(Picture: Kathleen and me at Karen’s.)
Laundry. All day, it felt like.
I carefully hand washed, for the first time, an outfit I’d bought to wear to my nephew’s wedding and had had hanging in the closet for several months untouched for fear anything might happen to it: a deep burgundy skirt with a flimsy-fine silk overlay, a silk-and-velvet-burnout jacket that matched. Not a sturdy pair by any means, but pretty. And a cream silk blouse with narrow vertical pleats to finish it off. (Yay for clearance sales on all counts.) I knew that overlay would take very careful steam-ironing after each hand washing to make it go back to being the right length (those shrink up like crazy but then iron out to way long, even too long if you’re not watching it), but the photos of the day would last forever, right?
Going out the door the evening of that wedding reception two weekends ago meant getting past my brother’s mastiff/boxer mix puppy without its big toenails hooking into that flimsy layer of silk and making it look like Parker’s blankie.
There was just no way. I wore something else (and was justified by said puppy doing one last attempt to jump up on me three steps from the front door.)
Now, it was a perfectly lovely outfit but in the time it had hung there unused I had questioned whether I’d really needed it, and ditching it at the last second had made me wonder even more so. My disappointment somehow became the clothes’ fault.
Karen picked me up at the airport the next day and that’s what I was finally wearing. She exclaimed over it. She loved it. She loved how the whole look came together.
I shouldn’t have needed someone else’s approval to make me feel good about it at all, and yet. And yet. She changed everything. Now, at last, I feel like I really do have something nice enough to wear to, well, the next wedding, anyway. Just like I’d planned.
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Animal paws/claws and fine fabrics or knitting just don’t mix! I had a long talk with my son’s kitty to be sure she understands that under no circumstances is she allowed anywhere near the blanket I just spent the last 18 months knitting for him! Do you think she understands me? LOL!
Comment by Jody 01.27.16 @ 3:13 pmLeave a comment
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