The Here and Now

Wow, it has been a long week.
One full of unusual circumstances and experiences.

This week, I babysat.

Go ahead, lets here the screams of terror and tacky comments like, “did you remember to feed them?” I know exactly what you are thinking. “Those poor kids.”

Believe it or not, it was actually a success, or at least not a failure.
Which is a win in my book.

Now, I am quite sure you are all chopping at the bit for some sort of babysitting blunder. A story of suffering to fill your day with laughter.

I hate to be the barer of bad news, but there are no stories. It was fairly uneventful. The kids behaved, I feed them actual food (or at least the fried equivalent), and I got them to bed at a reasonable hour each and every night (as long as you consider 6 am reasonable).

There was the one incident that involved a very large cooler full of water in the middle of the living room surrounded by every bit of make-up, lotion, hair products, nail polish, and several rolls of paper towels in the house.
But that all turned out fine in the end.

That was how my week began.
It ended with many more kids. This time dressed, for the most part, in formal wear.
Once again, I donned my camera and was the photographer for prom.

Prom in the Arctic Circle is a little unlike prom in other parts of the world. Without the benefit of department stores and cute little boutiques to buy dresses the kids here do what they can to make a memorable prom night.

For the girls, we saw variety of dress styles.
From classic prom to Sunday bests. Some even came in jeans.

Most wore tennis shoes.
It is muddy out there after all and mud does hellish things on stilettos.

The guys were a little less formal. There are, of course, no tux rentals in the frigid north.
There were a few that pulled out all the stops, with tux like outfits, silky ties, and shiny shoes.
Most wore jeans or khakis with button up shirts. Some went the classic hoodie route.
There was even one who wore a cute/stylish tee-shirt printed like a tux front, you know the kind. My personal favorite was the hot pink Converse All Stars on a classy suit-wearing teenager.

It was all pretty fun. Plus, I got to take a ton of pictures. Over 300.
In just 4 short hours.
It was a tiring, and interesting evening.