A Mother’s Day Jacket

I knew my husband would do something great on Mother’s Day, I wasn’t expecting him to floor me with the present.

The morning started off a little different than most, my husband slept in as I attended to the kids. My daughter reminded me that I was supposed to have breakfast in bed, but my husband remained resting. So I fed the kids breakfast, changed diapers and cleaned up after the resident mice.

When my husband awoke he handed me a bag from a store a fashionable neighborhood store Zadig & Voltaire. Inside was a red leather motorcycle jacket.

A few weeks earlier I had admired the coat in the window on the way to the gym with the family. The next day I tried it on and balked at the price tag. I even commented to my husband that the jacket was nice but not that nice. I could think of infinitely better uses for that money. Yet Sunday morning I slid that jacket on in my living room.

I felt guilty. Who spends this kind of money on one jacket? Apparently enough people because the store with three locations in a half mile radius had sold out of the size small. I started thinking what else I would prefer to own in that price range, a dress or two that I would wear sparingly, a new computer even though my five year old lap top still works, a piece of furniture or art.

The reality is I do not need anything, not even a hot red leather motorcycle jacket. I was just blown away by not only my husband’s memory but his generosity.

I remember the Seinfeld episode when Jerry debates buying a beautiful outrageously priced leather jacket. He goes back and forth, “I can’t spend that kind of money on a coat.” In the end he does buy it and subsequently ruins it in the rain, but I felt similar.

Hubby said I deserve it (I don’t) but I guess business is good enough he should be able to spoil his wife, especially on Mother’s Day. Thanks Babe!

In My Mother’s Shoes

The red mink is my favorite. It’s a long reversible coat with a hood, one side a bright red the other black.

While it’s not en vogue to wear fur, friends cannot resist rubbing the material between their fingers. And even though the jacket is not perfect – it’s loosely knit, letting in a breeze and does not maintain great form, I love it. I love it because my mother loved it, and loved receiving compliments on it. And more than anything, it reminds me of my mom.

In one swoop I inherited my mother’s furs, a collection which includes not only her mother’s furs but also her boyfriend’s mother’s furs. The handbags were divided among my sister and I, and the jewelry we are enjoying on a rotating basis. But being the only heir in a cold weather climate, I have the winter coats.

My sister and I had gone through her closet offering her collection of black T-shirts covered in white dog hair to the housekeeper and dividing the designer items amongst ourselves. Then there were the shoes. The ratty loafers she wore every day and the new Kate Spade heels she donned for a few hours at my brother’s recent wedding in sizes too tiny for my sister or sister in law.

When a stylish girlfriend came over I thought to offer some of the lesser worn heels but my husband stopped me. “Nobody wants to wear your dead mother’s shoes,” something that I am just beginning to understand now.
But they are great shoes. They are free. Some have hardly been worn. What else am I going to do with them? I have trouble throwing out a half eaten sandwich, let alone a lifetime’s worth of shoes.

One of my mom’s friends, size 7 1/2 adopted all of the shoes. I do not know if she liked them and hoped to wear them, as with the BCBG flats or if she was being polite taking all that I offered. She really wanted four pairs of her black Aerosoles? I talked the friend into taking everything, even the shoes she did not feel hip enough to don, because what else was I going to do with them, slowly pawn them off to every friend with a 7 1/2 shoe size?

Then on a friend’s retroactive advice, I wished that I had held on to at least one pair of my mom’s favorites for the kids to play dress up, but when you loose your mom and edit her closet you are not thinking of your kids’ future entertainment. Nor was I thinking of the kids when I donated her old glasses. The shoes are out of the closet and someone else can have the burden/pleasure of disposing/enjoying them.

I’ll just wear the mink and think of my mom anytime someone comments on it.

Jack Sprat’s Wardrobe

I have a thing about hemming my pants, I don’t like to do it. It’s not that I do not want pants that fall perfectly, I do, I just cannot rationalize the cost, even if it is usually around ten dollars.

If I am spending around hundred dollars for a pair of slacks and eight percent sales tax, why must I spend an additional ten percent to have the pants shortened to fit me, never mind the time it takes to go to the tailor, anticipate what shoes I intend to wear with the pants, and model said pants? And if I buy inexpensive pants like my Old Navy Khakis, why would I spend thirty percent more than the cost of the pants to have them hemmed? Besides, I don’t mind having my pants a little long, especially if I can tuck them into a boot.

When I visit my sister in South America or my costume designer friend I’m happy to have my clothes mended to fit me properly. I think it is the cost.

New and Improved

My mom always said Life is not a dress rehearsal. She said it so frequently and lived by it so fully we put it on her tombstone. Life is not a dress rehearsal.

I know some people make bucket lists, and some producers make movies called Bucket List but why do you have to wait until you are old and gray with death looming in front of you to make a “bucket list”? Why not just live your life fully? That’s what my mom did, to the point of me perceiving her as selfish at times, and that is what I intend to do.

House Arrest

The other night I was walking from my grandmother’s apartment when I passed a mish-mash store. A mish-mash store is a pop-up retail store that sells all kinds of assorted tschokes and such for a finite period of time often at a really low price. I’m not sure what lured me in, but the Halloween costumes caught my eye.

Now is probably a good time to mention that they were designed by Hustler.