a Pampered Chef Fundraiser Show to raise money for Help Whip Cancer. 15% of the sales will go to charity, so if you place an order, you'll be contributing to the fundraiser. It's the only way I can think to do ODP for charity this year, so please feel free to share the link with whomever, and hopefully together we can make a difference!
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