1999 - a bit of excess

my junior and senior years of high school were filled with four things: school, baking bagels, student government and singing. 

my junior year, i was part of a girl's barbershop choir called highlites. i apologize to whoever might have decided upon our "uniforms" but they were horrendous. seriously ugly business. navy blue polyester pant suits with gold buttons and oversized collars. we felt like flight attendants. one of the choir members actually bought all of us wings once to pin on the aforementioned oversized collars. 

so, when i tried out for and then became a member of madrigals my senior year, we were all excited for more flattering attire. we tried on the dresses for size, but if we hadn't purchased shoes at the time of our fitting, they were left unhemmed. this was the case with my bff megan knudsen and i. it wasn't a problem because my mom, the master seamstress, had offered to hem ours once we found our shoes. we did and she did. and in the process of hemming, she was able to cut off a few inches of length from the bottoms. 

my mom isn't one to waste extra fabric, so the spare strips were stashed in her hope chest among the patterns and prints from my childhood. 

as the year progressed, the idea of wearing the same dress day in and day out without the slightest variation was wearing on us. so, the evening of the school choral holiday assembly, megan and i got a great idea. as we gathered in the choir room across the hall from the auditorium, ready to walk on stage, we pulled out the extra fabric we had retrieved from the hope chest and tied them into our hair. we looked ridiculous and it was actually quite of character for us as we knew mr. miller, standing on stage as we walked past to our positions, would be livid. 

it turns out, that because of the seams in the side of the dresses, there were actually four hairbows, so two more could join the fun. but we only got one volunteer: joe. yup, joe. a tall, thing boy with not much hair in which to tie a bow. it was definitely going to stand out. and, as per protocol, we walked onto the stage arm in arm to take our places. 

mr. miller's eyes grew wide as he noticed megan and i walk past. he. was. angry. but we didn't know angry until he spotted joe. i'm pretty sure we saw smoke steaming from his ears and nose. our veteran choir teacher {who was retiring the following spring} mouthed some threatening-in-a-teacher-way words to poor joe. by the time he reached the risers, joe's big maroon bow was no longer on his head, but hanging limp between his tightly gripped fingers. 

we sang our songs, took a bow and exited stage left. i don't remember what was said post performance, but i know it wasn't pretty. needless to say we never wore those hair pieces again. good thing it was the last holiday performance of the year where we were accompanied by mr. miller and we had the christmas break to give him time to count to ten and calm down.

we don't have a picture of joe in his girly glory, but we do have one of meg and i. as well as some future hairstyles we tried that were less anger inducing to choir directors. 

also in 1999:

 {sending dan off to the argentina rosario mission, january}

 {women's association dance - girls just wanna have fun - march}

 {with cousins rachel and bratny, april}

 {at scott's wedding with beckie and kelli, may}

 {true jazz fans holding onto "the net" for good luck - scott, maren, nate, tracy, megan, carly, tyler}

{after getting one wisdom tooth pulled, june - this is a story in and of itself}

{skyline-bingham football game, november}