adrian_turtle

What with the pandemic and not driving and all, my recent experience of funerals is limited. My experience of funerals outside my local (very informal) social group is particularly limited. So I'm asking the rest of you, particularly midwesterners.

Do women wear suits to funerals? I know it's the kind of event where a suit is appropriate, but if a woman shows up in a skirt and sweater is that inappropriate?

My mom's twin sister lives in Columbus, which is too far away for my mom to travel in her current state of health. My uncle is in failing health, and yesterday morning it looked like he was about to die of pneumonia and parkinsons disease and stubbornness. Last night he started breathing better and we hope he will make a good recovery. But for a little while, I thought I'd need to rush off to Ohio right away to support my aunt at his deathbed until their sons could get there and then to be at the funeral and oh no what can I wear? It's wonderful not to have a funeral today! But I just realized I want to be there when the time comes, and support my aunt, and that will be necessary one of these days.

I don't know if I should wear my dark gray skirt and black sweater, or go shopping because nothing else fits? Most of the family has suits, because they're men, and/or because they spend significant time in formal business or social settings.

I hate shopping for shoes. My knee hurts* if I walk in shoes that don't fit, or don't QUITE fit, or don't have quite the right arch support. Even if they're too worn out. I did pretty well with New Balance walking shoes for a while, but then they re-numbered their styles and I had to search for the plain black walking shoes that were equivalent to the ones I had before. (No, plain black, not with a weird white stripe between the shoe and the sole, what are they thinking? No, not with velcro. No, not with a special new ergonomic curved midsole. Those may be other people's shoes, but they are not mine.) I thought I was doing ok just ordering online and trying to get another pair just like the old ones, but the last pair don't seem quite as good. Can I possibly not need size 9 anymore? Who knows.

Thus did I try on most of the size 9 walking shoes on the women's side of the Cambridge Marathon Sports. (And a few 8.5. If I was wandering around the NB factory store by myself, I'd have at least tried on some 7.5 on the men's side.) There was a helpful person who measured my feet and scanned the way my feet touch the floor and watched me walk barefoot, and told me with great assurance what kind of shoe I should be wearing. (Not New Balance. He said there were several brands that might be good for my feet, but New Balance would be all wrong for me.) Everything he brought me felt fine when I was sitting down, and some even felt ok standing still, but they were all wrong for walking across the room. I'm not very good at describing the insides of shoes, but after half a dozen I could do a little better than "it feels wobbly" or "the arch is in the wrong place."

Shoe after shoe. My complaints got more specific. The arch is too low. Ok, that one's higher, but too far forward. Are there any shoes that are stiffer [point to specific place on foot] there? The poor salesman was almost in tears, because I seemed to be asking for a "medial post" and all his measurements said it was the worst thing for me. I remembered why I haven't shopped at Marathon in so many years.

My knee hurt after all that walking around the store in wrong shoes, but felt ok after a couple of days. The salesman and I had finally compromised on a pair of shoes that were not New Balance, but did have a strong enough arch support in the right place. (ETA: I may have skipped a pair, but it does feel like I tried on every pair in the store. Starting with the ones least like New Balance, and ending up with those that are almost as comfortable as what New Balance was making 3 years ago.) I tried them on in pink, and they shipped them to me in gray. When they finally arrived, everyone expects a happy ending after this long story! The left shoe fits...the right shoe fits...the right shoe is higher than the left.


*How well has that old knee injury healed? If I always get my shoes exactly right, I can walk 4 miles with no trouble. If I'm careless about the shoes, it yells at me in less than 0.25 miles.

A few weeks ago, I found a long wool overcoat at a secondhand store. There are times I don't want to wear my parka with an interview suit or a fancy dress. (Though of course when it's pouring down sleet, I have more important concerns than appearance.) The price was quite low, presumably because the pockets were torn and half the buttons were missing. I thought that even *I* could replace buttons. The pocket fixes were even easy, just a matter of repairing seams in the lining.

All was well until I finally got around to the button replacement project. With 2 remaining buttons and 3 empty buttonholes, I didn't expect to find a matching button. The spare buttons in my sewing box are singletons, and mostly pretty small. I planned to remove the 2 existing buttons, and put on 5 new matching buttons. I was surprised that the local fabric store didn't have what I was looking for--dark green buttons of 1" diameter. I'd thought that kind of flat plastic buttons were almost a commodity, like thread. I could have bought black buttons in the right shape, in 0.875" or 1.125", but I think that would be asking for trouble. I could also have bought shiny brass buttons with shanks, but I'd prefer to get something that doesn't stand out so much. (Maybe flat buttons that looked like bronze would be nice, but that's about as far as I'd like to go in that direction.) Should I be looking at a big fabric store? A specialty button store? Online?

I visited my mother in Michigan at the end of last month. I was there to see my new nephew, in the sense that I was only in the state because of him, but he can't be the only relative I see. Not for years, if ever. (I begin to understand the uncle I don't know very well, the one who loved my father and avoided family gatherings in the course of avoiding my grandmother.) My mother was very excited about seeing me for the first time since my brother's wedding. She wanted to take me shopping, partly because she regards clothes-shopping as a pleasant activity to share, and partly because she wanted to buy me nice clothes she thought I would need. I have a new suit.

For weeks before the trip, I fretted about what I could wear that would be suitable for weather and activities, and still look nice enough to meet with her approval. I stayed up most of the night before I left; packing, repacking, and dying my hair. At least she liked the hair. And she thought I had a pair of trousers that were ok. She said my winter coat made me look like a homeless person. I've had it for years, and the cuffs are frayed. Some years, I never took it out of the attic (when I was too fat to wear it, or combinations of mild winters and me being less sensitive to cold), so its calender age is greater than its wear age. How do you determine what level of wear is ok, when something is perceptibly not new, but is nowhere near falling apart? My mother was really upset that I could wear anything that looked so disreputable. She was appalled enough that I would be seen in public that way at all, even just to go to the store. That I was planning to wear it to a job interview made her think I had lost my mind completely. She gave me a newer coat, a coat I have to acknowledge is very pretty...like my old one, it has a hood, and is long enough to wear over a suit jacket. The problem is that the wind goes right through the pretty new coat. The body I had in high school wasn't perfect, but it was better at staying warm than the body I have now. Between my current lifestyle and my current body, the new coat is just not warm enough.

I thought I could buy a warmer coat when I got home. It didn't work out. February is not a good time for buying winter coats. Popular sizes tend to sell out around Christmas, or early in January, or after the first bitter cold. I can find a coat that's waterproof, or one that's warm enough, or one that fits over a suit. If I want everything, I need to shop when the selection is better, in the fall. *sigh* I only have to get through a few more weeks of serious winter.

Redbird was here a few weeks ago, and she helped put my new duvet in the flannel cover. It's ridiculously warm, so warm she can't actually use it for fear of overheating. When I'm here by myself, it's just wonderful, a safe warm little cave. It's a bit awkward for taking to the bus stop, though, especially if the idea is to avoid looking like a homeless person.