Second Life Tights

H&M.  The label rather gives their history away, these worn-out black knit tights lying in the gigantic pile of mending on what used to be a place to sit.  Some people build mountains out of molehills; I build them out of clothes that need to be fixed.  Much like my mother does with items that need to be ironed.

I like H&M, too, but not as much as Munchkinhead.  Or, at least, I don’t shop there quite as much as she does.  And a pair of knit tights from there is most certainly in my possession as the result of a wonderful Christmas present from her.  I wonder what the label said.  Probably something about “to: long legs, from: short legs” or some such silliness.

The tights have been through a lot.  A present when I lived in Cali, in the Yay, where one needs to wear woolly knit tights nearly year-round.  Then put to good use again in Wisconsin’s bitter cold winter, likely serving as a layer of warmth buried beneath slips, long thick skirts, fuzzy socks and sturdy boots.  It’s no wonder the tights no longer provide any coverage for toes or that it is easier to see through the heels than through Betty’s rear window.

I’d given them to Munchkinhead to darn.  She’s quite good at darning.  “These cannot be darned,” she informed me.  It seems they were already damned; one cannot darn nothingness.  So she sent them back, via Mommy, to sit on Mount Sewme until I decided what to do with them.

Munchkinhead helped.  With the decision, that is, indirectly, sending a smattering of additional torn-up legwear after cleaning out the large filing cabinet in her living room.  Within the new stash, old hold-up stockings with their own holes and runs and perfectly intact whatever-you-call-the-garter-replacing-sticky-bands-at-the-top.  A seam ripper, a scissors, and a sewing machine later, I have new black woolly knit hold-up stockings.

If I have to shorten them again in the future, Munchkinhead will have new hold-ups.

 

 

 

If I Can’t Be a Housewife, I’m at least Dressing like One

“Mommy, Betty White’s wearing my dress!”  I exclaimed into the phone.  I’d been watching Life with Elizabeth on the Roku’s Pop Films Classic TV channel.  - I love that show; Betty White in 1954, amazing.  Anyway…  Just a few weeks earlier I had finished this fabulous new dress and here was Betty White, 60 years ago, wearing a dress of the exact same cut.  I was thrilled.

I found the fabric first.  In the new knitting and quilting shop that opened up next door to the office.  Danger Will Robinson, DANGER!!!!  I can’t remember what I’d actually gone in there for.  Perhaps to finally see it.  The building had been built my great-grandfather as his store front and home when he was a Roundy’s salesman, well before being elected to the judiciary.  Unlike all the other buildings he built, I’d never been in it.  The ladies at Bungalow Quilting & Yarn have done a great job incorporating the original feel of the building into their shop.  It was while I was admiring this that I also found myself admiring some fabulous fabric. 

Pattern-colored, with pattern instructions and images sprawling across the fabric.  A nice, soft, light cotton.  This place isn’t your standard big box discount store, so I gathered together some resolve and left the store without it.  Then I got a coupon in my email a few weeks later.  I knew exactly what I wanted.

“What are you going to make with it?”  “I want to make a dress, use this for the bodice.”  The lady looked at me skeptically.  “Let us know how that turns out.”  I can’t blame her.  I’m sure “dress!” is not the first thing that comes to most people’s minds upon seeing that fabric.  But then, I never claim to be most people.

Mommy and I took the fabric and headed to JoAnn’s to find a suitable pattern and a coordinating fabric for the skirt.  At first, I was thinking maybe a pattern similar to the one that’s depicted on the fabric, but honestly, that style doesn’t work well on my jumbo-muscle thighs.  Instead, I picked out a fabulous Retro Butterick pattern from 1950, B6055.  We perused the general cottons, blends and quilting fabrics looking for something that would go well with one of the colors in the bodice fabric and me.  Mommy found the most delightful and perfect fabric, mint with large white polka dots!

I’m sort of notorious for messing with patterns.  Altering the sizes, the style, the embellishments.  This time, the only alteration I made was to leave off the pockets.  They looked as though they’d be an awful temptation for creating cell-phone destruction through gravity. 

I suppose I can’t really claim no pockets as the only change since I also slightly modified the belt.  The belt called for a 1” buckle.  We couldn’t find a 1” buckle at JoAnn’s or in Mommy’s stash, so I improvised.  Instead, I put two  button holes in the belt, one at each end, and secured it with a large cuff link.  I love it!  It looks awesome and the cuff link seems to keep the belt from spinning around my waist.   The belt currently isn’t size adjustable, but if I ever need it to be, I can just add another button hole at either end.  I also made the belt double-sided so it can match either the bodice or the skirt.

Oh, and I also added a skirt lining.  I guess I messed with the pattern more than I realized at the time. The polka dot fabric is pretty thin, so I added a slip-style lining with natural-colored muslin from my large bolt.  Basically, I cut the skirt out of both fabrics, assembled the lining and skirt separate, basted them at the waist with wrong sides together and sewed the bodice to the whole skirt unit. 

After wearing the dress, I also wish I’d have lined the whole bodice in the polka dots instead of just doing the collar with facing like the pattern says.  Then I would be able to turn up my sleeves and have little polka dot cuffs.  I may go back and add some false cuffs to it.

I love the dress.  I love how it turned out.  I love that it fits me pretty much perfectly.  And I really, really love, that I just happened to already have shoes in the exact right color and style.  It also goes great with mouse ears and pearls.

SoPro Pride

You gotta have some hometown pride, even when it’s for your adopted hometown, or home state, or home province.

When I first arrived in Zambia, there were so few Peace Corps Volunteers in placed in Southern Province, we were grouped in with Central Province, under Central’s Peace Corps Volunteer Leader (PCVL) and reporting to Serenje in Central Province for information from headquarters.  By my second year, the organization had expanded in Southern Province and we had enough Volunteers to truly be our own province.  So naturally, we needed something to show our province-pride.

Central Province had t-shirts with CP/PC and a lightening bolt on them for Central Province Peace Corps and their lightening bolt tattoos.  Northwestern province had their branding (an attempt to compete with the tattoos), which I can’t really say what it was supposed to represent because none of them turned out right.  I think Northern and Eastern province had some t-shirts, too.  But us down in Southern Province, we needed something better than a t-shirt.  After all, this was the era of Southern Hip Hop’s international prominence and we were in the dirty dirty.

So we got together and had our own special garments hand-painted.  Jumpsuits!

They had our province on the front: So Pro, our names – mine says “Nchimunya”, and “The Dirty South” on the back.  We loved them and our Zambian counterparts found them highly amusing.   They weren’t very cimbuzi-practical, but they were great fun when we were in town.

I still have mine, though I don’t really have anywhere to wear it.  It’s a jumpsuit, so it’s meant to be worn when you might get dirty.  But if I get it dirty, I’ll have to wash it, and the hand-painted lettering might come off.  I’ll have to host a janitor-themed costume party or something.

And the back:

It is a Truth Universally Acknowledged that Clothing is Best when Shared

Speaking of Pride and Prejudice clothes (back in June), I had this absolutely wonderful Easter dress one year, made by Mommy, of course.  My Pride and Prejudice dress.  Empire waist, puff sleeves, a bit of sheer lace where Lydia certainly wouldn’t have had any, and a beautiful light-weight white fabric with soft pink roses on it.

It was one of those dresses that hardly fit when it was made.  - This was not Mommy’s fault.  1) Pattern envelope size guide measurements never seem to produce what they suggest; at 15 and about five and a half feet tall, the envelope said I was a girls size 7; and 2) My size fluctuates like an Irishman’s temper.  But it fit well-enough and I wore it for Easter that year with no problems.

Then, a year or two later, my AP English teacher had some special class day where we could dress like our favorite characters or something like that.  I just had to be Elizabeth Bennet, so out came the beautiful Easter dress.  The only problem was, I’d grown a bit since the dress’s Easter, and not just vertically.

I have two mottos – well, at least had two mottos in high school.  One, anything you can do, I can do in heels. And two, never sacrifice fashion for comfort.  I was determined to get into that dress.  And I did. Thank you very much ducky tape.  The scars went away eventually.

Recently, scouring the closets at Hotel Mommy, I came across my beautiful Easter dress hanging in the back of the sewing room closet.  - And by back, I mean back.  That closet goes back about eight feet.  I was super excited.  “Hey Mommy!  Do you think this will fit again?” Many of my high school clothes fit me again these days thanks to the gym.

Instead of my trying it on, we tried it on Munchkinhead, who was a good sport despite the dress having pink on it.  I was both sad and delighted.  It fit her perfectly.  Well, except for the length, but that’s easy to fix.  I was sad because the dress fitting her meant there was no way it would fit me.  I was delighted because the dress fitting her meant the beautiful dress could be worn again!  Of course, that’s only if Munchkinhead gets over not being able to lift her arms over her head.  Ladies don’t need to do that; it’s not important.

Incidentally, we’re standing in almost exactly the same spot in the same room in our two pictures.

Homecoming Wingtips

A new series.  It will bore some – *yawn* shoes, and they aren’t even sneakers *double yawn*.  But, there’s at least two people who will enjoy; thank you Pretty Little Munchkinhead and Renzephyr.  And I feel like writing about shoes.  This first post is also a bit of an obituary.

Growing up, Mommy did a very good job of keeping us practical, sensible, frugal.  (Little did I know she was even repressing her own desire for cute, fun shoes.  The things you learn when you grow up…)  We generally had about 4 pairs of shoes, give or take.  A pair of white dress shoes for summer, a pair of black dress shoes for winter, maybe a pair of brown dress shoes, too, and a pair of white canvas shoes for everyday wear.  Sometimes we had other types of tennis shoes; sometimes we had some dress sandals or some jelly shoes.  But, those were the basics.*

Then came high school, and everything changed.  Sophomore year homecoming, my first big dance.  I didn’t go freshman year.  A boy I didn’t like asked me to go with him.  Not wanting to go with him, but not wanting to hurt his feelings, I told him I wasn’t going.  A group of friends asked me to go with them, I told them I wasn’t going, too.  I wanted to go with them, but I had to stick to my story.  Mommy tried to convince me otherwise, but I was stubborn in my refusal to everyone.  Sophomore year, I just had to go.

My dress a beautiful silver, shiny here, dull there, an ever-changing pattern of texture as I moved.  Of course Mommy made my dress.  A pattern of hers from the 70s.  I should have listened to her when she said to just cut off the extra length and make a smaller hem.  Now, when I see the dress, the large hem looks like an odd seam on the thin fabric.  At the time, it didn’t bother me at all.   I loved my dress.

I had a beautiful dress; I just needed beautiful shoes to go with it.  Off Mommy and I headed to the mall, and there, at a store called Bakers, we found those beautiful shoes.  So, so many beautiful shoes at Bakers.  It would soon become a favorite store of mine.

The shoes we picked out were black wingtips, a retro style on a 3” stacked heel.  Big and clunky, but big and clunky was the thing.  (Thank you, Spice Girls.)  We pulled out the thick black laces and replaced them with silver laces made from dress scraps.  Platforms for a 1970s pattern; that worked pretty well.

Those shoes then became my everyday school shoes for the rest of the year.  We put the black laces back in.  I remember sitting in Kuj’s trig class coloring in the dots on the wingtip detail with my silver gel pen.  And after that wore off, with my copper gel pen. Both colors looked good on the black shoes.

The shoes, in better days.

By the end of high school, the heels were so worn down that there was a 1.5” difference between the inside and outside of the heel on the back.  in college, I found a good cobbler who was able to completely rebuild the heels and I got several more years out of those shoes.  Many years in fact.  It wasn’t until just a few months ago, 15 years after Mommy bought them, that they finally left my closet.

The heels were starting to feel wobbly; the stitching was coming out the sides.  I had other black shoes with stacked 3” heels that served the same outfits and were in better shape.  They weren’t completely done, but they had gotten to dress-up-box-only state.  So off they went to Goodwill.

I got a lot of good use out those shoes. :)

 

*Of course, this isn’t counting the heaps of twirling, parade, ballet and gymnastics shoes that could be found in strewn around the house in random places.  But those don’t count.

Adjustments Take Time, Even in the Closet

“The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.”  So said Mark Twain, supposedly.  You know what? Summer isn’t the only time it’s cold here.

The Chill – first bad, then good

When I first moved here, the fairly constant chill – October is a reprieve – meant one thing: a lot of complaining.  (Poor Mr. Trizzle!)  But a year and a half later, it means something new: sweaters! and lots of them.

Zambia, Nashville, not exactly your permanently cold places.  Even Wisconsin, so very different: hot summers, warm autumns and heat in the buildings during the very cold winters and slightly-less cold springs.

Closet Fail

My wardrobe was not ready for the Bay.  Short-sleeved cotton dresses, tank tops, loose flowy skirts, light blouses and shorts.  On the other end, heavy jersey knit and long-sleeved stretch velvet dresses, thick down jackets, thermal shirts and cozy socks.  My closet was built to handle two extremes and nothing in the middle. 

In all the places I’d previously lived, temperatures in the 50s and 60s were fleeting sprites marking the border between seasons.  They were the days you threw on a light jacket over your warm-weather clothes, or they days you removed your jacket from over your cold-weather clothes.  Those were not real temperatures in their own right, they were slight modifications of whatever the usual temperature had been the weeks before.

In the Bay, it’s different.  Especially in San Francisco.  Temperatures in the 50s and 60s are the norm.  Too cool for short sleeves, too warm for a heavy jacket.  Add to that the de minims use of indoor temperature control and the requirement of spending time outside getting to and from public transportation and I had a pretty frustrating situation.  Until I discovered the beauty of sweaters, and the even more delightful sweater dress.

Making Improvements

Now that you understand how badly my wardrobe needed adjusting upon my moving here, you will totally understand that I did indeed need to buy a new dress.  - Yes, all that background was to justify my spending money on clothing. 

I will also add that I set a budget for myself before starting my search for new sweaters and dresses and I stuck to it.  There.  Do you feel better about it now?  I do.  (Well, a little bit better. A teensy bit better.)

Smashing New Dress

The dress seemed to call out to me from the catalog.  There was something retro about its styling yet unique and new.  I debated for awhile.  The strange styling on the top looked like it could go either way.  When the box arrived and I opened the dress, I was even more apprehensive.  The U-shaped neck line hung funny on the hanger and the dolman sleeves appeared overwhelming.  There was only one thing to do.  Try it on.

So on it went.  And I loved it!  It’s so warm and comfy, like being wrapped in a thick cloud.  Yet it’s flattering, not at all bulky or pulled down by its own weight.  Best of all, it won’t need to be ironed.

P.S. I know it would have looked better with my beige on beige seamed stockings and some brown pumps, but it’s just too cold here at this time of year for that much bare leg.  The boots are pretty cute anyway.

Fashionita for a Day

I was 10 minutes early.  I’d factored getting lost into my commute time estimate and had somehow managed to get there without getting lost.  That was a first.  9:20am on Saturday morning, and I’m standing on Short Artichoke’s… heck, I don’t even know what to call it.  Porch?  Ramp?  Plank?  Standing outside the door of her houseboat trying to figure out why she’s not answering the door.  Why?  Because I’m ten minutes early.

Short Artichoke invited me over to help her sort through her wardrobe and maybe identify some missing pieces.  I figured it would take the morning, and maybe part of the early afternoon.  Boy, did I underestimate the extent of her wardrobe!  And I thought I had a lot of clothes.  10 hours.  10 hours of clothes.  On, off, store after store, shop, shop, drop.  It was after 7pm, when I finally slumped into my car, exhausted, but happy.  The day was worth it.

Redoing Short Artichoke’s wardrobe, we had our work cut out for us.  Let me start by saying that there’s a reason she’s called Short Artichoke (much to her disapproval).  One day, shortly after I met her, she was dressed head to toe in artichoke green, and she’s short.  You get the idea of where we were starting.

As I settled onto a kitchen stool, Short Artichoke began hauling clothes into the living room.  (Ok, Short Artichoke, in addition to being annoying to her, is a pain in the vampire to type. From now on, she will be SA.)  Shirts, trousers, sweaters, even a couple of dresses.  Piles of hangers, mounds of fabric, everywhere you turned, clothes.

Surprise after surprise came out of those piles.  Including a few goodies for me that were too big for SA.  Sure, there was the expected stuff  - the army green array of every article under the sun, the blazers and crew neck T’s I’d seen her wear.  But the expected was easily dwarfed by the unexpected.  A gorgeous burnt orange gauze blouse that fit perfectly and accented SA’s dishwater hair and green eyes.   A black vintage 1950s sweater from her grandmother.  Two suits that fit better and looked nicer than anything I’d ever seen her wear.  She even owns some heels!

But by far, the biggest surprised wasn’t in the clothing itself; the biggest surprise was what the clothing revealed.  SA has a figure! This discovery reminded me of when the neighbors and Munchkinhead and I played dress up with Alfred when she was in 5th grade and discovered she was really pretty.  Or when they played dress up with me in high school and we discovered I’d finally gotten some shape.  I was stunned, and super excited.  

Pretty Alfred.

The best part was when SA herself discovered just how great she could look.  We’d been jousting back and forth, me saying those jeans looked amazing on her and her griping about how she didn’t like them and yadda yadda.  Or her saying she loved some shirt and me telling her it was too stretched out and didn’t fit her well.  Back and forth, back and forth.  Then, she put on these jeans that were so different from her normal high-waisted tapered old-lady/Aflred style jeans,  resting a bit above the hip, boot cut, and a black button up blouse she’s practically never worn.

“Oh my goodness,” I exclaimed, catching my breath.  “You look amazing!”  Here she was, little ms SA, little ms frumpy t-shirts with the army barracks palate standing in the middle of her living room in a pair of blue jeans and a black blouse, looking like she was about to go out for a night in the City and arguing with me about how much she didn’t like the way she looked.  “Turn around.  Look in the mirror.”  Still muttering her complaints, she rotated around to the full length mirror.  “Oh,” she said, disappointment in her voice, “I do.”

A Monochromatic Life

A few weeks ago I wrote about my little sister and her anti-obsession with pink.  It’s not fair to just pick on my pretty little munchkinhead though; I too have had my obsession with color.  But mine was a little different.

Pink, blue, green, yellow.  It didn’t matter, as long as everything matched.  And I mean everything.

Getting Dressed

Every morning I went to my color organized closet (ok, I still do) and picked out my outfit for the day.  Usually, one of my classic dresses, a princess seamed, knee-length dress, generally made out of a light weight cotton.  The first of these was light blue gingham check with little blue flowers on it, made for me by Mommy my freshman year of high school.  I wore that dress in my senior pictures.  I wore that dress to high school graduation.  I wore that dress to law school graduation.  I love that dress.  By the time I was a freshman in college, I had the same dress in every color of the rainbow.

Little ruffled socks, the color of the dress, and matching shoes and I was basically dressed.  Light blue socks with dark blue denim shoes, white socks with pink flowers on the ruffle with light pink canvas shoes.  Orange dress, orange barbie slides (no socks).  Same for red.  Every color, a pair of shoes.  But that’s hardly remarkable.  The really remarkable part is that most of those shoes were flat!

Accessorizing

  Once decked out in my dress, I went to the large mirror to accessorize and put on my makeup.  A small plastic drawer set, the kind used for sorting nails and screws, sat on my counter.  Each little drawer held a different color, in rainbow order, barrettes, hair rubber bands, and earrings together. (Ok, they still do.)  If my dress was blue, I opened the blue drawer and put on blue earrings and clipped my hair back with blue barrettes.  If my dress was yellow, so were my earrings and barrettes.  My toilette was finished with eye shadow of a matching color.

A Meal

Breakfast time!  Pink dress?  Pink bowl, pink napkin, maybe even a pink plastic spoon.  Strawberry oatmeal for pink days.  Blueberry on blue days.  Yellow? Cheerios.  At dinner, I’d reset my spot so my cup and plate could match my outfit.

Final Touches

After breakfast, it would be time to head out of the house.  No jacket needed in summer, but a visor was always a must.  Pink Adidas, Blue Adidas, Yellow Adidas, White Adidas,  Orange Wisconsin Dells.  (singing: One of these things is not like the other…)  And then, the most important piece: my purse!

I had a purse in each color, and each purse had its own color-coordinated collection.  A comb, a pen, some kleenex, if it came in that color, chapstick, a lighter and keys.  Yes, keys.  I had a set of keys for each purse, each with plastic key covers the color of the purse. It helped that I worked at a hardware store and could all the key copies myself. 

I didn’t smoke, but I liked that the lighters came in a rainbow of colors.  One time, I even found colored cigarettes, so I bought them just to have the matching ones in each purse.

All Good Things

And then one day, it all came to an end.  I was wearing blue.  I could only find my green and pink keys.  I was running around the house trying to find the blue ones.  Looking everywhere.  I was running late for work.  I couldn’t leave.  I couldn’t drive my car without keys.  I had two sets of keys in my hand.  Two sets of keys that would drive the car.  But I wouldn’t leave because they weren’t the right color.  There was green in my dress, on the little leaves, the green keys would have matched.  It wasn’t good enough.  I had to have those blue keys!

Then all of a sudden, I realized the absurdity of the situation.  I was about to be late for work and risk getting in trouble because my car keys weren’t the same color as my dress.  It was so silly, it made me laugh.  And it scared me.  A little further over the edge, and I might have a full fledged mental disease.  That was it.  No more absolute one-color matching.  (Ok, once in awhile there still was.)

Now, I just coordinate.

Pink with a Different Obsession

I feel like writing here, yet I have nothing particular to say today.  So, I shall dig into my photo archives, randomly retrieve an old photo, and tell you a story:

 

Pink, it’s Aerosmith’s favorite color.  It’s lots of people’s favorite color.  It makes Molly Ringwald feel pretty.  It makes lots of people feel pretty.  I like it.  It’s so fun and feminine and yet strong and empowering.  It’s like an old lady who’s lived a long enriching life and is comfortable with herself, proud of who she is.  She garners respect not with force, but with peace, with the calmness of having learned what’s really important.  Pink has none of the demanding-ness or insecure attention seeking of red.  No.  Pink is refined and beautiful, and timeless.

Ok, maybe not hot pink, but anyway…

 

Not everyone is such a fan of pink.  Some people are kind of ehh and indifferent about it.  Some people like it a bit but wouldn’t rave about it.  Some people would prefer not to wear it (quite a large number of men I would guess).  But then there’s Munchkinhead; she hates pink.  With a passion.

How badly is with a passion?  Well, if you’re wearing pink and you try to hug her, she’ll run screaming from the room.  Probably something to the effect of, “ewwwwwwwww!!!!! Get away from me!”

If you put one of the pink bowls at her spot on the dinner table, she snatch it up, somehow managing to make it bang into the table while doing so, stomp over to the cupboard, slam the pink bowl into the cupboard with as much racket as possible and return to the table with a non-pink bowl – likely a white bowl with a yellow duck on the bottom of it – loudly exclaiming the entire time that whoever set the table ought to know better than to give her a pink bowl.

If you put something pink on her bed, or worse, dress Gibby in pink, you’re probably going to have to fetch Daddy Bunny out of the laundry chute.

And if you try to dress her in pink… Well, let’s just say I hope you have good medical insurance.

As you can imagine, these sorts of reactions make it rather fun for Daddy and me, who carry the mischievous gene in the family, to strategically place pink items in Munchkinhead’s vicinity.  Just picture this tiny little Munchkinhead turning bright red and stomping and flailing and making such a ruckus, as though she were three times her size, just cuz something’s pink.  It’s so ridiculous!  It’s so funny!

Mommy and Wendy, they do not appreciate this so much.  Maybe they don’t have a sense of humor.  More likely, they’re just nicer.

Part of the reason this is all so amusing though is because pink used to be one of Munchkinhead’s favorite colors.  Pink and yellow.  For most of her childhood.  Yellow stayed, but somewhere along the line pink got replaced with black.  My poor little Munchkinhead!  What terrible thing must have happened to turn her from bright, happy pink, to sad, dark, emo, black.

 

*Sigh*  Well, at least we’ll always have adorable pictures like this, adorable pink pictures like this:

By the way, if you really, really, really want get a rise out of her, use pink paisley.  She hates paisley even more than pink.  One scrap of pink paisley on Gibby and Daddy Bunny will be bunny-napped for sure!

Ack! I’m Stuck!

Dresses from back in the day certainly had their share of elaborate closures.  As I put on the 1940’s styled dress my mom made me some time ago, I thought, “how did women dress themselves?!”  Then I remembered, they didn’t have to, they never lived alone.  Well, I am not so fortunate, and this morning, that really sucked.

The dress, the 1940s styled dress, was my Easter dress some time back. I think maybe in high school, though it might have been college.  When Mom made it, as usual with my retro patterned clothes, it was too small and I needed to wear a waist cincher.  It fits nicely now, although the seams area bit stretched from previous years of forcing myself into it.  It’s so cute!

However, no matter how cute or how well it fits, it is still not easy to put on.  It has a side opening with metal snaps and a hook and eye, as well as a back opening that is half zipper and half small round buttons with thread loop button holes.  And those loop button holes, at the top of my back, are the bane of my existence today.

I was doing fine.  Really proud that I was managing to put this dress on all by myself.  And then I buttoned a button wrong.  So I tried to undo it, but I somehow put the button through the loop again.  And a third time.  I could not unbutton that button.  So, not only could I not fix the buttons so I could button the rest and be fully dressed, I could not get the dress off to put something else on instead.  I was, in fact, stuck half dressed.

My roommate works a quasi 2nd shift schedule, and he’s a heavy sleeper.  I knocked on his door just enough to see if he was up (cuz I didn’t want to wake him if he wasn’t), he wasn’t.   I was very stuck and as much as tried, I could not undo that button.

Finally, I gave up.  I put on my shoes and my makeup, ate my breakfast, packed my lunch and put on my jacket, mostly to hide the back of my dress.  And it was off to work I went, hi ho, with my buttons not in a row.

Luckily, I have some very nice coworkers, and one of them attempted to undo the button.  She couldn’t.  I had gotten it so messed up trying to undo it myself that it was hopeless.  Snip.  She had to cut the button loop.  Then she was able to button the rest of the buttons properly.  And, she had a safety pin to close up the gap with the now missing button loop.  Hooray!

[Pic: me after being properly fixed.]

Now, the fun part will be trying to get this off.

I’ve Reached the Green

At the special request of my mother, I am to post today about my outfit.  As you know, I have been spending the past few months exploring my closet, going down the row, wearing whatever comes next.  Earlier this week, I reached the green section.

Today’s item was an olive green RED shirt (from the RED collection; there is no color called olive green red, that would be brown).  It’s a v-neck t-shirt, although a little softer in shape than most t-shirts.  I didn’t want to just wear it with jeans, since I don’t really like jeans all that much.  So, I started at the top of the closet and began flipping my way through the clothes.

It just so happens the shirt coordinates nicely with a skirt waiting just a few hangers down, a skirt that would probably have come up for wearing on Saturday or Sunday.  A skirt I don’t think I’ve worn since college.  It’s a cute skirt.  But I could never seem to find the right top for it.  And for the longest time, it just looked funny on me.  (I was bigger in college than I am now.)  After today, I think it’s my new favorite skirt.                                    

Mommy made the skirt for me, I think about 9 years ago.  At least I’m pretty sure she made it and not me.  The plaids line up on the side.  The fabric is a green wool plaid.  I believe it was part of the large stack my mom inherited from my grandpa’s house when he had to move into a home.  The skirt’s got a little fish tail in the back which I think gives it a nice shape.  It’s warm, and comfy and olive is a good color for me.  Well, at least for my eyes, which turn a pretty shade of green when I wear olive.

Two pieces of clothing I almost never wear, now one fabulous outfit.  And that’s what makes exploring my closet so much fun!

If a Girl Gets Dressed Up and There’s No One to See It, is She Still Cute?

I’d been waiting for today for a long time.  Today was the day I reached my burgundy sweater in my closet exploration.  The sweater itself really wasn’t that big of deal.  It was a Christmas present from my sister last year, and I’ve probably worn it nearly every other week since then.   [That’s me wearing the sweater on the first day of school last semester.  The white dress shirt is part of the sweater.]

What was so special about getting to wear the sweater this time was that I now have adorable shoes that match it perfectly!  I couldn’t wait to wear my sweater, grey skirt, grey striped tights (like the picture) and my beautiful garnet – that’s what the color’s called on the box – shoes.

I woke up this morning all excited, knowing exactly what I was going to wear and thrilled to finally get to wear my adorable shoes to work.  [It’s hard to tell in the pic, but those are 4.5” heels.]  I got dressed, brushed my hair for the first time in months – cornrows came out yesterday – put on my make-up and headed out the door.

It’s about a four block walk to the bus stop down at the busy corner.  We’re only three houses from the BART station, but the bus is cheaper because it offers a monthly pass and the bus station in the City is closer to work than the BART station.  The bus is also, usually, a much nicer ride because it’s less crowded and once it gets on the freeway, it doesn’t stop until we’re at the station in the City.  So, I take the bus.

The sun was shining so that even with the brisk chill in the wind the day still felt warm.  The bus stop has a wooden bench, sitting gloriously in a spot of bright sunshine.  I arrived about ten minutes before the bus’s scheduled arrival because the buses have been running goofy lately and seeming to pay no mind to the schedule.  I waited.

And I waited.

A gentleman joined me on the bench.

We waited.

And we waited.

We were waiting for the last bus of the day on this route; there was no next bus to wait for.  Fifteen minutes after the bus should have arrived, he headed up the street to the BART station.

I waited a little longer, for one more not-my-bus to pass.  Then I turned and headed in the same direction.  But I didn’t go to BART.  Instead I bought bubblegum.  No, I went home.

[A = home, B = bus stop, C = BART station]

A BART ride into the city costs nearly $5.  That’s $5 more than I would have paid to ride the bus, because I have a monthly pass for the bus.  Plus, I’d already wasted a lot of time walking back and forth and waiting at the bus stop.  Luckily, work has a very flexible work from home policy.  And, since most of the people I work with on a daily basis aren’t in the office either, it doesn’t matter much where I am. 

So, as I said, I went home and worked from there.  I got a lot done.  But nobody got to see my adorable shoes.  Nobody except Mr. Trizzle and the guy at the bus stop.  I doubt either of them even noticed.

Exploring My Closet

About a month or so ago, I embarked on a new adventure. I call it “exploring my closet.” I started at one end, luckily at the white end before Labor Day – my closet’s in rainbow order (“of course it is,” says Mommy) – and I am working my way down to the other end. If I can’t make an outfit out of an item, out it goes, into the Goodwill pile. I have a full brown paper bag already. Some stuff’s too small, some stuff’s stained (clothes that get donated and can’t be sold get shipped to Africa or turned into rags) and some of it just isn’t right for me.

It’s been a lot of fun so far, getting to play with my clothes. It’s like playing dress-up every day! Sometimes I wind up with pretty boring outfits, like today. There’s only so much you can do with a v-neck sleeveless top decked out in bling. Mainly, wear it with some pants. And most of this week I wound up in suits because I had a lot of tank tops in a row. But sometimes, I get to have lots of fun.

Like when I get to channel my little munchkinhead (minus the pink, of course).

The fishnets look darker in the picture than they did in real life. Part of the reason is because there’s black fishnets over the hot pink tights.

And I’ve discovered my black, baby-doll Death Magnetic Tour, Metallica tee works great with lots of outfits. Who’d of thunk it?

But by far, my favorite day was the one where I discovered I’d accidentally dressed to match the bathroom at work!

Can you see me?

This was my grandmother’s vest sometime in the 60s or 70s. The vest was not the piece of the day for the outfit. - I’m still not up to the green part of the closet,which means this vest will come out again. – The body suit I have on underneath it was the day’s piece, from the light pink section of my closet. It was one of my aunt’s, probably from the same era as the vest. True vintage articles here.

It’s a neat little body suit. Pink, tan and that shade of green, in a sort of mesh material. I’ve always liked it, but always had trouble finding things to go with it. It has to go under something, because of that meshy-ness. I was a bit worried as I got closer to it in my closet, I really didn’t want to part with it. But it was safe. Hooray! Saved by the vest!

The closet game will continue for a few more months I expect. I’m only in the middle of the reds.

New Shoes, New Shoes

New sho-oo-oes. Yesterday, I had a special meeting where I had to get fancied up, but not too serious. This is the Bay after all, wearing the black suit and pearls so earnestly required at Vandy will quickly get you ostracized out here. So I went nice, professional, and a little fun. Cute black pinstripe suit where the skirt has a little ruffle hem that makes it cute and fun. A red camisole. Beige fishnets. And then, my new red shoes!

Aren’t they fabulous?

I normally don’t do red shoes. (My Jessica Rabbit costume would be an exception.) I’ve always been kind of afraid of them. The people who wear them, at least on tv and such, are rather vampires. And red is such an attention getting color. Yes, 5” heels can also get attention, but you have to actually notice them first, and then do a bit of a double take. Red, especially when paired with black, is so got ya! And red plus 5” heels, that’s all kind of better-not-trip-and-fall-on-my-vampire trouble.

But they are so fun! I have to admit, I did feel rather powerful walking around in them. Stepping out of my car, striding down the street. And I got sooooo many compliments. :)

I picked ‘em up at the shoe store near our house. –the shoes, not the compliments- I absolutely loved them when I saw them. Especially that neat rainbow striped heel. At first, I wasn’t sure I could get them. The 10 was far too big and their weren’t any 9 1/2s. The 9 was a little snug, but not too bad and not painful. Plus, the 60% off sticker put them just at the top of my reasonable-for-heels price range, about $30. How could I refuse? Sucks that their Jessica Simpson, but whatever. The girl may not know the difference between chicken and tuna, but she can pick out a shoe.

Oh, and Mommy, they don't work, otherwise I'd have been at dinner last night.

Welcome to Casual Town

It’s funny how sometimes we talk in song lyrics without even meaning to do so.  Today, I was explaining why I prefer the East Bay to San Francisco – mainly the weather – and I said, “I don’t do summer in the city.”  From my quote, it sounded like I either don’t care for the Lovin’ Spoonful or that San Francisco is too hot in the summer.  Neither of which are true.  But, the ‘hot-down’ conjured up by my accidental quoting of the song implied the city is hot in the summer.  It made me laugh a little – and be glad I was talking to someone apparently too young to catch all this.

Later, at lunch, another song slipped in.  The city is known for its cold and cloudy days.  But as we were sitting on the quasi-indoor patio, the sun started to shine.  Someone commented, “here comes the sun.”  Guess who had the Beatles stuck in her head the rest of the day?  Yeah, me.

Song titles aside, the first day of work was pretty uneventful and laid back.  Lots of power point slides, lots of paperwork, lots of mac books (pooey!).  Seems like it’s going to be a very interesting next couple months.  The intern group is small but quite a mishmash of… of… of… stuff?

Two of the other interns make me think of, and miss, my little munchkinhead.  One of the guys is a year younger than her and seems like someone she might bring home.  He looks like he walked out of the 80s, or England.  I’m not trying to be mean; I think that’s actually in style now; I just wouldn’t know; I’m not into the whole hipster scene.  He’s got the skinny leg jeans that are somehow still slightly sagged, converse tennies, and a black T.  His hair reminds me of Flock of Seagulls, or maybe he’s a member of Wham!.  The other guy is from Ireland.  Both of the munchkinhead-guys are techie interns.

I knew the dress code here is casual, but I like dressing up.  So I did.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t go with the skirt and dress shirt like I wanted because it’s so dang cold in the city.  I had to put on the suit jacket just to stay warm.  There were two other interns also dressed up.  One in a suit, one in khakis with a button up shirt and a sweater.  They’re the other law student interns.

There’s one other intern, too.  Another techie guy, sort of.  I think his focus is international outreach.  He does not remind me of munchkinhead.  Like Wham! and Ireland, he was dressed more closely to the style of the place, jeans and pull-over thingy that looks like the one the guy who beats up Dirk Diggler in the parking lot in Boogie Nights was wearing.

Not a whole lot of the staff was here today, but the ones I met all seem really nice.  It’s weird to be interning at a place where most of the people seem pretty close to my age.  I’m used to working with people much older than me.  This is a first.  They were also mostly wearing jeans, but with nicer tops, for the most part.

I’ll probably still be dressed up tomorrow.  Why on earth would I wear jeans for something other than cleaning or bowling?!  I mean really, why wear pants when you can wear a skirt?  Oh, and there’s a shoe repair place across the street from work.  Perfect!  I don’t have to worry about ruining too many lifts.

Boo, Feminists

Heels?  Check.
Seamed stockings? Check.
Vacuum Cleaner? No Check.

I think I was born half a century too late. 

This morning I was trying to get ready for my first day at my fellowship and nothing was going right.  My best undergarments (along with my dress clothes) are in a box that should have arrived from Seattle about a week ago.  The garter skirts I have at home weren’t working with my new suit skirt.  The one pair of full nylons I have had a new run in the foot, and we couldn’t get the clear nail polish open.  My body’s not cooperating; nothing fits right.  I was so frustrated.  And Mr. Trizzle’s gruffness showed me he sensed my frustration and didn’t approve, despite not understanding one bit of it.

Finally, I was dressed.  Hooray for hold-ups!  Took care of the ran nylons and garter skirt problem.  Skirt looks like it fits if I’m sitting down, so I guess I’ll just have to try to sit down as much as possible.

Anyway, here I am, already for the first day of my exciting new fellowship, dressed in a suit, heels on, make-up ready, and all I want to do is clean the living room and do the dishes.  I love suits, but I also love fluffy day dresses with circle skirts.  Heels and seamed stockings go very nicely with those, too.

Now don’t get me wrong, we all know I’m super excited about this fellowship (when I got the interview, I started jumping on the bed), but I was really enjoying my schedule from the last week or so.  “Bye, Mr. Trizzle.  Have a great day at work.  Here, don’t forget your lunch I just packed!”  Unpack, arrange, decorate, do some laundry, research a bit, a walk, some errands, repeat in various permutations.  “Hi Mr. Trizzle!  How was your day? “  Cook dinner, clean up, relax with Mr. Trizzle.  It was very nice.  Now it’s all those things plus being at work all day every day.  I just don’t know how I’m going to keep that house clean!

Ok, Make that 5

I made an executive decision at the last minute and threw a fifth pair of shoes into my carryon.  It was actually a practicality decision, not a fashion one.  I realized I will probably have a few days where I'll be doing quite a bit of walking and my "classic standard" shoes aren't great for walking all over; the lifts wear down really quickly.  (I should know, that's my second pair of those in less than a year.)  They're also a bit difficult because of the very steep incline to the shoe, no platform in the font.  The last thing I need to do is fall down the steps in BART again.  So, I grabbed a pair of much more comfortable and easier-to-walk-in shoes that will go with the same outfits as the classic standards.  That way, if I know I'm going to be walking, I can wear my saddle shoes, and if I know we'll be staying in one place or mostly driving, I can wear the classic standards.

 

(P.S. arrived safely in El Cerrito.)

Stop the Press! goldenrail Packs 4 Pairs of Shoes for 10 Day Trip!

That sums it up, and it includes the pair I'm wearing on the plane.  I'm scared.  I'm not living up to my reputation.  Can I truly be fabulous with less than 1.25 pairs of shoes for each day I'll be gone?  What is the world coming to?  Next thing you know, I'll be wearing tennis shoes and ballet flats everyday.  Oh the horror!

 

The shoes I'm taking (note: I may not wear the last ones; they're just in case.)

I love my Timbs

  These are my new favorite shoes  Standard classics The back-ups

 

You know, going through my pictures reminded me of a lot of really great other shoes I have, like the ones I wore to the Ball.  That number may just have to go up to 5.  Still much less than it ought to be ;)

Lightbulb goes "Bing!"

If you asked my mommy for one piece of advice in dealing with me, she would say "don't give goldenrail any ideas."  I will take them and run with them, and the next thing you know, there's army men all over your house or strange snowmen on your lawn.

Well, this little piece of advice didn't get to my International Intellectual Property professor.  A conversation in class yesterday went something like this:

Student:  What assignment do we have for tomorrow's class?

Professor:  Nothing.  I don't assign readings during the first week.  We're going back to 19th Century Europe tomorrow.  You can dress in period costume if you want.

Of course, he was totally kidding, but how could I pass up an opportunity like that?!

Here I am, ready for school.

In reality, we're dealing with late 19th century Europe, but I didn't feel like wearing a corset today.  So I opted for an early 19th century outfit, my onion Pride&Prejudice dress!

I had to fix the dress last night before I could wear it.  Another of the seams had come undone.   That was the easy fix.  Then, there were some fairly large holes on the side of the skirt.  I had noticed them in Nigeria, but decided to save the fix 'til I got home.  I have no idea where the holes came from.  They looked like a mouse got hungry or battery acid leaked from somewhere.

To fix the dress, I took apart the side seams and cut off a strip down the side with the holes, cutting off the holes.  The seam itself had been very large, several inches.  That was good.  When I relined the fabric, I put my new edge of the former hole-y part against the old edge of the good side and stitched a narrower, normal 5/8" seam.  There was enough material in the old seam to almost completely make up the difference for the material I had to cut off.  Dress looks fine now.  And I'm a happy little camper,  well... except that my white tights keep falling down.

Look Ma, We're Twins!

Today Munchkinhead and I finished our matching jumpers.  Actually, Munchkinhead finished hers yesterday, but she had Mommy's help.  Other than that little bit of help from Mommy (with the buttons), we each sewed our own jumper. 

I brought the material back from Nigeria and Munchkinhead found this great pattern in Mommy's boxes of patterns.  It's from sometime in the mid- to late- '70s.  It can be a jumper or a sun dress.  Mommy said she had one of each; she liked the pattern a lot.

It was a good find on Munchkinhead's part; the jumpers are adorable!

Don't worry, I won't actually wear mine with a pink shirt.  That's just the shirt I was wearing when it was time to try on the jumpers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a close up of the back.  Munchkinhead picked out some  really cute (and probably almost as old as the pattern) buttons with bling in them, but you can't really see them in the picture.