red dress

I spent from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. hunting for a red dress for Liz's wedding. I came home without. Who knew finding the dress would be so difficult. I had a clever back up plan of ordering a dress online and had found this one at Nordstrom, on sale and all too. I bookmarked the web page. Upon revisiting it today, I found it's all sold out except in size 14. I tend to fit into a size 4 or 6. I guess I could take the chance, order it and have it altered, but REALLY? That seems way too complicated. Maybe I'm being too picky? I don't think current dress styles were made for me...I'm not busty enough or I'm not skinny enough, or my knees aren't shapely enough. Something's wrong somewhere and designers don't know it, but they hate me. If I could find a way to dye my red/white polka dot dress, that would work. But it's horribly cheap, plasticy fabric so I bet it doesn't dye well at all.

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But I'm getting off track. You need to hear about Portland.

I went to Portland yesterday with my neighbor. She wanted to go to a tour, I wanted to hunt for a red dress. We both dragged ourselves out of our respective beds and we're off to a nice early start. She dropped me off at The House and from there I borrowed mumsy's car and scoured the world. At 3:30, I came back home, ravenous and discouraged, to find myself in the middle of a 60+ person bridal shower in the living room. A whirl of womanhood everywhere I looked.

My salvation was leftover pizza in the garage fridge and thus empowered I held conversations and interactions until 4:30 when my neighbor came to pick me up and drive us back to Astoria.

Pleasant enough drive back, light lasting longer than it has been when suddenly there was a loud crack sort of noise. Did we run over a branch? Hmmmmmm. We kept going until about 10 minutes later we began to suspect dubious forces at work in the car. We pulled over. Hey guess what! blowout!

The setting: two females whose combined weight by no means even reaches 300 pounds, in the middle of nowhere Tillamook forest, in the pitch dark (no flashlight could we find), cars whizzing past us at really-you-should-slow-down rates, and neither of us had ever changed a flat although I had some hazy idea of how it was done. We set to work. About twenty or thirty minutes later we had the tire on. It was, however, on backwards. We had just discovered this and were re-loosening everything, when Mormons from Texas pulled over to assist. The man promptly Took Charge of the Situation in a kind yet aggravating manner.

So that was fun. We both know how to change tires and I doubt we will ever forget.

Meanwhile, I still don't have a red dress.