I opened my old favorite Mother Goose book yesterday randomly to this rhyme, which I don't recall ever reading aloud to my children. I'm assuming "Harry the Great" here is Henry VIII, but I'm not sure . . . there were a lot of Henries before him of whom this rhyme might have been relevant. And it seems like a later rhyme than the Tudor era, though again, I'm not sure about any of it. I don't have time to go down a rabbit hole today, but I'm awfully tempted.
Today I got up, played Wordle (3/6, so for once I don't feel dumb), drafted a poem in unrhymed hendecasyllables which I hope I will like as much tomorrow as I do right now, and got dressed.
Does this look vaguely familiar? Is it, in fact, exactly what I wore yesterday? Well, almost, minus the light pullover. It's cool enough again this morning that I'm going to want some extra layer when I go out to walk the dog --- I'll probably put back on that cotton sweatshirt hoodie visible to the right, on top of my hamper: the aqua-colored thing. My mother gave it to me some years ago, and it's been a good default when I just needed to reach for something warm. Otherwise: my Sierra dress is just so easy to toss over my body and be done with the whole getting-dressed business.
As with the Camellia, I love the soft sweep of this style that gives my neckline and shoulders a chance to be graceful, while grazing the places where I tend to carry my weight. It doesn't make me not pear-shaped, but it does give some flow and ease and grace to that basic body type. Plus I have plenty of room to move. I haven't yet hiked in this dress, but I can see its being a hiking staple in the autumn, with its heavier but still breathable weight and its swing. Meanwhile, it's so comfortable for everyday, yet it's not "nothing." It has shape, it has style, it does something for me. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't anxious to add another dress like this, in another color, to my collection.
And really, the dog is bound to be getting antsy in her crate, though so far she hasn't uttered a sound. I generally take her for a spin up and down the block, last thing at night, before we say the rosary (my husband calls the rosary "the sleepy beads," because Dora, who is not typically a calm, couch-potato kind of dog, always manages to sleep through it), and that seems to put her out hard for the duration. I like waiting a little later to walk, especially when the weather's not hot, because that gives all the really motivated morning walkers a chance to get done and go home and take their dogs with them. For all her quirks, Dora has become a very well-behaved dog on-leash, most of the time --- now that I've committed this to writing, she'll probably go out and bite somebody today, but up to now, she's been VERY good, so much so that other dog-walkers comment on how good that other little dog is being, sitting calmly to the side and taking nourishment, as they drag their slavering dogs away from us. Again, now that I've said it, I've probably doomed us to a terrible walk, so remember us in your prayers. I will certainly be extra-vigilant. On the other hand, maybe there won't be anybody at the dog park, and we can just hang out for a while off-leash, in splendid solitude.
Otherwise, the day will be full of laundry and packing, and rounded off with dinner out, to celebrate the end of a good summer together. Tomorrow, three of us will be on the road, headed toward the adventures of a new school year for two, and a fall semester that will certainly fly by.
My packing plan for this roadtrip:
Sierra (pictured)
Camellia
Maggie
gray Athleta cotton cardigan
braided leather belt
6 pair bike-short-style underwear
2 bamboo bras
bamboo dress for sleeping
blue EVA Birks
tan fake Birks
red Xero Cassies
hair ties and clips
comb
wet brush
conditioner for hair-washing (I'm kind of back to the V05 currently)
hair gel
razor
lip balm
These are the essentials --- probably more than I really need to get me through.
LATER:
Good dog walk after all. Here's what I wound up wearing, by way of an extra layer:
I figured it was a good day for a merino tee (Ibex, secondhand, 100% merino): cool enough for the extra layer, which still looks not too much like rushing the next season, while changing the whole shape of the outfit. I need to remember these lovely short-sleeved tees as we move into more transitional dressing, when sleeveless doesn't feel exactly right. I love this grapey color with the gray dress, though I think it's right on the edge of being too bright for me. Still, not bad:
About to pull out some laundry and fold it, then take a break to bathe and wash my hair (and put this same outfit right back on). Then I'll do a bit of packing, then a bit of writing . . . and so the day will go.
LATER STILL:
Finished packing everything I can pack right now (i.e., what I'm not currently wearing). I still need to put in shoes, but my small backpack is . . . kind of empty, even so. Plenty of underwear, a cardigan to go with everything, hair and toiletry stuff, and still it's not that full.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I can get behind this kind of travel packing. It's light, it's easy, it's versatile. Dresses are just the best. I find I really only wear shirts like the one above because I have them and feel I should wear them, not because I really love wearing them most of the time --- in fact, having bathed and washed my hair, I have not put the tee back on, because I can't be bothered. It's nice to have options, but it's also kind of a pain to have options.
This tells me that where my money needs to go, when I'm ready for my money to go toward clothes, is NOT into more shirts. Merino tees are tempting, but nope. Other kinds of shirts: also tempting, but nope. What I have in my closet is stuff I like and look good in, and still, if it's not a dress, I don't wear it that much. I don't take this state of affairs as a signal to get rid of all my shirts, just as a signal that I absolutely must not, under any circumstances, buy any more shirts. Dresses: yes. Cardigans and pullovers for the winter: possibly. Anything else: really, no. That's today's clarifying epiphany.
LATER:
Waiting for everyone else to be ready to go out for dinner (not being superior; at least one person here was doing yard work until five minutes ago).
In a spasm of I don't know what, I both revised the hendecasyllabic poem I began this morning AND sent it out, which is probably insane. Sent a whole raft of poems out yesterday, too, trying to climb back on the ol' wagon. I have still not finished my Robert Herrick essay, but I HAVE started it, and will probably need to cut it by the time I'm done. I can bang out something Friday afternoon at my mother's, trim it, and pop it up on the website to be released by next Friday. So all in all, not too bad. I just really feel sometimes that I want to do my own writing, not these eternal "lively" introductions to public-domain (and other) poems.
So all in all, not a bad day. Die kinderpersons have been busy --- packing, I hope. As in, I hope there will be stuff ready to go in the car tonight. But first we're going to go and (some of us) drink beer and (all of us) eat well together, before (some of us) say the long farewell to North Carolina and (others of us) say, See ya next week.