Yesterday my daughter graduated from high school. Strangely, I think I only sent her to school for the first time about three or four years ago. SNIFF!
And now, for Empty Nest Syndrome.
Saturday we hosted a graduation party that featured more guests than our wedding. The festivities were hampered somewhat by a hailstorm an hour before the party, knocking over Tiki torches and festive umbrellas and the like. My wife and daughter stood in the porch doorway laughing their asses off while I ran around getting pelted and trying to gather up the glassware. A hailstorm on June 1? Paging Al Gore.
Thankfully it blew over, and we were host to more than 125 people between 5 p.m. and 1 a.m. We set up a chocolate fountain that, combined with a big icy barrel full of Mountain Dew cans, proved the undoing of some of our younger guests. At one point I looked in the backyard and saw that several youngsters, led by my nephew and my Little Brother Harold, had smashed up the croquet set and were beating each other with the splintered ends. Later they broke the rest of the mallets trying to knock a seemingly lead-lined SpongeBob SquarePants pinata out of a tree, while a little neighbor girl watched from nearby, cupping handfuls from the fountain.
The highlight was the four graduation cakes cooked as a present by a family friend who just graduated from culinary school. They looked fake and kids kept poking them, so we were finally forced to cut them.
Later the teenagers, in a fit of irony, burned the corpse of SpongeBob in the fire ring in the backyard.
Graduation went about like you'd think, with the same speeches you have heard elsewhere, then a barrage of family members came back to the house and ate everything that was left down to the last slice of ham and the last roll. Which I ate just a little while ago.
Now I am completely toasted on both sides. So I will blog another time about my next project. Until then, well wishes can be sent to johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.
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