Clothing…we all have to wear something, but with the pandemic lifestyle, I’m not wearing anything too fancy. That means most of my clothes that have to dry cleaned are left hanging, month after month, in the closet. I’m wearing casual clothing when I go out, and now that it’s cold, knits around the house. All washable. Today I washed all the black tops I own and most of the black pants that are washable.
There is one pair of high quality wool pants that has hung in my closet for a few years now. The last time I wore them, they were too big and didn’t look right. Since I have a wide variety of black pants that can be washed and that fit well, I wear them instead. There is the old, raggedy pair, good for running errands if most of the day will be spent at home. There is the lightweight pair that has deep pockets, good for grocery shopping. Two pair are really nice, one short and the other long, but neither have pockets so I must wear them with a jacket or when I’m taking a purse. I did that this week, wore a jacket and took a purse. Very unusual in the pandemic for me to do so, but I needed my wallet to be with me and to do that I needed my purse.
About the jacket I wore with the nice black pants, it has to be dry cleaned. As does the scarf I wore with the outfit. Today I wore both one more time, with lightweight black pants that has pockets, to go to Office Depot. I needed supplies to put together a packet for each of the 52 first graders to whom I’ve been virtually reading each week. A box of 9×12 envelopes. Two boxes, 40 each, of glue sticks. Twenty six packages of scissors that have two per package. Into each envelope will go one glue stick, one pair of scissors, one popsicle stick, and two sheets of mouse pattern printout so that each student can make a Tillie the Mouse puppet from the Leo Lionni story, “Tillie and the Wall.”
Okay, you now know far more about my wardrobe choices for errands than you want to. But, getting back to the jacket and scarf, I dropped them off at the dry cleaner on my way home from the Office Depot trip. I hadn’t seen the man who owns the cleaner for six months or more since I’m not wearing all those dry cleanable clothes. I’ve missed wearing the clothes and I’ve missed seeing him.