Category Archives: Things

A tale of a few clothing stores

Rant, Rave, Things, , , , , ,

There are a few stores in my town where I have recently bought clothes. Three are in the same shopping center and one is closer to the downtown area. I’ve written about one of the stores at the shopping center before — that one is my favorite. I like all three though, and like the parking situation.

Those stores have people who work in them that are kind, honest, empathetic and non-critical. They help me find exactly what I am looking for and tell me if something is not exactly right for me. They also at least recognize that I shop there often.

The store nearer downtown is a different story, and I’ve spent my last dollar there. I’d noticed it years ago, but since it seemed to only sell underwear, I never went it. Finally, though, when I saw a sign outside mentioning Cut Loose, one of my favorite brands of clothing, I stopped in. The front of the store holds tops and the back of the store has a rack of jeans — one brand I like is featured there (NYDJ). The rest of the store has underwear and pajamas.

I have found a couple of items that I really liked and wear there — a pair of jeans and a top. I prefer it when no one helps me, when I can look through the store on my own and decide if I like something or not. However, usually either the owner helps me or her associate does. Once I had both helping me when I was trying on bras. They also grabbed a bunch of tops for me to try on and exclaimed how wonderful they all looked on me. I ended up buying a number of tops, plus the bra that day. At one point during my fitting, one of the woman suggested I exercise. I’d never had anyone tell me that (except doctors and my kids and husband). I was offended, but still purchased the items.

Of the items I bought that day, the only thing I’ve worn much is the bra. I keep trying on one item, but it just is not me. The others, well, I have worn them once or twice, but they are not me either.

I’ve continued to go to the store, sometimes buying items, usually not. The most recent visit was my last though. I’d been to lunch with a friend, and parked in the parking lot where this store is located. I figured I had some time left on my parking stub, so went to check out what was on sale. The owner was there and asked if I’d shopped there before — I was masked, so I understand that she didn’t recognize me, but when I dropped my mask, she still didn’t. That’s okay. She asked my size, and pointed me to what she called cute tops in the front. I found nothing cute, in fact everything was pretty tacky.

I mentioned that the jeans I were wearing (same brand as they carry) were size 4. She told me they were too long. I countered that I liked my pants long and she argued if they were shorter they could be rolled up to become capris.

Anyway, I’ll stick to the nicer and easier (and free) parking shopping center stores and forget this one exists.

Buttons

Things

When I was a child my mom sewed a lot. She was also frugal, so she reused buttons. I always remembered a large jar of buttons in the linen/sewing closet in the hallway connecting our bedrooms with the bathroom. That large jar came home with me after my mother died.

When mom sewed I sometimes played with the jar of buttons. I had my favorites — my very favorite was a translucent pink, round, concave button that always tempted me to put it in my mouth because it looked like a delicious piece of candy. Okay, most of the time I did put it in my mouth. I can remember the smooth taste of nothing. I wasn’t disappointed it didn’t taste like candy because I knew it was a button, but, if I had that button now I would definitely put it in my mouth.

Buttons!

I just dumped out the entire jar of buttons looking for the lozenge-like button, but mom must have used it for something because it’s not there. However, some other buttons I remember were there. The pink buttons have four glass diamonds on the front — I should have made sure to take a photo of the fronts! The long black one was from an old p-coat. The round black one was from my dad’s navy dress clothes or coat. I think the dome-shaped silver button was from one of my winter coats. I am pretty sure I put that in my mouth more than once too. The big round red button was from my mom’s coat, I think. The others I just remember, but don’t know where they came from.

My button friends

Quatro Amigas

Things

I remember when I desperately wanted a TV in the bedroom. People on TV shows had them, some people I knew had televisions in their bedrooms, but it wasn’t until I was pregnant with Andrew and on bed rest that we put a TV in the bedroom. It was a tiny TV — maybe 13 inches, maybe a little bigger. It sat on a dresser on the wall opposite the bed. I probably had to squint to see anything — but at least it kept me entertained while incubating the baby to full term.

After that, we didn’t have a TV in the bedroom again for a few more years. I don’t even remember the first one, but it was probably moved to the bedroom after upgrading to a larger set in the family room. Since then we’ve always had one at the end of the bed. In recent years we’ve rarely used the bedroom TV. We always watched TV in the family room and had our phones or tablets for bedtime entertainment. I’ve made noises about getting rid of the bedroom TV, but Dean is not ready. We don’t get cable upstairs anymore — but we do have dongles that bring us whatever we want to watch except broadcast TV on the bedroom TV.

Today as I was tidying my attic study I came across a woven piece of art that our friends Sandy and Arieh gave us once after returning from a visit to Arieh’s home in Santiago, Chile. We kept meaning to hang it up, but never got around to it. We draped it over the back of a futon for a while, but various cat claws pulled out some fibers and thread. I’ve moved this piece of art from one storage area to another for the past decade or two and while I like it, I was tired of moving it.

Back to the TV — having a huge black void staring at you when you fall asleep and wake up can be depressing, especially since we barely use it. As I walked past it carrying the textile art I had an idea. Not an original idea since our friend Tal did this 35 years ago when he first got a Mackintosh computer. He didn’t like the black screen, so covered it with a colorful batik cloth when he was not using it. I hung the textile artwork over the TV — it fit perfectly. There are even little hooks behind the TV on the top to keep it in place.

I keep smiling when I look at the TV now — something I have not done for as long as I can remember. And now I can really see the artwork, it’s really nice!