Dressing Up

I hate to dress up. I’m pretty much a hippie at heart.

I have a small, functional wardrobe. This works well for day-to-day life in Colorado. I can happily get along at work, church, and most social events. I’m comfortable and I think I look decent.

But when there is an event for which I must clothe myself a bit more formally, panic sets in.

First, a dress. I shop at all my favorite consignment shops. I even go to a few department stores. Basically, I waste two whole days of my life looking at dresses and even trying on a few of them. Finally, I decide. I pick the black dress in my closet that I’ve worn to the last few events. I’ll just wear different jewelry and a new, colorful scarf with it.

Secondly, shoes. Oh, dread. High-heels are out for me. Especially pointed heels. I’ve seen women my age who wear pointed high-heels. They are the ones at the event either sitting down or carrying their shoes by the end of the evening. I’ll be wearing plain, black boots in winter or plain, black flats in summer. So far, so good.

Finally, hair and makeup. My normal routine is to wash my hair and run a brush through it. And makeup for me is tinted moisturizer and tinted lip gloss. Since this is a formal occasion, I’ll go all out and wear real lipstick.

I grab my small black purse and I’m ready to go.

Upon arriving at the event, of course, I look around at all the other women there. I would say these women fit into three basic categories.

Some women look really good. They manage a style to which I aspire, but never seem to quite attain. They are elegant – just the right fit of clothes, shoes, etc. How do they manage that?

Secondly, there are the women who are trying to be more trendy. Sometimes they wear tight-fitting clothes. (I think, “Honey, didn’t they have that in your size?”) Or they wear something they will look back on in a few years and think, “I wore that? What was I thinking?”

Having occasionally slipped into that second category, I now place myself firmly in the last category. These are the women like me, who aspire to the elegant, shy away from the trendy, and look passable.

Next time, I really should save myself some time. I know what I’ll wear to the next event. I’ll be in my black dress and black shoes – sensible and comfortable.

Dog Hairs

We have a dog. We like our dog.

She’s a mutt. We think she is a mix of lab and terrier. When she is in her alpha female mode, I tell people she is a lab-terror mix.

We don’t spend a lot of money on grooming our dog. To be fair, I don’t spend a lot of money on grooming myself either.

On one vet visit, the new veterinarian assistant commented, “Oh, cute, she has the scruffy look.”

Hmm, that’s an interesting compliment.

We brush her and trim her. But she still sports the scruffy look.

Isn’t there something about dogs and their owners having the same look?

I get a good haircut every 6 to 8 weeks. I really only wash and comb my hair. I feel it is unfair to spend more time and money caring for my dog’s hair than I do for mine.

We can both be scruffy together.

This is all well and good. But the biggest issue with dog hairs is not what they look like on the dog, but what they look like on the floor, on the furniture, on my clothes…on everything!

If we sweep on Wednesday, there are more dog hairs on the floor by Friday. It’s endless.

And somehow, they travel.

Occasionally, I’ll find a dog hair on the table. Our dog is big, but she’s not as tall as the table. How did it get up there? I guess it’s just one of her wild hairs.

We don’t have dust bunnies at our house, we have dust puppies. It’s an ongoing battle to keep the floor dog hair free.

But we like our dog. So even if it’s a hair-raising experience, I guess we’ll do what we need to do. We’ll just have to keep trying to keep the house well-groomed too.

Lists

I like to make lists. Grocery lists and To Do lists are my favorites. But I’m not sure that they really help me to accomplish that much.

Before I head to the grocery store, I take stock of my kitchen and write a list. This is a smart move on my part. I won’t forget anything that way, right? I collect my bags and keys and head to the store.

But often, when I reach the store, I realize there is a problem. I have left my list on the kitchen table. This is maddening.

So maybe a mental list is better. Especially when only a few items are needed. It’s that old trick, BOBS = bananas, oats, butter and sugar.

I find myself in the grocery store aisles mumbling. “TOMS? JOES? Oh, no, today it’s BOBS. Let’s see, butter, oats, bacon? No, it’s not bacon. Broth? No. Bread? No. Bananas? Yes, that’s it!”

I’m really happy with myself. I buy my items and leave the store. I’m just out the door when I remember it’s BOBS plural. So I turn around and go back in for the salt.

To Do lists are also useful.

The problem is that it is so hard to estimate how long things will take to get done. There are times when I know I have a free afternoon. So I make a To Do list for the afternoon: vacuum, do laundry, pay bills, clean out the fridge, paint a bedroom, plant a garden, and maybe write a novel. Ok, so I guess I don’t have time to do all that. I should drop the novel.

There is also the long, ongoing To Do list that my husband and I share. This is a list of major projects around the house. Things can be on this list for months and even years. This list contains things like painting and replacing windows and fencing. These are the sorts of things people put off. Unless they decide to sell their house. At that point, the whole list will have to get done in a matter of weeks.

It is nice to have a To Do list and be able to cross through an item on the list. It may take hours to accomplish something, but that moment of dragging your pen across the item on your list is a moment of victory.

The only problem is that while I’ve been doing that last project, I notice a few more things around the house that I have to add to the To Do list.

Portion Sizes

I’m not sure where the term “helping” came from to denote a portion or serving of food. Maybe it’s regional. “Would you like a second “helping” of mashed potatoes?” Sure, that sounds like a good thing, right?

I don’t know what to think about American portions.

If you go to a restaurant, you never know what size helping you will get. Either you receive an elegant little something, while thinking, “I could easily eat two more of these.” Or you get an enormous platter of food which could feed a family of four.

When I was in college (and we know people in their teens and early twenties can consume vast amounts of food), I went on a fun date. We went out for a light meal and then to Baskin Robbins for “the Matterhorn.” The Matterhorn, as the name implies, was a huge mountain of ice cream – 7 scoops with toppings. We conquered that mountain, no problem.

In my thirties I went to a dinner and was served ice cream for dessert in a tiny, demi-tasse cup. It was lovely, but I did think, “What has life come to? Is this what growing up is all about?”

Sophia Loren has said that she eats pasta every day. She just watches her portion sizes, especially as she gets older. Maybe another helping of pasta will help me look like Sophia.

And then there are the sizes of drinks. Who made up the cup size names for Starbucks? Maybe they had a bit too much caffeine during the naming process. “Short”, I get. But “tall” and “grande” are mediums and then there is “venti” for the big ones.  At least I think that’s how it is. I just point whenever I find myself at a roadside store.

But this is nothing compared to 7/11. Big Gulp, Super Big Gulp, Double Gulp, X-treme Gulp, or Team Gulp. Team Gulp? This is a serving of soda that could actually be enough for a whole team. Really?

Any diet or person speaking on healthy eating, including our friend Sophia Loren, talks about the sizes of our helpings. I figure that seconds or supersized portions are only “helping” me get fat. Oh, help!