Winter is here. In honor of the sudden appearance of winter, I finally got around to that fun biannual task known as the Switching of the Closet: I took my winter clothes out of a large plastic box and hung them in my closet while putting my summer clothes into the self same large plastic box with the broken purple top and the duct tape residue around it. I was really, really hoping that I would open the box of winter clothes and discover a whole bunch of totally wonderful new clothes that I had completely forgotten (seriously, I have managed this feat some years; you have to go shopping at the clearance sales in the spring and put the winter stuff away without ever wearing it) but alas, there were my same old winter clothes, most of which, like my summer clothes, I've been wearing since approximately the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Or at least the Depression.
That would be why I had the following lengthy conversation with my closet. "Oh, hello, fashion statement from 1993. . . oh look, these pants haven't fit me since 2002. But one day I'll lose enough weight and they'll fit again! Just like these two skirts that only ever fit me on that one miraculous thin day that I bought them but I've been hoping ever since - yeah. You're going on this end of the closet. This is the thin clothes end; the end we call the Vale of Hope and Despair. Here's a dress I bought before M was born and here are the two almost completely identical long black velvet skirts that I need because. . because my lifestyle demands a constant round of ankle length black velvet? Not. Hang them up, don't ask questions. Maybe A will take one (later that day - no, no she wouldn't) and here's that fuzzy pink sweater that makes you look like a Teletubby, can't get rid of that, and meanwhile, let's put away the summer khaki skirt that you haven't worn since 2004 since you don't really like it but every year you take it out and put it away dutifully."
Yeah, it was big fun. Fortunately, I didn't have to cook because, you see, I got a completely unexpected check and, while I am theoretically saving it all for Christmas and birthdays (cue the annual lament about how having two kids whose birthdays are, respectively, two weeks before and two weeks after Christmas was a sign of horrifically bad financial planning on my end) I did go to Target and buy, among other useful things, a crockpot. To celebrate, I made pulled pork barbecue in my new crockpot. This made young M almost giddily happy and high with glee. All weekend there were teenage boys in my house, smiling around barbecue sandwiches and playing air hockey in the garage. It's completely astonishing and maybe a little scary how much barbecue teenage boys can eat. "Mom," said M earnestly, "You have to make this all the time. All the time, Mom." And I might, except I think the novelty of finding M's friends in the kitchen unexpectedly after midnight might wear off, to say nothing of the investment in buns, coleslaw and barbecue sauce.
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Oh, the changing of the closet. I recently did the same, but only got halfway through it before getting overwhelmed and depressed. And I have a really small closet. I've decided to wear the dressy clothes, like my brown velvet pants, with T-shirts and my beat-up blue jean jacket from 1985, in hopes that it will make some kind of statement. Of course, the statement is probably "middle-aged woman in denial."
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