So I went to my cousin's high school graduation (last one of those we're doing ever!). Don't ask me about the logic of having such a thing on a Thursday night.

This is going to wander off topic for a minute, but bear with me: man, I hate this whole climate change thing. When I was growing up--heck, for most of the time I've lived in this town-- by mid-May it was full on summer weather. I'd be in tank tops every day from now till the time change. But in the last few years or so? Hah. No. I can NEVER EVER put away my sweaters for the season, because at some damn point it will be freezing and/or raining. There is a photo taken of me last summer where I am wearing sleeves and a SWEATER VEST in JULY because it was THAT COLD. In JULY. You know what? If I wanted to live in Seattle weather where it's always raining/cloudy/cold, I'd FRIGGING MOVE TO SEATTLE. But apparently Seattle has now moved to me?

A friend of mine says it's due to the earth's axis moving by 3 inches, and now it's putting off our summers. Instead of having warm weather from May-October, it'll now be more like June-November ("remember how warm last November was?").

Anyway, the reason I am grumbling about this is because now that the weather is insane, they had to have a rain plan for a graduation in MAY. And even worse, this was the first year they had to USE it. You got 8 tickets per person if it was sunny and then you'd have to DISINVITE two people if it rained. And on top of that, two of THOSE people would have to go sit in another building entirely and watch the graduation on video.

This is a little nuts, don't ya think?

Anyway, knowing that in my family my mom and I are third tier on the invite list for anything, I was pretty pissed that I was having to cut/try to make up a volunteering night (remember: Thursday graduation, plus I work Thursdays), and given that it was raining that day, we were running a pretty high risk of getting flat-out booted out from the graduation, or at the very least getting shoved into the video room. The latter in particular was pretty likely.

"Oh, don't worry about it," my aunt said. One of the relatives just went into the hospital, so we'll be freeing up some tickets... plus their foreign exchange student is also graduating, so they had enough tickets. Or, y'know, did before it was raining... okay, so we had enough to get into one of the buildings. And we nearly got the boot out...and then the ticket guy screwed up and gave us an extra ticket to get into the main building.

So, huzzah!

Anyhoo, you know what surprised me? Every single effing girl at this school is gorgeous. I did not see a single ugly-ass nerd girl like myself in the entire graduating class. Now, admittedly, this is one of the Top Ten Schools In America or something (I forget what the principal said), and it's in Yuppieville, and all that, but...seriously? No ugly nerdgirls? Hell, even with the guys I could spot a few non-models here and there, but no homely-ass nerds like I went to school with. What causes that? Money? Non-pretty people don't live in this town? Nuclear radiation in my hometown made some of us fugly? Anyway, bizarre. I was amused by my cousin's commentary on the slutty outfits under the gowns afterwards, followed by, "Thank god, I'll never have to deal with seeing that again."

My middle cousin, whose graduation (that we got disinvited to twice back in the day, since there was no foreign exchange student with extra tickets!) was five years ago, kept having weird deja vu moments. My mom kept reading the program and going, "Hey, Jennifer, weren't you National Merit or something? CSF?" and I was all, "Uh...I guess? I don't really remember now? I think I had some cords..." It's funny considering how very Diane Court (in academics if not "game show hostess") I was in high school, and now I don't even remember all of the crap I finished out with over ten years later. It's such a big deal at the time and then later on you're like, "huh, do I even remember the names of people I went to school with?"

I was also quite pleased to find out that one of the valedictorians went for the funny in his speech. He wasn't the easiest guy to understand (kinda mumbly), but what he said was a hoot. I totally appreciate someone actually going for the funny instead of the trite/boring/cliche. (The 13 valedictorians in my class got to read off a sentence apiece.) Even the adult speakers tried to liven it up here and there, one of them telling a story about how she fell off a boat. So on the dullness factor that usually comes with a graduation, they did try. It's probably the second most interesting graduation I've been to short of my own from high school, which involved an amazing amount of projectiles, a fire breaking out, and was scheduled on Friday the 13th.

Graduation Season continues with one more in the family in a few weeks--again, poor middle cousin ends up shorted compared to everyone else's graduations because she can't get extra people in--and a giant triple graduation party the day after.

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