Happy 12th birthday, Sally!
There’s a very good chance that Sally pulled off the party
of the year for our class, and while I’m not at all comfortable with boy-girl
parties; I really love barn dances!
It was a lot cooler today, and we had a few spits of rain
this morning, but Sally’s family just added a little heat to the hay barn; and
the colder weather didn’t affect her party at all – except maybe for her father
and uncle while they were working the barbeques outside before dinner. Before I get to the party recap, though, I
should probably get the school day news out of the way first.
Day One Fridays are always more fun for me now, and other
than needing to settle for Tai Chi indoors, it was a good day. Even though the other girls were talking a
lot about boys today, Rowen and I put up with that during lunch so we could
hang out with Sally; and the party talk and speculation was entertaining. In music class, we’re already attempting to
play songs, and I don’t mind admitting that the saxophone and flute sections of
our little would-be ensemble are the best in the class. I’d say that the extra work Rowen and I are
putting in is helping a lot, and Michael was already ahead of the rest of us
thanks to his background in music. That
class was the most fun, but though I love Spanish too; today it was just the
last class we needed to get through before it was party time.
Rowen and I split up after school to get ready for the
party, and then we walked over to the computer store to get a ride out to
Sally’s house with Rowen’s mother. Sally
had invited all of our classmates, most of the girls she’d played baseball
with; her cousins; and some of their friends.
Bringing dates was an option too, and that all made for a very big group
of kids and teens at the farm. It also
required some parental cooperation for the transportation, and Patricia was
also taking Rebecca, Jenny, Michael, and Tim.
My Mom or Dad was going to be doing the return trip when the party ended
sometime around eleven.
If I’d crossed over and cared about these things, going to
the party with Rebecca and Jenny would have been a very bad start to the
night. They both fill out a pair of
jeans and a top way better than Rowen or I do – a fact that the boys at the
party noticed immediately. We were
practically invisible by comparison. For
some parts of the night, that was a good state for us to be in; but I’ll get to
the weirder parts of the night in a bit.
A hay barn dance sure isn’t anything new, but it was new and exciting to
me. The floor had been swept clean;
bales of hay lined the area that was set up for the dance; and everything from
pumpkins to scarecrows were used to decorate the place.
The party started out with a social hour that included all
of the adult members of Sally’s family – her parents, grandparents, aunts,
uncles, and cousins. They were all on
the work crew for dinner, and ate with us too; but then, once the post-dinner
clean-up was finished, the rest of the party was almost completely
chaperone-free. Yes, that is
Halloween-scary!
Rowen and I weren’t the only ‘single’ girls tonight, but we
were the only two in our class. Rebecca
was the only girl there from her Grade Eight class not currently playing the
dating game; and she spent some time with us now and then; but had to juggle
doing that without taking a hit to her reputation. I wasn’t worried about that for myself, and
if Rowen and I lost points with the girls in our class; we traded that for
bonus points with the younger girls that we did spend time with; encourage to
get up and dance; and entertain with some younger-girl rated chat and jokes.
That was all fun, but the weird and scary was all around us
too. Apparently, haylofts are popular
places for making out, and explained why party guests kept disappearing in
pairs. Some of our classmates and
friends were among those couples; though I’d guess that not all of those trips
to one of the haylofts were ‘successful’.
One couple that apparently did have fun playing in the hay, though, had
Rowen’s attention when they returned to the dance; and not in a good way.
A cool night walk was exactly what she needed then, and we
wandered around outside for a good fifteen minutes before she was ready to go
back inside and not attempt a seriously inappropriate Transmutation on our
unsuspecting classmates. Yes, that’s
totally wrong for a Magi of the Light, but we’re the good guys; not
perfect. I’m not mentioning any names
here for Rowen’s benefit; but I know she’ll be expecting me to write about the
fact that Michael looked desperate to escape when he and Vanessa returned from
their little hayloft sojourn, and she didn’t seem particularly happy with him;
though not for the same reason. Vanessa
had the full-on boys-are-so-dense look going on, but at least, according to the
girl chat Rowen and I heard later, Michael was getting the benefit of the doubt
for just being too nice a guy instead of too dumb to take the hints.
I don’t really want to write about that anymore, so let’s
talk about Sally’s best birthday ever so far instead; since this is her big
day. The invitations had been best
wishes only, but Rowen and I, and the rest of her closest friends, brought
gifts that she opened during the cleanup between dinner and dessert. I’m pretty sure that she got her birthday
wish too, since she spent a lot of time dancing with the guy in our class that
I know she likes the most, Joshua. I’ll
be very surprised if they’re not an ‘official’ couple soon.
The party started wrapping up at eleven, and Mom came to
pick us up at about ten after; but it was closer to eleven-thirty by the time
we were on the road for Witch
Falls. That was mostly due to having three out of
six members of our carpool AWOL. I
pretended not to notice that Michael wouldn’t look at me even once, or that he
was trying to hide the fact that he was blushing. Tim wasn’t blushing, and instead looked a bit
dazed as he sat in the van with a lop-sided grin on his face. Jenny didn’t say much, since she sat up front
with Mom while Rebecca, Rowen, and I were in the back seat, but there was no
doubt that she’d had a great night. I’m
glad that it’ll be Rebecca who will be doing that best friend chat sometime
soon instead of me.
Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne were still at our house when we
got home after dropping Jenny and Tim off along the way. They’d been over for dinner and a movie
night, and I found out right after Rebecca, Michael, and Rowen went home that
they’d stayed specifically so Aunt Leanne could grill me about the party, and
tease me about things like not kissing Michael goodnight when he left for home
from our driveway. I’m sorry about being
such a disappointment to her for wasting a perfectly good barn dance
opportunity; but Mom and Dad didn’t have a problem with me not dancing with any
boys or spending any ‘quality time’ in a hayloft either.
In the category of too much information, I did not need that
little side-chat about how much fun my parents or aunt and uncle think that
making out in a hayloft would be. Yes,
you all missed out on doing that because of growing up in two different parts
of the country and age difference respectively; but I really don’t think you
should be looking to chaperone the next birthday barn dance just so you can
experience what might have been when you were teens.
I was freed from the interrogation by twelve-thirty, and
needed to have a shower before climbing into bed with Mandy. It’s a good thing that I wasn’t playing in
the hay. It was hard enough dealing with
my hair with what got in it just from leaning against bales of hay when we were
sitting around and other incidental contact.
Replaying the events of the party has kept me awake, and Aunt Leanne’s
teasing didn’t help either, so I’ve been doing some archive reading while
winding down. That included some work on
our Magi project, and I always seem to have more to add to that after parties
like this one.
We’ve got a yard work weekend planned, though, and I need to
get at least a little sleep, so it’s past-time for me to...
...say ‘goodnight, Cassie’.
“Goodnight, Cassie.”
