Sunday, February 23, 2014

Presidents and Denim

We've been working on taking President's Day Weekend as a weekend getaway, thanks to Their Majesties (possibly assisted by Walt Disney and Maxwell Smart). We've done it three years running now, which is pretty impressive. It's a better time than our anniversary, which is in early September, a time when whole-family trips to the beach sound like a good idea. In February, cabin fever makes everyone happier with a break from each other.

It's always been President's Day Weekend with us, back to when we were first courting. We don't do that mushy Valentine stuff. We sit around and talk about dead presidents, as we have done from the first. Indeed, I am reminded of a chat early in our acquaintance. I forget how the topic came up, but DOB asserted that he had learned valuable lessons from each and every president.

"Oh, really?" I replied, "So what did you learn from William Henry Harrison?"

"Don't make a speech in the rain without your hat," he replied.

This year we didn't actually go anywhere--we stayed home and bought flooring while it was on sale at Costco. And we went to used bookstores and I found the entire Kristin Lavransdattr trilogy for $6 and a beautiful copy of Robin Hood and many other fun things.

DOB decided he had better stick to his usual exercise schedule, so while he was at the Y on Monday morning I went to Target and decided to spend some time learning how to find jeans that fit. Someone recently posted a link on how not to buy mom jeans, which I read without much enlightenment. Since I wore grandma jeans as a pre-teen (technically my great-aunt's, but I think that counts), just wearing mom jeans is fashion progress for me. Still, I tried a number of different ones on to see if it would enlighten me.

What I have found is jeans in two categories: the ones that seem to fit OK in the dressing room, but are pinching unpleasantly by the end of the day, or the ones that seem to fit OK in the dressing room, but are sliding down awkwardly by the end of the day (and usually finding somewhere to pinch along the way). Trying on a dozen or so did not reveal any that seemed likely to defy this categorization, but I did definitively decide that jeggings are not for me. (Duchess looks quite good in leggings and long tops, but then, she is nine and streamlined and I am neither.)

Anyway, after all that trying I didn't buy anything, but later we went to the thrift store and I found two pairs of jeans that seemed to work pretty well. One of them pinches a bit at the end of the day and the other one slides down a bit at the end of the day, but they will do. They may or may not be mom jeans. I'm still fuzzy on that concept.

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