Fashion Quest--Part III

Two days after my fashion recon, I took my mother to the shops to see what I had picked out.  Mind you, this was a Saturday.  Not my favorite day to shop retail.  Unless it's a small used-book store.  But, I digress, as usual.  With all that's involved in getting my mother up, fed and ready to go, I realized how much easier it had been with an infant or small child.  Between her trips to the bathroom and the painstaking process of dressing, I have to allow her an hour just to get to the breakfast table.  So we got a later start than I planned, but it was still morning when we left.

It was sunny, but cool and breezy.  My mother wore long sleeves, but was still freezing.  We took her larger, more cumbersome walker (Winnie--really, that's the brand name) because it has a seat which she can use to rest.  It is never more apparent how slow she is than when she is crossing a busy shopping-mall parking lot on a Saturday.  Since Winnie has four wheels and the seat, I was tempted to sit her down and push it like a wheelchair.  But she needs the exercise, so we crawled across the traffic, backing it up about 10 cars in each direction.  (The shopping mall has a WalMart and Sam's Club near the clothing stores.)

Inside Catherine's, she was awed by all the styles and colors.  I steered her toward the dressy clothes and found the pants I thought would work for her.  As I went through the rack looking for her size, she was in the middle of the main aisle, trying to sit down on Winnie.  She didn't seem to have the wheels locked and I was worried she would fall.  There is a chair in the middle of Catherine's--I guess for tired shoppers or bored companions.  Someone beat her to it--big surprise.  I helped her to sit on Winnie near the pants I was looking through.  During all this, over-enthusiastic sales ladies were hovering nearby.  I made a loud comment on how someone beat her to the chair, hoping the women sitting on her behind would move.  (Yes,

I love the studs down the front
and the shirring at the wrists.

I know, very passive-aggressive, and rude, too, but what can I say?  It irks me when people who can walk don't defer to people who can't.)  A few minutes later the chair was unoccupied (see?  it works!) and I convinced my mother to sit there.  Using Winnie as a display rack, I brought clothes to her to consider.  As I expected, she liked everything I had chosen on my recon trip.  (No, I'm not being conceited, I just know my mother's tastes very well.)  She was like a queen with her court.  The sales ladies talked to her and she told everyone about the two weddings we had and how it was just like what happened with her son and daughter.  The sales ladies did help me, however, we couldn't find another top for her for the 2nd wedding.  After getting the navy pants and a T-shirt on clearance for her, the grey duster/cardigan and a wine-colored top for me, we were ready to move on.

We bypassed Lane Bryant and headed to Dress Barn.   Since the sidewalk was in shadow, she complained about being cold.  And I thought the stores were close to each other!

In Dress Barn, there was no choice but for her to sit on Winnie.  I got her set up in a relatively out of the way place and proceeded to bring items to her.  The palazzo pants and the pewter shoes for me were a given.  We looked at a couple of dressy jackets and tops for her, but nothing really went with the navy pants.  While I was looking through a rack of sleeveless tops for something to go with one of her possibilities, I found a medium-pink tank top for me to wear to the 1st wedding.  (The wine-colored top from Catherine's would be for the 2nd.)  I was pretty well set.  But what to get my mother?  Well, there was plenty of time before New Year's Eve to find something.  Although the October 1st checks would need to cover wedding gifts for the 1st one, and the November 1st checks would need to cover car insurance and start Christmas shopping, and December 1st would be Christmas . . .  Well, you get the picture.  On a last sweep, I went over to a section I hadn't looked at before because, from a distance, it seemed like the tops were all black.  But as I got closer, I saw it!!  Ooooh, it was perfect!  Technically, it's black and blue.  That combination didn't work with the navy on other tops, but, for whatever reason, it worked on this!  And it shimmered!  I just knew she'd love it and she did:

This is a jacket and shell set.

So we had our outfits.  My mother was delighted with her finds.  With our clothing in garment bags, I went to head back to the car, relieved the worst was over.  My mother looked exhausted, yet she sat through most of it!  But I took pity (on her or the other shoppers, take your pick) and took our stuff to the car (where I spent nearly five minutes trying to get the hanger hook down) and pulled the car to the sidewalk for her.  I really don't remember what we did after that.  Well, went home, of course, but after that, it's all a blur.

Next time:  It's all about the details.

Fashion Quest--Part II

The silver cami that I ordered to go under my mother's beaded top came and looks pretty good.  Now I need to get her to try everything on together.  Usually she would be happily modeling her finery for me, but she's sick right now.  I'm saying prayers that she recovers in time for the wedding, which is just over a week away!

A week or so after we had perused catalogs and Web sites, I spent the greater part of a Thursday reconnoitering the plus-size stores.  There are three in a row at a nearby mall, so I checked out everything that was remotely appropriate for a wedding.  This was not a shopping trip.  It was data collection, which would be collated with catalog and on-line finds and decisions made from there.  I found the navy pants for my mother at Catherine's.  (However, even the petite length needed to be hemmed for her.)  She would need another top for the New Year's Eve wedding, so I kept any eye out for something suitable.  She wanted a little more glitz for the second wedding--but still not gaudy!?!?  But once I found the dressy navy pants, my mind switched to my favorite subject--ME!

I haven't been that
skinny since I was six.

One of the newest trends in women's clothing is the uneven hemline.  Handkerchief hemlines are big again, also.  For myself, I was thinking of a duster with one of those hemlines.  In Catherine's, I found a grey tunic-length top.  They called it a cardigan, but it wasn't at all like a sweater.  Maybe a jacket--but that implies a certain level of heaviness to it, at least in my mind.  So I call it a duster, even though it's not that long.  Anyway, I really liked it right from the start--even though it didn't have either of the the new hemlines.  But this was only a recon trip, so I went next door to Lane Bryant.

Lane Bryant had camis in all kinds of colors and fabrics!  The display took my breath away!  But as I hunted through the dressy clothes, it became apparent that the store didn't have what I wanted.  I went through the racks twice, just to make sure I didn't miss anything.  Oh, they had some nice tops, but not what my mother and I had discussed.  But, I would definitely keep them in mind for the camis.

Next up was Dress Barn Women.   For my outfit, I was thinking of something along the lines of palazzo pants.  I found the perfect pants at Dress Barn.  Palazzo pants with two layers of fabric!  Underneath is solid black; the top layer is shear black.  Very dressy and very chic!  Then, something caught my eye from the small shoe section they have.  Kind of silver, but darker.  Like pewter!  They were beautiful!  Not really wild, but definitely not something my practical, conservative self would have chosen.  For me, they are somewhat outre.  I didn't buy them that day, but I can't wait until the next posting to show them off:

My part-ay shoes!

By the time I looked through Dress Barn, I was pretty sure of what the main part of my outfit would be.  I would get two different tank tops or camis to wear underneath to have a different look.  But I still didn't buy anything!  I took a last look around for the second top for my mother, still didn't see anything that really caught my eye, then made my way back to Lane Bryant.  Even though the cami display was lovely, I decided I wanted more substantial tops for underneath the duster.  The duster doesn't button or zipper, so it'll hang open to show the blouse underneath.  Then I went back through Catherine's one more time, where I looked at the duster again.  It has pewter diamond-shaped studs running down each side of the front.  I knew those pewter shoes would be perfect.

I went home with my mind full of possibilities, yet I was fairly sure of what I would get.  It seemed like angels had led me to these beautiful clothes and shoes!  The plan was to bring my mother back with me on Saturday so she could see everything for herself.  And to look through the dressy clothes for her second top.

Up next:  Taking my mother shopping--a lesson in patience!

Fashion Quest--Part I

The first wedding (I'm invited to) for this fall/winter season is in less than two weeks.  Some people would wait until the day before to plan what to wear.  Others (like me) need or want to plan in advance.  For me, the planning in advance is both a need and a want.  I need to because I only get paid once a month.  I want to because my OCD causes me to panic if I'm not prepared well in advance.  But, no panic attacks for me!  At least not in regards to what to wear to the wedding.

It's not enough to just worry about myself.  I have to help my mother, too.  About six weeks ago, we sat down with plus-size catalogs and my laptop to get an idea of what was out there for this fall.  It quickly hit home that, for my mother, we were going to have to plan her outfits around her shoes.

My mother loves these shoes.

Shoes? you ask.  Well, you would until I tell you that my mother has horrible terrible nasty bad feet.  First, she has tophaceous gout.  Gout is a form of arthritis.  Tophi are nodular masses of uric acid crystals.  I was going to put a picture of it here, but, trust me, it isn't pretty.  Second, my mother's feet have always been wide.  She could never get shoes at Sears or Penney's.  She always had to go to special shoe stores (before wide-widths became standard in most stores).  Third, she has sprained her ankles more times than I care to count, which has left her ankles somewhat . . . misshapen.  All of this means that my mother's shoes are difficult to find and very expensive.  Since she had a fairly dressy pair of navy blue MaryJanes, we had to work with those.

After a few days of perusing catalogs and surfing the net, we decided that, for mom, she would get a dressy pair of navy pants and then different tops for each wedding.  My mother's style is rather oxymoronic.  She loves sparkles and froufrous and embellishments, but doesn't want anything gaudy.  ?!?!  The first top turned out to be relatively easy to find.  She found, in Roaman's catalog, a grey beaded top and was awestruck.
It was rather pricey, but I told her to be patient.  I get two or three emails a week from Roaman's and others with discount codes.  Once my mother makes up her mind, however, she does not want to wait!  (And you wondered how I got to be the way I am?)  Fortunately for both of us, that very evening I received an email for 40% off one item.  Wow!  I'd been hoping for 30% off and expecting 25% off, but this was great.  I didn't even bother with the intercom.  I ran down the stairs and burst into her bedroom.  Well, okay, I hurried down the stairs and carefully pushed her bedroom door open.  I had to mute the TV first, which entailed a search for the remote-control, which had gotten tangled in her blanket and buried under some books.  I told her the good news and her eyes lit up!  "Go order it!" she demanded.  I realized at that point that I should have waited to tell her because I still had a week before I got paid.  I assured her the coupon would still be good and it wasn't likely that the top would be out of stock in a week's time.  It was one of the loooongest weeks of my life!  That last week or so before I get paid is always a killer.  This time I could have cheerfully committed murder.  My mother fretted and fussed the whole week.  I'm surprised she didn't make me wait up the night before payday to wait for the direct deposit to show up in the bank.  But I did make sure I ordered it before I went down to breakfast!

The ordeal was NOT over at that point.  Every day she asked if the package from Roaman's came.  "Not yet" became my mantra.  I didn't even point out to her that it didn't ship until four days later.  It arrived two days after shipping, though, so she had it in less than a week.  It is very pretty:

I found a short necklace at Fashion Bug that has pewter and blood-red beads.  That'll give her some color by her face.  There was some upset when she realized that the V-neck showed more of her bypass scar than she would like.  This prompted a whole 'nother search for a cami or tank that would go under it without looking tacky.  I found a silver shell in some obscure mail-order store that (fingers crossed) should look very nice with it, hide her scar and look great with the pewter-and-red beaded necklace.  Now we are waiting for that to arrive!

Note:  This narrative will take a few postings to tell.  I will show parts of the outfits as we go along and then post pictures of us in all our finery.

Brain Sprain

I have Bipolar Disorder.  I am not ashamed of that, nor do I believe there is any stigma associated with it.  I know some people are still afraid of mental illness.  Technically, Bipolar is a Mood Disorder, not a Cognitive Disorder.  But I didn't start out with Bipolar.  After a number of events, which I'll get into another time, 12 years ago I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety.

Please note:  This is a very simplistic description!  I would not even call it Bipolar 101.  More like Bipolar prep.  I've boiled it down a whole lot and you lose quite a bit when you do that.

There is physical proof that these disorders are not imaginary.

Further, there are electrochemical impulses in the brain which have been proven to be associated with Depression.

First, a neuron (brain cell) receives an electrical impulse.  That first impulse is triggered by something happening to us.  Perhaps a physical threat or life-changing news.  Then, the neuron sends a chemical message to the next neuron.  The messenger (neurotransmitter) could be seratonin, norepinephrine, or dopamine, each of which has a known relationship to depression.  We'll use seratonin for this example because I have pictures for.  The seratonin takes the message through the gap (synapse), between neurons to the receiving neuron.  The receiver takes the message, sending the seratonin back into the synapse.  Some of the seratonin will be taken back into the first neuron. That is called reuptake.  And that seems to be where the trouble is.  Medications such as Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor, etc., are Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors.

The medication blocks the passage that would allow the seratonin to get back into the first neuron.  This has been proven to relieve depression in many people.

It doesn't work for everyone with a Depressive Disorder, but it works for a lot.  And there are other types of antidepressants, too, that work for other people.


This is all taking place in the Limbic System area of the brain.  The Limbic system regulates emotions, physical and sexual drives and the stress response, among other things.  The transmitting of those "messages" is called impulse.  These impulses are about 1/5000 of a second.  Very difficult to catch as it happens.  But there are results of these impulses and that's what scientists look at.

Depression is just one-half, well more like 45%, of what constitutes Bipolar Disorder.  Another 45% is the manic side.  But just putting all this together gave me a headache.  We'll look at the other parts of Bipolar, and how someone ends up there, another time.

Blind Driving

Just a little joke between . . . well, me and myself.  That's how I feel driving at night.  The glare of oncoming lights reduces my vision.  I can't see well in the dark.  What does that leave?  Not much.  There are a few well-lit streets that have those softer-toned bulbs in them that I don't mind driving on at night.  And I can manage just fine in my own neighborhood.  Beyond that, it gets hairy.

My trepidation has increased exponentially with each invite I receive to an evening activity.  This Tuesday night, I have a friend's husband's 50th birthday party to go to.  It'll still be light when I go, but it'll be dark coming home.  Ditto for my nephew's wedding on October 8th, which is on a Friday, and, of course, at night.  The major stomach-wrencher will be my niece's wedding on New Year's Eve.  That's also a Friday and, being December 31st, it will be dark when we go there, as well as coming home.  In addition, it's New Year's Eve.  Half the drivers on the roads will be buzzing, if not outright drunk.  Did I mention the wedding will be in the north-west suburbs of Chicago?  On New Year's Eve!  For those of you who've been living under a rock and have no clue what the weather is like during a Chicagoland winter, we could have three feet of snow!  Of course, it could also be 60 degrees, but that's not likely.  It could also be raining, which could change to sleet.

Am I being pessimistic?  Possibly.  Oh, all right, probably.  But I would rather be prepared for the worst and have things turn out better than expected, than to plan for the best and have things turn out worse than expected.  Make sense?  Well, it does to me.  And, while I am a born-again Christian, I still firmly believe in jinxes and superstition.  So, I'll knock wood, avoid walking under any ladders and beware of black cats.  Oh, wait.  I live with a black cat.  Well, technically, she's a deep coffee-brown that just looks black.  Yeah, that works.  Whew!

If it was just me going, I would crash at my sister's place (which just happens to be five minutes from where the 12/31 wedding will be) afterward.  But, of course, I'll have my mother with me.  There are no bedrooms on the ground floor of my sister's townhouse and I can't expect my mother to sleep on the sofa with her bad back.

Maybe I can talk my daughter into going to her cousin's wedding that night.  She could drive.  Pfft.  Convince my hedonistic, 23-year-old daughter to give up New Year's Eve parties for a family wedding?  Not anywhere near bloody likely!  Maybe I could pay her to drive us . . .  Well, heck, if I'm going to pay someone, I could hire a limo!

Hey, maybe I'm on to something there!  A limo!  Or, at the very least, a cab.  That way I could have champagne, too!  I like champagne.  I would not be exaggerating to say that I love champagne.  I wonder how much a cab from Justice, IL to Lisle, IL would cost?  On New Year's Eve?  Oh sh--, I mean, darn!  We'd really have to tip the drivers bigtime!  There is free limo service to the nearby Hilton, but we don't have money for hotel rooms.  Or even one room.  So we probably can't afford a cab, either.  Oh well, it was a good idea.  I really hate being lower middle-class with upper middle-class (or maybe lower upper-class) relatives.  But that's a gripe for another day.

So, I'll just focus on one day at a time.  Tomorrow or Tuesday, I need to find a gift--in my price range--for a guy who is turning 50 and is also upper middle-class.  I'm thinking a nice card and an herbal alternative to Viagra.  That would be a joke.  A gag-gift, you know?  Fine, I'll just pick up a generic version of Geritol.
Party-poopers.

Photographic Treasures

I finally got all the pictures (that I've found so far) in bins and stored in my closet.  My niece, who is getting married on New Year's Eve, wanted a picture of her grandparents' (my parents') wedding day.  Since I was still sorting through photos, I found an entire album of their wedding day.  I did send the formal picture of my parents and their attendants, but I also included a picture of my mother giving my father a flirty little look at the reception:

It was October 28, 1950.  My mother was 18 years old at the time.  My father was not quite 20.  They'd known each other for four years already.  There's a pretty nifty story to their meeting, but I'll save that for another day.

I've found a lot of old pictures.  By "old" I mean before my siblings were married and had kids.  Some are really old.  Like the one of my father parent's wedding day, January 1930!  There are a lot of pictures from when my oldest brother was a toddler.  And quite of few of Christmases at my paternal grandparents' house. My dad had gotten a new camera and he made good use of it.

This is just four families of cousins.  That's me in front, second from left.  I was about 5.
The really tall kid in back is my oldest brother, who was about 14!

Then there are the "newer" pictures.  This ones of my nieces and nephews when they were small in the early 80's.  Then the pictures of my daughter, who was born in 1987.  And, of course, pictures throughout all the years of various pets that have enriched our lives.

Every photo is a treasure.  Even photos I found of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, or HWSNBN, for short.  HWSNBN is the person I threw away my life on.  Okay, that sounds a little overdramatic, but that's the way I felt when it was all over.  Fifteen months was gone and I could never go back to what I was before.  Immediately following HWSNBN, was my daughter's father.  Uh, yeah, that makes him the rebound guy.  I found a couple of him, too.  The daddy wasn't such a bad time.  Stupid, sure, but not bad.  So why did I keep the two pics of HWSNBN?  I'm not sure.  One is of the two of us at a friend's wedding.  I look really good in it, so I tell myself I'll scan it in and crop him out.  Maybe I will, too.  The photo of HWSNBN by himself, tho, I did have in my hand and held it over the wastebasket.  Like I said, I don't know why I didn't drop it in.  When I go through the pictures again to actually organize them, I will toss it.  Probably.

Anyway, all the pictures, whether of family, friends or worthless scum-sucking ex-lovers (not that I'm bitter or anything) tell of my history.  They show me where I've been and who was there with me.  I don't want to dwell in the past, but I think it's important to remember it.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience. 

George Washington

Yet More Decluttering

I've been working on the back bedroom closet.  Pulling boxes out, packing up give-away items, etc.  I'm really glad to have help in this endeavor.

Tabitha perusing the closet's contents.

For those of you who are not well informed on the nature of cats, there just isn't anything a human could do well without the assistance--or better yet, the supervision--of a cat.

Tabitha races ahead of me into the back bedroom, ready and eager for more exploration into the depths of the unknown.  Nimble of foot, she traverses boxes and bags and various Christmas decorations in search of something.

In search of what?  Well, you'd have to ask Tabitha and, quite frankly, I don't think she'd give you a straight answer, even if you spoke Cattish (my own word--don't you love it?).  But I can tell you what she has found in past adventures:

1. Yarn.  Now you might think that she plays with it, pulling on it and batting at it.  Well, she does do some of that.  Mostly?  She eats it.
2. Bugs.  Does she chase them and bat them around?  Sure.  Mostly?  She eats them.
3. Paper.  She likes the crinkle sound as she walks on a piece of note paper or, better!--wrapping paper.  If it shreds and tears, well that's all part of the Paper Experience.  But mostly--she eats it.
4. Anything small and roundish that will roll or slide across the floor.  Those are fun to chase, to pick up and toss in the air to catch it again.  So far, she hasn't eaten those (that I know of).

Feline facilitation isn't limited to Tabitha.  Khai has been known to check on us every so often.  He doesn't climb into the closet because of his gimpy right legs, but he investigates the stuff I--I mean "we"--pull out.

All those pictures I had found up in my closet have been stored in my (clean!) closet.  I'm finding much, much more in the back bedroom closet.
 This pile of boxes and picture frames is an actual stack in the corner of the back bedroom closet.  Without slanted ceilings to keep the stacks short, this pile has an old laundry basket full of more pictures and frames underneath the white box, so it's quite tall!

I've been bringing boxes of photos and frames up to my room. *sigh*  I sort through them in the evenings (I have actually turned my TV on for this) and am aided in this task by Bebe.

Bebe is quite willing to add her input to my task.  While she doesn't eat everything, Bebe has hands.  Yes, hands.  Her dew claws look like thumbs.  You want me to show you picture?  Are you serious?  We're talking about a CAT here.  You don't just go up and . . .   Wait a minute.  This is Bebe.  Maybe I could get a shot of her grabbing at a treat!  Okay, wait here.  This might take a while.

You can just make out her "thumb" on top.

While that was relatively painless, it's not the best view of her paw.  She was getting, uh, grumpy.  Anyway, she's very good at grabbing things and is surprisingly strong.  She reaches over and pulls stuff out of my hands--or rips it in the case of paper or photos.  She also likes to sit on the papers and photos.  After a few wrinkled pictures, I finally made a pile of old greeting cards that she could sit on.  I didn't tell her that I was going to throw them out.  Fortunately, she fell asleep and she didn't see me toss them.

Bebe is exhausted after a grueling
 hour of picture sorting.

Work on the back bedroom closet is moving along nicely.  I've already got a bagful of old coats and a large box full of old draperies.  But there's still a long way to go.  I haven't even started on the Christmas stuff and there are old Calphalon pots and pans in there.  I can't let my mother see the Calphalon, though.  We already had a, er, um, disagreement over an Eddie Bauer coat.  It was two or three sizes too small, but my mom was determined to keep it.  Fortunately, Brittany backed me up and while they argued, I mean disagreed, I shoved the coat into a bag.  Now, don't think I'm heartless.  If the coat was newer, I might try to sell it on eBay.  But the coat was in the closet for years before my dad died.  I still say it is harder to declutter with my mother around than with a half dozen cats!