odds and ends - as the snow melts, as the world turns

silk shirt

lined linen jacket

Well, first, the new title block (above) is a tribute to J.Peterman (translation: shamelessly copied from the JP site, where the merch continues to get more and more interesting.) While the catalog text remains improbable and just a touch overwritten, I'm finding myself wanting a shirt here, a long skirt there...

and moreover, there isn't even one snowflake in the sketch!

Next, today's expeditions: both of the wandering packages that I moaned about in my last post have arrived, but their wanderings aren't over yet, because both packages were returned today. The "healing stones" are, sadly, murky and threatening, and not comforting (Teacups, your "sight" is scary!).

The costly skirt from Anthropologie is lovely, beautifully made, and if I ever were to take up forecasting and fortune-telling, it would definitely guarantee me a superior class of clientele. Life being what it is, I have no foreseeable use for the skirt, and it must go back so someone else can pounce on it with cries of joy.

I do my returns in store when I can, because then I know I'll get the right amount credited and it will be credited to me.. The suspense of waiting for my bank to coordinate its cycle with that of some random merchant and its bank strains my delicate sensibilities.

And I no longer do any business with a certain store in Berkeley, because after waiting 4 ½ months for a return credit to show up on my card, getting one silly "explanation" after another, I called MasterCard and asked them to look into it. The MC detectives went to work and discovered that the return had in fact been received and "processed" within 2 weeks of mailing - but then credited to another account. The next day the credit appeared on my card, and I got an email from the store. I expected - an apology? a discount code? a gift card? Well, no, the owner of the store expressed her irritation with my impatience because they are a small store and can get very busy at times and how dare I call MasterCard on them!

How dare I indeed.

I'm bored with winter food, I made a few gallons of The Soup That Cures The Weary and The Woeful  a few months ago, I can't look at another oven stew, and I don't want to bother leafing through cookbooks for inspiration. I should probably cook up more soup, but I want to get on the road. Well, in another week or so I may be able to go without the air cast and among other things, that means I'll no longer be limited to one pair of shoes. Whee.

I've checked out the women's items from a company called The Field, and many seem to have possibilities, although all are very pricey. The look is - let's say, Madewell for grown-ups, done in truly fine fabrics (most of the time), and apparently with attention to detail and not in the sense of "where else can we trim costs". I haven't bought anything from this company yet, but I'm watching with interest and hoping that they'll have a terrific sale soon.  Meanwhile I'm looking forward to lunch. We have plans.

linen-cotton trench, black & white glen
plaid, real horn buttons

wool & cashmere sweater

J.Crew does J.Peterman

The J.Peterman duster has been around since I babysat for professors' kids and thumbed through their magazines (Peterman advertised in The New Yorker, not Highlights for Children). It gave me the idea of protecting the bottom part of my trousers, or my legs in fragile hose, from being splashed by inconsiderate drivers. Even though there's lot of short rainwear around, long remains my preference. I've copied the Peterman catalog's description to show that it is possible to write fanciful or evocative or even silly descriptions without doing serious harm to the English language. I don't think the duster's waterproof, or even water-resistant, nor does my current lifestyle call for anything with a "saddle vent," but I can like the coat, read the copy, and chuckle. In a nice way. I've never known anyone who owned this coat, although I once saw one on a tall guy with clipboard outside a sample sale. He looked like he wanted to be recognized.

Now I turn to another duster-like outer garment, which I haven't seen in person, even on someone with a clipboard. This is the J.Crew Nili Lotan overcoat. The breathless description leaves out the part about the elves who weave the magic fabric while waiting for the cookies to cool and then hand the fabric from tree branches for the birds to admire while the elves box up the cookies. This is disappointing: I would expect no less for an unlined garment going for $528. Otherwise the copy ticks all the boxes: in love, streamlined, understated, effortlessly chic, crafted. Aha! they left out "our newest obsession" and "we're obsessed." I always thought if you had obsessions, you dealt with them and if they really bothered you, you got help. It appears that some (collective) obsessions can just go away. Oh, and it looks to me like the coat "hits" at or above the knee, not at mid-thigh. Now I am chuckling, but not in a nice way.

It's not just the human anatomy that confuses the interplanetary crowd: I've concluded that everything on their home planet is a colloid, since the most basic concepts of, say, a straight line, up vs. down, down vs. across, and the like, continue to elude them. Clearly such concepts are not necessary on a planet where the basic means of locomotion is the ooze.

Let us look at horizontal vs. vertical. ⎮is a vertical line. — is a horizontal line. We will deal with the names of other kinds of lines in the Advanced Session. Now we look at a New Arrival in the J.Crew catalog: the Snowbound Sweater. Made of cashmere along the lines of the classic shetland crew. So far, so good.

 Granted, this is a sewn-in yoke, and a very nice yoke it is. However, there are two seams that connect the yoke to the body of the sweater, and to do this, one of them has to be horizontal. The other has to be vertical. Otherwise the result would be a dustmop, not a garment. So having seams hold one piece of a garment to another is not a feature. It is sewing. It could be a feature if the seaming were decorative. As it is, telling me that my sweater is sewn together suggests that others may not be. Well, if the sweater had been hand-knitted on circular needles, then there might not be any seams, but in that case why add them? Enough, stop, it looks like a nice sweater, I like the idea of the yoke, and I hope some kind soul will order it and let me know how it fits and how the construction is on the inside. I used to cringe when my mom would turn something inside out and point out the reasons she wasn't going to buy it. Now of course I -- is every woman's worst fear turning into her mother, or not turning into her mother? Have you ever heard tapes of your mother coming out of your very own mouth?

I warned you, didn't I, that as Hallowe'en draws near, there will be a number of posts with scary subjects. Turning into one's mother is one of the scariest.