This makes the third year that I've gone to our group's military ball. It was this past Saturday, at Salvatores in Buffalo. I had to work that day. Cinderella? You bet...[not]. I was picked up after a hectic day at work around 3:30. We picked up another cadet on our way up, and arrived at about 5:00 or a little after. After I had changed into my dress blues, I went to try to find the other three members of our honor guard. We had been asked to present and retire the colors, and we had practiced...somewhat. But we needed serious practice of the dress rehearsal variety. I may or may not have been on the verge of panic, but we finally all arrived, and then began assessing the room-- and this being about an hour and 15 minutes before we were supposed to do it for real. There was a problem, and that problem was: tall flags, short ceiling. Plus chandeliers. And the environment was not conducive to ceiling-scratching or chandelier-knocking. So...we weighed our options and our flag bearers were careful. And we didn't knock any chandeliers down...score 10 points for us!I was a rifle bearer, so it was pretty straight forward for me. Except for...the honor guard commander (a flag) forgot about a move that the rifles had to do, so he skipped calling it or waiting for us to do it. And the other rifle person and I were like, what?? But of course, being all official and stuff, we just improvised and carried on. And since people are (theoretically) at attention while colors are posted and retrieved, I think it ended up being okay. I mean, we didn't drop any rifles or knock over any tables...
Anyhow, moving on to pictures. This first one is the squadron photo.
This is me with that cadet that we picked up on the way to the ball.
This is that cadet with Sarah and me. You remember Sarah, of course, from previous CAP-related posts.
This is Sarah and me again. Fairly normal...
This is that cadet with Sarah. Also fairly normal.
This is that cadet with Sarah and me again. It's a reflection, of course. It's pretty cool.
This is me with the wing commander, my squadron commander, and the group commander. And you are not allowed to notice that my collar is messed up, or that my top suit jacket button is missing because the stupid thing popped off 30 seconds before we retired the colors, but I put it in my pocket and I am going to sew it back on, annoying little bugger.
Oh, this is also a reflection. But it's the ceiling. See the maroon and white thingy in the center-ish of the picture? That's me and the white is the jacket (technical nomenclature: shrug) that I'm wearing. I'm looking up. That cadet is also standing there looking up. The thing hanging down in the lower left hand corner is a chandelier. Those chandeliers were fairly common.
Basically, after the frantic honor guard practicing, I changed (with the other honor guard girl), then ate, then changed and retired the colors, then changed again (with the other honor guard girl), and then hung out with mostly Sarah and that cadet, us being the way cool homeschooled, Baptist cadets that we are. We walked around the restaurant...it's amazing...and took pictures...and then left at about 10:45. We dropped that cadet off, and then dropped me off at work so I could drive back home. I got home around 1 or something. And so that's that for the mil ball, till next year anyhow.Hey, stay warm and check back again soon...I'll post within the next 30 days or so, I hope.
