Galoshes – boots for a rainy day
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This weekend was another noisy one – not us, our neighbor. The first weekend we were here, the neighbor to our right kept us up all night with loud music and conversation on the patio and then this weekend our neighbor to the left woke us up with loud music and laughing and banging on railing on the patio. Finally, my deaf ear could not take it anymore and by 5 in the morning Rich went over and asked them to turn it down a bit and they did, a bit. So annoying but seriously, the walls around here are paper thin and I was trying so hard to make the most of it (eavesdrop for something juicy to blog about) but it was just a bunch of lame, “i love college” babble that would make Asher Roth proud. I’ve never met our neighbor to the left but I didn’t take her for a party girl because I saw that she had Pottery Barn furniture delivered. However, based on further observation of what I have seen roaming around here, even the professionals are thirty year old frat boys and sorority girls. I have a feeling that my neighbors probably hang out on 6th street closing the bars (this is based on a trend of silence between 10 and 2 when the bar scene is in full swing and hearing pumped up banter before they leave and drunken babble after they come home), talking to each other via iPhone apps and showing off their Porches without actually having any fundamental knowledge about anything. Who knows, maybe they are really super cool and I will be borrowing sugar from them before you know it. But seriously, no one around here knows how to hold a door. What happened to southern hospitality?
On an up note, I do appreciate Austin style (although it should be mentioned that the standard attire of a fitted button up and jeans is not okay – i.e., the sight of bro-entourage following this same fashion advice walking across the street, going to the same place and probably talking to the same girls). But as for the girls I have seen – very vintage/hipster chic and always effortless looking and well put together with simple, flattering accessories such as a nice pair of sunglasses, a nice handbag or a great pair of boots – nothing Lady GaGa-audy about it.
Confession: Lately, I have been wearing a lot of flip flops and comfy clothes and the night of the Ra Ra Riot show, I had on galoshes because it had been raining earlier which sounds logical but… as we walked home down 6th Street passing all the girls in their designer boots and stilettos, I felt a titch like Bridget Jones schlumping along in my rain boots and realized that I love getting all dolled up and have been a disgrace to my motto: Fashion before function. So time to put an end to that! Time to stop being comfortable and back to looking smart (and sassy)! Maybe then people will want to hold doors for me if they notice that I am strutting like a warrior in 4-inch spikes. Besides, I got rid of loads of shoes before we moved to make room for new ones, right??
Sunday, Rich and I went shopping and I bought a couple new dresses from American Apparel (the outlet – half price means half the guilt!). I have always thought that American Apparel clothes are a bit too outrageous for me but now, after trying on a few things, I have discovered that the lines of the clothes are very flattering to my frame. And yesterday, I wore a dress that I had in my closet (the one in Buffalo) for months. I had been waiting for a special occasion or something to wear it but why wait for an occasion when you can create one? So yesterday I wore my dress to Target, to do laundry, to make dinner and go for an evening walk with Rich around the park. And Rich wore his new swim trunks. Just call me a modern day housewife (sans house, sans wife). (And yes folks, I have been applying for jobs – even retail sales clerk positions but haven’t got any bites…does anyone actually look at my resume?)
Back to the dresses, I found a dress at Target that I liked but Rich didn’t (I recall him using the word “tablecloth” to describe it and I believe he said it was so ugly that he would not eat off of it if it was his grandmother’s tablecloth – ouch) And so, with that, I put it back. (p.s. it drives me crazy when my mom takes my dad’s fashion advice and here I am listening to Rich) Needless to say, it was still on my mind after we left and the next day I decided that I wanted the dress. So I emptied piggy and took myself to Target only to find that it was gone – someone snagged it – someone had my dress. And now, I have just gone to the Target website to order the dress only to see that it is no longer available (not even sold out – just not there anymore). So now, all I have left to remember said dress is an iPhone photo I asked Rich to take before I placed it back on the rack. Who would have known that that would be our only memory.
This morning we went to the Domain! Sound cool? Shopping paradise! It was just a perfectly constructed metropolis of designer shops! Like a piece of Rodeo Drive in Austin but more conducive to my window shopping and daydreaming. Rich had to go to the Apple store to fix his iPhone and while we were at the Apple store, this is what we saw:
Do you see it? Let me elaborate, the lady in red is wearing floral leggings, ankle socks and hi-tops and the jacket is wool on an 80 degree day. But, what stuck out most about her ensemble was the surgical mask over her face. Which she removed when speaking with the Apple bartender, so it must not be anything contagious?
I nudged Rich who thought that this was odd but not too out of the ordinary – he did not realize that what I was really trying to draw his attention to was the small child she was keeping in the suitcase next to her. Yes, under that white blanket in the suitcase is a sleeping child. In a suitcase. Any theories?