Adventures!

[saffronhare]

Had a weekend of Unusual Adventures, which is...er, unusual (for me). Saturday, I accompanied Diermuid on a trip to deliver and assemble nifty fitness equipment at the home of the purchaser of the equipment. Nice Purchaser was wearing Oscar the Grouch pajama pants and had three very sweet cats. I sneezed a lot, but otherwise had a wonderful time lifting/carrying heavy things and generally being competent. BONUS: about four hours alone with hubby, with nobody else calling or needing things from either of us.

Sunday was PB's fashion show Spectacular Spectacular. We reported to the dress shop at about 6:40 a.m. to load approximately 47 million dresses off their racks and into the truck. We then brought them to the convention center, where we unloaded them and arranged them all on their racks in preparation for the day's three shows (each with 200-300 models). It was a pre-prom kind of event, where all the models participating were local high school students who'd sold tickets to raise money for their particular school/team/organization. The models weren't professional, but the production value of the show was very high.

All the vendors donated their products and services for the show, so 100% of the ticket proceeds when straight to the school/club/organization each girl was fundraising for. I was pretty impressed by that. This is the second year Rowan's participated, but it was the first time I'd been working it behind the scenes from start to finish. (Last year, I played the role of Generally Helpful Mom during the third show and clean-up.)

I'm not really tuned in to the fashion and pageantry scene around here, but we had Tony Bowls...like, in person, along with about 200 of his dresses. These are $4K dresses. (They weigh a TON, by the way.) This dress shop has been stocking Tony's dresses since he was selling them out of the back of his van umpteen years ago. He is now a BIG EFFING DEAL in the prom and pageant world. In fact, dude flew into KC after mindnight on Saturday from Las Vegas, where he'd been at the goddam Miss America pageant. Because the new Miss America was crowned in one of his gowns. As C, who came to represent for PB said, "Well, that's a whole 'nother caliber, isn't it?"

These dresses are so gorgeous that I wanted to strip down and put one on right then and there. SRSLY. If there'd been some kind of fashion emergency that called for a mommy to wear a dress and walk the runway, I was ready to be all over that shit, which is...well. They must have been pumping something into the air, is all I'm saying. (C was wondering if Tony would be insulted if she bought one of his dresses -- the plaid one, I think she said -- just so she could TAKE IT OFF.)

I helped manage the Consultation Room, where Tony and his staff had private appointments with local pageant royalty throughout the day. (We're on a first-name basis now, me and Tony.) This is a completely alien subculture. Fortunately, my experience with Theatre People served me well. I kept the food/coffee sidebar stocked; joked with the make-up/hair people; "found" extra pipe-and-drape when it was needed and then returned it without the union folks getting upset; coralled help from convention center staff when they needed more light; and so on. Then, about 90 minutes before each of the three shows, I went into the corral where all the models would arrive after rehearsal to get into their gowns and PIN LIKE CRAZY. The gowns had been selected by the girls, who had already tried them on over the last couple of weeks. They were mostly the right size, but they hadn't (and wouldn't ever be) actually *fitted* because many of them were going back on the rack or back to the designer on Tuesday. So we were like a NASCAR pit crew. Or maybe more like a movie special effects crew, making sure the gowns stayed on for an hour and looked good for an audience watching from 15-60 feet away.

To say my fingertips are raw is an understatement. It's awesome that I didn't prick any models, damage dresses, or bleed on anything, but DAMN. Ouch. Typing today is like a million small agonies. (Also, how can people leave behind underwear? Or one sock? HOW?!?)

But WOW. I'm grateful none of my girls has been particularly interested in the beauty/pageantry thing, because I don't think I could LIVE there, but it was amazingly fun to visit. And I can kinda see what they mean about poise and all that. With very few (and only momentary) exceptions, approximately 600 teenage girls were pleasant and enthusiastic and cooperative and supportive of each other. It was really neat to see all those girls just light up when they hit the runway, and to hear the applause when girls who'd worked particularly hard to raise money were recognized.

Then, when the 7 p.m. show was over, we re-packed everything and carted it back to the store. Got home about midnight. Oof. A very glorious adventure.

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It was exceedingly sparkly.