Monday, November 19, 2012

Mountain Chic and Other Myths

After a week of vibrating like a violin string from a virulent combination of sick kids, moving boxes, bank loan activity, and a family pre-Thanksgiving celebration (the only bright spot in a dark week) -- all of which may be the subject of future posts, so stay breathlessly on this channel -- I have settled down to the challenge of Packing for the Big City Trip.

Why, may you ask, am I Packing for the Big City Trip when said trip is thirty days away? Yes, you may well ask. And I will answer: in the next twenty-two days, we are closing on a new house, moving to a new house, traveling for Thanksgiving, and sending DH off on a series of business trips that will leave me largely single parenting, albeit with Sister's able and faithful assistance.

The upshot: I am using this calm before the storm to get my Big City gear fitted out and dry-cleaned before I forget something. Like underwear.

The Big City Trip will include a stay at one of the region's sniffier lodgings (where women weren't even allowed in the door until our generation), luncheon with a notable Ivy League professor, a cocktail event, and a black-tie wedding, plus assorted gypsying-around-the-Big-City activities.  All of this requires clothing.

"Oh," says DH, "Just throw a few things in a suitcase." Um, yeah.

The black tie event turned out to be the easy part.  I found a formal gown in my closet to fit over my lumpy Mama-body. (Miraculous. Let's hear it for hoarding.) And the thrift store, on command, coughed up a vintage opera coat, like this, but black velvet and ankle-length. Who knew, right? Apparently when you shop at the Christian Outreach Benefit Thrift store, prayers get answered. Anyway, I can rock that look.

The luncheon and gypsying activities are much, much more difficult. You'd think, because we live in a mountain town, that I could portage my Mountain Chic look over to the Big City without any effort whatsoever. But it turns out that Mountain Chic is not really what you wear in the mountains. You don't wear blazers to the grocery store in three feet of snow, even if they are tweed, and especially not with shorts. And the Fall 2012 collections have, in my opinion, gone completely off the beam with stiletto hikers.  If I scuffed these boots on a fallen log, even assuming they could be worn anywhere outside a limo, you would hear me screaming all the way to Milan's Spring 2013 Fashion Week. Which has already happened. So it would be a time-traveling scream.

Ergo, although I have lots of mountain gear, I am not Mountain Chic. I have flannel shirts (from my favorite consigment shop). I have skinny jeans (even one pair that's not maternity). But the look somehow does not approximate this Michael Kors combo.  I know my limitations. I could buy a nice sofa for that amount of money.

Off to glare the closet while Dragon Girl sleeps. I will report more soon.

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