Dress

Tonight was the annual Christmas/holiday party at my godmother's house--the last, at least on Stratford, as she will be moving into a condo soon. It was a nice time--everyone was there, the food was all eaten and everyone seemed to have had just enough, the audacious young cousin was audacious, we sang carols at her command and listened to a story from my godmother's childhood, and a poem. And, toward the end, my cousin Megan, after complimenting my shoes, my scarf, then my bracelet, told me that she loves the way I dress. I wouldn't put this here except that I want to remember, because it's something that I never thought would happen. So many of my female cousins (particularly on the other side of the family) could be or are basically professional thrift store shoppers, and have amazing style. I am not naturally that way, and always admired the way they dressed, their confidence, the way they always looked so effortlessly put together--and I thought I could never do or have those things. I asked for help for a while and then just started to go for it. Looks like maybe I'm getting my wish, at least a little. And that's pretty amazing.

Important Announcement

Attention: the first bright and shiny outdoor decorated tree is decorated! It lives just at the end of my street, so I get to look at it every time I pull out onto the main road at night. Love.

            (The holiday season is heralded by NPR jazz playing on the car radio as green and red and white lights flicker and flow through dark, misty rain-shined streets. Also, brightly decorated outdoor trees.)



Tonight I went home to have dinner with my parents and walk Miley--but as I believe I have mentioned*, Miley needs to be walked late at night if she is to be expected to refrain from waking my mother at 4 or 5 am. After dinner, therefore, I retired to my room and began playing dress-up with my new boots (by the way, my boots came in the mail yesterday), ostensibly in an effort to find something to wear on the plane to Scotland. I really did (mostly) start out with that aim, but it quickly degenerated into "let's figure out how many things I can get away with wearing with grey boots and orangeish-yellow tights." Since "get away with" is a relative term and at times like this I have very little shame, it turns out that the answer is "a lot." But still, if I am going to have any success on my campaign to bring color to Dundee (where, I have heard, nobody wears any colors), I am going to need a lot more pairs of colored tights.


I am house/pet sitting again for Sara's parents, and I have just run out of Bailey's. This is so uncool. I might have to go to the ABC store tomorrow like an alkie** and get some more.


On another note,
Linked on facebook by my friend Cliff




















*I mistyped this at first, but evidently "mentioend" is a word***.

**This is one of those sometimes-mildly-frustrating abbreviations that are spelled in ways that don't really relate to the parent word. Technically this should be "alchey" or "alchie," which are totally unsatisfying spellings, and misleading in terms of pronounciation. I guess the accepted spelling ("alkie") can be justified by categorizing it as slang. I guess.

***Actually, it appears that this computer (or this browser?) has spell check turned off. Good to know I suppose, but now I'm worried that everything I am writing is riddled with typos. Just yesterday I realized that the last formspring question I had the honor of answering was answered with a "to" where a "too" should be. I was mortified. Someone please, please have mercy and give me something else to put at the top of my page.  Not that anyone is reading that stuff, but I have my pride.

Halloween

I was successfully (whatever that means) a firefly. Costume: short black dress from Marshalls*, orangey yellow tights from Anthropologie, coat-with-tails belonging to my aunt's deceased husband, dad's Greek fisherman's cap with some homemade antennae (thanks mom) crafted from Christmas-ornament earrings and memory wire, a bunch of Bath&Body works body glitter spray (Moonlight Path scent, I think) which I found in the bathroom closet. I remember being given a whole set of that B&B "Moonlight Path" line and being rather annoyed, but I guess it came in handy after all. :) We took some pictures that didn't come out well at all, but perhaps I'll get them put up soon. I went down to Hartley and Lael's house to try to drum up some customers for our candy (no one comes up our street anymore), then came home and video skyped Sara, who approved of my costume, and finally went over to Kelly's to see everybody (specifically Kenny, who leaves for National Guard boot camp in the morning) and play Little Big Planet, horribly. I am really bad. At some points we were all laughing so hard that we cried, because I am so bad. It was a good time.

How was your Halloween?


















*I have a hard time dealing with there not being an apostrophe in the store name. Is it seriously supposed to refer to a group of people or things named Marshall? It cannot be a present progressive verb, because the verb in question has only one "l." Observe: marshal, which would become he/she/it marshals. Long story short, unless the store was founded by multiple business partners named Marshall, this is just one more gargantuan case of punctuational idiocy.