I am so glad that I didn’t wake up singing Disney
duets! You’re off the hook, Rowen.
We did wake up to find that the weather forecast had not
been wrong; and the temperature had dropped like a rock to near-freezing. That wasn’t a big deal while Dad and I
exercised and then had breakfast with Violet, Rowen, Ethan, and Ehlana; but we
would have been more comfortable doing our outdoor chores after that if it had
still been warm out.
That work had to wait until Alicia came over to take care of
Ethan and Ehlana. Rowen went home to
meet up with her parents before going on to the computer store after helping
with the kitchen clean-up and getting her bag packed and ready to go, and after
she left; I got started on some house cleaning and laundry while Dad and Violet
juggled hitting the showers and getting ready for the day too with taking care
of the twins.
When Alicia made it over, she and Violet stayed inside and
continued working on some of the usual Saturday morning chores while keeping
Ethan and Ehlana entertained, and Dad and I went outside to deal with the
couple of hours of work that needed to be done there. It was cold and damp, and some of the jobs
that need to be done as the snow melts in the spring are gross; but having a little
Dad and daughter time was still mostly fun.
There was more house work to do once we were inside again, and we were
busy through until we stopped for lunch at one o’clock.
That was the end of the work part of the day for all of us
except Dad. Alicia had the rest of the
day off; and Uncle Adam came over to help Dad with Ethan and Ehlana for the
afternoon and evening. Violet found out
at lunchtime that Aunt Leanne had set up an appointment for her with Liz at the
Salon, and she spent most of the afternoon getting ready for her dinner and
dance date with Dillon. Rowen came over
again after lunch, and though we were free to play all afternoon, we spent a
couple of hours playing with Ethan and Ehlana before I needed to pack a bag for
the post-dance sleepover that Rowen and I are doing at her house tonight; and
we both needed to get ready for the dance too.
Getting ready for the dance before dinner was mostly because
we were going to help Dad and Uncle Adam with Ethan and Ehlana again before,
during, and after dinner until the dance started. Other than having my shower at home, Rowen
and I did the full hair and dress-up routine at her house. I would have been happy to wear jeans, a nice
sweater, and put my hair in a simple ponytail; but I knew that Rowen needed to
get dressed up just in case ‘Tommy’ actually might happen to come up for air
with his girlfriend long enough to notice that his shy, quiet, computer geek
classmate is actually one of the most beautiful girls in our school. We both had to pick alternate dresses because
of the colder weather, and Rowen wasn’t happy about that; but I convinced her
that shivering all night in spring dresses wouldn’t be any fun. I think we mostly made up for that with the
extra attention to her hair, a few diamonds from my jewelry box, and just a
touch or two of makeup.
They’re biased, but Dad, Uncle Adam, and Ethan were
impressed when we got back there in time to help with Ethan and Ehlana while
dinner was being cooked. Dad took pictures
and sent them to Mom and Aunt Leanne; though they didn’t get the pictures until
later – and I didn’t get the email grilling and jokes from Aunt Leanne until
after the dance. Violet had already gone
to meet up with Dillon, Jake, and Stephanie by then before going on to the Inn. Dad had taken
pictures of Violet to send to Mom and Aunt Leanne too before she left, and she
looked as great for this dance as she had for the one two years ago when she
and Dillon had been set up by Stephanie and Jake.
Dad had decided that he needed to cook ‘real’ food for at
least one meal while Mom was away; possibly so he didn’t get teased about the
Sunday buffet at the Inn being the only
non-frozen or canned food that he fed us all weekend. Uncle Adam helped him, and the chicken and
veggies stir fry recipe was his too, but just in case there’s some future jokes
about it anyway; they had four witnesses to corroborate the fact that Dad did
actually do most of the cooking; and all of the food was delicious.
It was raining lightly when it was time for us to go, so Uncle
Adam gave Rowen and I a ride over to the school in Mom’s minivan. Most of the single tweens and teens had
skipped the Valentine’s dance, but we were glad to see that there were some
single girls for us to hang out with tonight – including Rebecca; though she
didn’t get there until nearly an hour after the doors opened because she’d been
helping out at the Inn, and had needed to go home and get ready for the dance
after the main dinner rush was over. She
still hasn’t gotten interested in any particular guy, but I can tell you that
there were a few guys more than a little interested in her tonight.
Rowen and I feel a bit under-everything when we’re hanging
out with Rebecca. We’re catching up a
bit now, but she’s still four inches taller than us; and looked a lot better in
her dress tonight than we did in our dresses.
While I mostly feel the same way Rowen does about that; it doesn’t
really bother me at all. That could be
because I really like getting to hang out with Rebecca, but I’m also not
worried about whether a certain guy will notice me at all anytime we’re with
her like Rowen is.
We had fun together; were on the dance floor for nearly
every up-tempo song; and entertained ourselves with a little girl chat during
most of the slow song sets. There
weren’t any Cinderella Story moments for any of us, but Jake took Rebecca out
for a spin once; and I dodged what might have been a dance set-up when I saw
Michael dancing with Stephanie then too; and noticed Dillon heading my
way. That seemed like a very good time
for Rowen and I to go for a walk; which she was happy to help me with – and so
she could get a break from watching ‘Tommy’ while he was stuck like glue to his
girlfriend while they were dancing.
After dodging that potential tweeirdness, I managed to
successfully avoid any personal tween drama.
I bumped into Michael once when he and Tim were on the way back from
getting drinks for themselves and their dates and Rowen and I were going to get
refills, and though we only brushed arms on the way past; that contact was
enough for me to be hit with an empathic jolt even if I wasn’t able to read how
he was feeling from the look in his eyes and the little, wistful smile he
directed my way.
Contrary to what Aunt Leanne and Rowen might think, knowing
how Michael feels actually makes me less interested in crossing over and
getting into the tween dating game. I
wouldn’t know how to handle a situation like he’s in with Lisa any more than he
does; though I guess it could never be quite the same for me anyway; since I
didn’t grow up with our classmates like he did.
No matter how nice he tries to be, though, he’s eventually going to need
to tell Lisa that he doesn’t feel the same way about her as she feels about
him; and that’ll be hard for both of them – especially since I’m fairly sure
that Lisa has liked him a lot for a long time.
I hope I never have to deal with problems like that. Maybe that’s one of the reasons Mom was never
interested in dating even before losing her parents. She made it through Grades Seven and Eight
without even going on one date; though I’m sure she’d tell me that was because
she was even more of a bookworm than Rowen was when we first met, and didn’t
have any boys interested in her. I
wonder if that theory would still hold up if she’d grown up in Witch Falls
and gone to school with Dad.
Getting back to the dance recap, other than that little
empathic moment, I was able to stay out of Michael’s way, and Lisa seemed very
happy about that. From what Rebecca told
us; they’d had fun at the Inn too while having
dinner with Tim and Nora, and I hope the rest of their night was good too. Rowen and I mostly had fun, and we even
managed to entertain ourselves a little bit with her personal tweeird moments –
like when we walked past ‘Tommy’ and his girlfriend when they were obliviously
making out and didn’t even notice us while we were on our way outside to catch
our ride home with Rowen’s Dad.
We started out our sleepover with a snack and dance story
time with Rowen’s parents, Patrick, and Scott.
The two boys must have spent some time working up their plans to bug us
for the rest of the night, and though some of their antics were entertaining,
by the time they finally either fell asleep or decided that their mission had
been accomplished; Rowen and I were both fairly annoyed with them.
It’s past-time for us to be sleeping too, but Rowen needed
some girl talk time; and that was hard to manage while Patrick and Scott were
interrupting us every few minutes. All
joking aside now, and despite how we deal with it in public, she really has a
tough time feeling the way she does about ‘Tommy’ while he continues to be
completely clueless. As usual, I don’t
feel like I’m able to help her as much as I should, and not even Aunt Leanne’s
emailed jokes and badgering about Michael managed to get more than a couple of
half-hearted laughs from Rowen tonight. I wish I could tell her that her future is
going to be so amazing that she’ll look back and laugh at all of the private
tween drama; but I can’t tell her about that any more than I can tell anyone
else what I see of their futures.
Sometimes it really sucks to know some of the things that Ethan, Ehlana,
and I know – even when they’re really great things.
Rowen might like the dreams that would go along with some of
the future I’m thinking about right now, but I don’t need to use my Sight to
know that I’ll be desperately trying not to think about soft, fluffy bunnies
again tonight.
I’m going to get started on doing that right now, so...
...until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor;
logging out!
