3 May 1999 again: Dresses

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Must have new dress
Must find new dress
Must shop.

That's what got me through the morning. That and a trip to Starbucks for orange juice. I set out during lunch into that extravaganza of shopping possibilities, downtown Denver. I didn't try Express (having just been) or Ann Taylor (since I wanted to purchase something). That left the odd, depressing Stage and the usual T.J. Ross.

I don't know why I even bother going into T.J. Maxx. Ross, though, is usually a treasure trove, and was again today. I found a couple of plain white shirts as simple as t-shirts but nicer, which will look better under vests. I found some scrumptious dresses and have to be better about checking the size before I try them on and am disappointed.

In T.J. Maxx I tried on a houndstooth suit with full trousers and a close-fitting vest. I thought maybe I would experiment with full-cut trousers. Full around the leg, maybe, but not so oversized that the crotch fell to my knees. So much for that. When in Ross I saw another houndstooth suit with a vest and skirt, I was hopeful (I like vests because they don't ensnare my shoulders). It fit fine everywhere, including waist and hips, but this skirt was my size and therefore should not have been cut so short. My guiding principle in skirts that no one should wear one wider than it is long. This one was just longer than square, just permissible, but I don't have the legs for it. I suppose some women my size might, though: it wasn't as fantastic a length as Ally McBeal, just too short for my comfort, too short to wear thigh-highs under.

The wonder-suit carries the label "All That Jazz" which I have seen only in cheap places (perhaps because I shop only in cheap places) but whose stuff I often like. When I saw a skirt and jacket set on the right rack carrying that label, I snapped it up: periwinkle blue waist-length jacket and flippy floral skirt. In the dressing room I discovered the outfit to be the next size up, so the skirt drooped from my waist, which the jacket failed to accentuate, plus the lapels parted wide enough to display cleavage. Poop.

I did find a charming little rayon dress from the same company in a greyish lavender floral pattern that I can't wear until I can bring the bag home (no room in the pannier) and experiment with the dress there. I showed it to CoolBoss when I got back because I wonder if it, too, is too short; it's short enough that she can't tell if it's too short unless it's on me. I can sit and crouch without danger but I can't reach above my head.

I stayed up until past 11 last night watching "Pleasantville," which disappointed. The best part was the last hour, after Blake's bedtime, when I didn't put him to sleep, and he pressed his warm downy body against my neck and chewed his beak in my ear and dozed.

Despite this I biked in this morning. Mondays are pretty much a toss-up for me whether I can motivate enough to get on my bike, but today I did. Finally, morning sunlight. Thinking about the rain forecast for this afternoon, I nipped into the study for my shell and saw that I did gauge the sun right: from May through July we will have morning sun in the study (though not much).

The stretch of trail by the mall is still closed from this weekend's rain, and I wondered if I could go under University on the trail or have to cross on the surface. The underpass was open, but I slowed down like a grown-up not to spray up mud. The creek's not so clean I would want its mud on my person or even on my pannier.

For my knee's sake, I pedaled in what I'm trying to get over thinking is a wimpy way: in a low enough gear that I'm always spinning aerobically rather than high enough that my leg muscles (or knees?) bear the brunt of it. I remember biking up in Lyme during high school on my 12-speed, upon which I shifted only between the two front sprockets (12th and 6th speeds). A real cyclist came abreast of me and told me if I wanted to have knees in ten years I should shift down. Well it's fifteen years, okay? It staggers me that I biked around as much of hilly Lyme as I did while never downshifting, but it explains why my calves were rock-hard. (It also explains why I seldom went to Uncas on my own before I could drive.)

I left work a little early and zipped over to Kaiser. I saw no bike rack and thus brought my bike with me to check in. The clerk told me there was a bike ride "right out there." Really? I did find it when I went out again, lurking behind a bi-level shrubbery. I kind of liked the idea of wheeling it alongside me so I could pretend it was a guide dog, but instead I was a good grown-up and leashed it outside.

(I always wanted to get a harness for JPS and pretend to be blind so she could go everywhere with me. She was a lab, and therefore fit the general description, but she was fat, which real guide dogs probably aren't.)

I waited over 30 minutes for my 3:40 appointment but didn't get all bent out of shape. I read Brideshead Revisted and looked from the third floor windows out onto the bike rack and waited.

When eventually a nurse took my basic stats, my temperature was 96.1, which is normal for me. "I have a low temperature too," the nurse confided. She lowered her voice. "It means we don't burn fat as fast." I wonder about that: RDC has a low regular temperature and he's never fat. Also I refrained from mentioning that when I first came to Kaiser for a UTI and had a temperature of 98.6, that was actually a fever for me, indicating an infection, which the nurse practitioner could not detect and did not believe me about, which meant I came back two days later with a much more severe infection--well, anyway, I restrained myself then, if not here.

Then I waited with Evelyn Waugh some more in the examination room, and when the doctor came in, he shook my hand and introduced himself with his full name. Good signs, those.

He didn't give me any guff about staying off my knee, as the bladder-torture nurse practitioner did last time. He did actually touch and probe and manipulate both knees, as the b-t n.p. did not last time. He measured each leg hipbone to anklebone, which seems a reasonable thing to do although I didn't ask the reason. Another thing that endeared the doctor to me is that he told me I have good muscle tone in my legs. Sturdy peasant stock, I told him.

And I can see an orthopedist and have physical therapy. Ha! A minor victory against the Kaiser beast.

Why would a company name itself Kaiser? Kaiser Wilhelm II wasn't the evil critter his WWII counterpart was, but "Kaiser Bill" isn't an epithet I'd want my company toting about, especially if I regularly invoiced anyone. Why not "Caesar"?

Also they x-rayed my knees. The technician asked if there was any chance I might be pregnant, and I said none at all, which wasn't true but did answer the question he should have asked, "Is there any chance you might be gestating a zygote you wouldn't want irradicated into an unrecognizable mutant before aborting?"

And then I rode homeward through Capitol Hill and Cherry Creek North, lovely little bungalows and sumptuous houses and interesting shops, which reminds me that Mother's Day is Sunday. Time to put on our thinking caps!

The whole ride was beautiful. There was a thunderstorm to the northeast, but over Denver proper the clouds and sun and sky lingered lovelily. I took it slow, partly for my knee, partly for the neighborhood at first and later the creek, partly for the weather. An excruciatingly pleasant ride.

I rented "A Bug's Life" and "Manny & Lo" and we watched the former last night. I still don't get why the ants had four limbs when the other insects had six. Making them seem more human doesn't answer, since the regular insects didn't act like bugs. And Pixar was cool but Disney certainly packs in the ideology, doesn't it? Eek! I gave money to Disney! Damn. Oh well, the Southern Baptist Convention says its flock should not (since Disney gives benefits to its employees' families) so I'll call it a strike against intolerance.

 
 

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