The Stampede is almost over and I have not worn my new denim skirt even once. This seems like a travesty. I think I’ll put it on today even though I’m only going to the esthetician and the grocery store. I had been planning on taking the kids to a neighbourhood Stampede breakfast, but we decided to hit the road instead and head up to my parents’ place at the lake. It was a lot of fun, although my hands were sore from white-knuckling on the highway, where people were driving anywhere from 85 to 150 km/hour. I had to pass not one but two houses being moved on semi-trailers, and also a woman driving very slow, weaving dangerously, and talking on her cellphone. I don’t like highway driving at the best of times, and I really don’t like it when my fellow drivers are a) talking on their hand held phones, b) taking up more than one lane, or c) driving super fast with a giant load of pipelines on the back of their semi-trailer. It’s quite unnerving. However, we made it in one piece and had a great time, marred only by Jake getting a wasp sting on his ankle one hour before we were due to leave for home.

Last night I watched that SharkNado movie everyone was talking about, and it was everything I had hoped it would be and more. Sharks flying through the air! Sharks in the house! A woman falling out of a helicopter into a shark’s mouth, who was later saved by a man chainsawing his way into and out of that same shark. Good times.

Speaking of movies, I read this very fun piece on how Dirty Dancing was a subversive film, which makes me feel like an edgy person for watching it approximately one thousand times. The funny thing is that I clearly remember watching it in the theatre, and then renting it on VHS, and while it didn’t escape me that there was a back room abortion, a 17 year old girl getting it on with a 25 year old man, and a whole bunch of class separation, I didn’t really care about those plot twists. I hardly thought about them. All I really was interested in – and all I still am interested in – was the dancing. I still love when nobody puts Baby in a corner and the not-at-all-era-appropriate I’ve Had The Time Of My Life starts up. Whenever the kids play Just Dance 4, I immediately budge in so I can dance to this song, although no one ever wants to play Johnny to my Baby.

Digression: I remember my very first viewing of Saturday Night Fever. I was so excited to watch the disco dancing, and I still do enjoy the scenes about dance competitions, walking with paint cans, and John Travolta blow-drying his hair in his underwear. However, innocent young thing that I was, growing up in the “safe sex” AIDS-and-STD-aware 80s and 90s, I was shocked – SHOCKED – at the sheer volume of anonymous casual sex portrayed in such a normalized way. I was also shocked and revolted by my newfound knowledge of the origins of the term “sloppy seconds.” Just writing that makes me shudder. More dancing, less deflowering of virgins in the back of a car while the buddies wait their turn in the front seat, please.

Anyway, although I really enjoyed Dirty Dancing back in the day, I didn’t feel it to be a very formative or influential movie for me, with one regrettable exception. The shorts. How many of us had this exact outfit:

I sure did, right down to the white Keds that made everyone’s feet smell terrible. I don’t remember buying jean shorts – probably they were not available – we just all cut our high-waisted jeans off at the knee and then rolled them up, after tying our white blouses at our waists. Unflattering though this look may be, I found myself thinking nostalgically about it, the uniform for teen girls in 1987, when I took the boys to the amusement park a few weeks ago.

I knew we were in for a busy day when I pulled up into the parking lot right at the opening time and saw 50 school buses parked there, all filled with teens from surrounding rural communities. If I had been thinking, I would have turned around right there, because the sheer volume of people guaranteed that there would be lineups everywhere. If I had turned around and went home, however, I would have missed out on Teen Fashion Education. I needed to be schooled, since I had no idea that all the girls aged 12-19 are wearing short shorts and giant oversized tank tops. VERY SHORT SHORTS. Baby’s outfit is unflattering, certainly, but at least it precludes strangers seeing buttocks and, in one horrifying case, ingrown pubic hair. MY EYES. I should probably mention that it was 17 degrees that day and overcast. I was cold in my sweater and pants, although I do remember that teenagers run at a different temperature than I do. I do recall wearing mini skirts in the dead of winter because, in my crazed teenage mind, tights were every bit as warm as pants. HOWEVER.

One girl did seem to think ahead about the chilly weather, as she had what appeared to be very sheer tights with the feet cut out of them underneath her camo-print short shorts. I applaud her for wearing somewhat weather-appropriate clothing, although I cannot agree with the fashion statement entirely.

But who am I to say anything? At that age I was wearing jeans that I had ripped myself and washed twenty times to make them look worn out – “You look like a homeless person!” my mother would say, snappishly, to which I would roll my eyes at her complete lack of fashion savvy – or I was wearing tiny black babydoll dresses paired with army boots. Dear lord. Well, that’s part of growing up: making terrible fashion choices that make you cringe twenty-five years later. We all have our what was I thinking? moments, and mine certainly had a lot to do with spiral perms and Jim Morrison silk-screened t-shirts.