My takeaway from our trip to the McCarty Pottery in Merigold, Mississippi, last Friday. This is a smallish bowl with rather high sides, billed as a "Large Old-Fashioned" cup. This would hold a LOT of any drink. I used it the other night to hold our cucumber salad. It's a nice size for serving small things: cucumber salad for three, or salsa, or dip, or applesauce, or peas . . . It wasn't expensive, but it is beautiful.
Here's the side view, showing the trademark McCarty "Mississippi River" line, their tribute to the river whose mud and clay deposits are the source of their material:
More thunderstorms last night, but the sun is out this morning. High of 93F. Nothing out of the ordinary on today, just the usual dog-walking and rounds of work. Possibly a Zoom meeting, because we're due for one.
Wearing:
*Secondhand Eileen Fisher pink merino tank, bought January 2023, last worn July 19
*Secondhand Garnet Hill green cotton-modal maxi skirt, bought June 2024, last worn July 12
*Secondhand Brooks Brothers pink merino cardigan, bought November 2023, last worn July 26
*Secondhand Stegmann's clogs, bought July 2024, last worn yesterday
So, an all-secondhand outfit whose base items (tank + skirt) I haven't worn in about two weeks, so they were due for an outing.
If you aren't a longtime reader here, or have not yet joined the Great Wool Cult, you may be asking: A wool tank in July? AND a wool cardigan? On a day when it's going to be 93F? Are you a masochist?
Of course, if you are a longtime reader, and/or already a member of the Great Wool Cult, you're laughing at this, because you have the gnosis. Yes, a wool tank next to my skin. Yes, a wool cardigan, at least in the air conditioning (not outside!).
Wool is breathable. It's not intrinsically hot. Yes, we wear it in the winter to keep warm, because it's thermally regulating, and wool layers next your skin help both trap body heat and wick away any moisture, so that you stay warm but don't sweat so that you can feel it (and then get chilled).
In the summer, of course we're not wearing multiple layers outside, because any layers will trap body heat --- if I want to keep the sun off, I might add a light linen shirt, because linen cuts UV rays, but I wouldn't wear this cardigan out in the sun, because that just is a heavier insulating layer, and I don't need it.
But I guarantee you that if you wear rayon or polyester in the summer, you're hotter than I am in this wool tank, and I don't mean like Hot Girl Summer. I mean: those fabrics don't really breathe. Rayon can be light and silky, but I tell you --- I was wearing my vintage rayon maxi last week to walk the dog, and under that skirt my legs were noticeably hot. Like a lot hotter than if I'd been wearing a wool-tencel-blend maxi skirt. Even the skirt I'm wearing today, which is a cotton-modal blend, is cooler than that much-thinner rayon crepe maxi. And the tank is cooler than the skirt, even though it's 100% merino.
So if you shy away from wearing wool because you think it's too hot, think again. Now, if you have issues with texture, you might not like wearing wool, at least in a 100% yarn. I don't find this tank scratchy, but it's really not silky-smooth, and a person with more of that kind of sensitivity would be bugged by it. Wool&'s merino-nylon blends, by contrast, feel smooth, like t-shirt fabric, and that might be a good starting point for someone on the fence about wearing wool at all because of the potentially itchy texture. Many people who normally dislike the itch of wool report feeling just fine in those dresses, especially the "signature blend," which is quite silky. This tank would not work for that uber-sensitive person, because its texture does read a little more "sweater-like." BUT I can promise you that I won't be too hot in it, even on a sultry, humid Southern summer day.
I also like these colors a lot. Pink and green are natural complements (as are purple and green), as I've known since roughly 1980, when the whole preppy look exploded into a thing. What's been a revelation to me is that pink-and-green doesn't have to mean hot-pink-and-lime-green.
 |
| Image source |
This was for the new bishop's ordination, May 29, and I was wearing choir dress. Now, here I felt FINE. I was energetic. But even my blue glasses don't save me from looking a little wan. I put on lip color because I knew I looked wan, and then I looked even more wan.
 |
| Image source (not the actual pair I bought) |
I mean. These are a little fun-kay. But they're real leather, they retail for $130, and I paid $21. They get good reviews. Nurses wear this brand a lot, I find, which seems like a serious recommendation. And I did want a pair of black shoes that could function as dress shoes, though I'd also want to be able to walk miles in them. That's really the test for me, anymore. I'm not interested in having shoes I can't stand up in and walk blocks in. These are supposed to be very good for plantar fasciitis, which I don't currently have but have had in the past and would like to avoid ever having again if I can help it. For me, shifting between barefoot shoes and shoes with orthotic support (Birks, chiefly) has been a winning strategy. Anything with a wide toe box is good.
But I'm always on the lookout for shoes that will help my overall posture, so as to avoid knee, hip, and back pain, while also encouraging my feet to develop strength (that's why the barefoot shoes as an alternative). I find I can't wear barefoot shoes all the time, because I do start to develop some hip pain when I wear them nonstop, but I like them as part of my rotation. And I actively prefer my Xero Mesa trailrunners for hiking.
Meanwhile, I think I'll enjoy these black shoes as well. Sometimes, as at a funeral, it's good just to wear all black, including your shoes. That's not a combination I actively embrace in my everyday life, but there are occasions when it's appropriate. I'll probably plan to wear these Mary Janes, assuming they fit the way I'm hoping, to the diocesan Eucharistic Congress at the end of August, when again the choir is singing, and we do have to wear concert dress. But I'll also wear them with my regular clothes through the winter (again, assuming they fit and function the way I hope they will --- otherwise I'll resell them). They'll go with all my wool dresses, plus at least my NPL Smock dress, plus skirts.
I don't wear black all the time, or even at all if I can help it, but black shoes will be useful. It's good to anticipate having them. And it's good to be able to expand my shoe collection. I have a long way to go before I'm Imelda Marcos, but it's really nice to be able to think beyond the one pair of shoes for the season. No one pair of shoes works all the time, with every outfit. Buying secondhand makes good brands accessible to me --- so that I can buy more than one pair of shoes when I need to. The whole rest of my wardrobe will work harder for me, and more satisfactorily, because I've made some targeted additions in the shoe department.
This is my hope, anyway. Now it's time to walk the dog.
LATER:
Well, I have
*tinkered with one of my novel projects
*talked to the Texasgirl at length
*walked the dog twice
*eaten the Artgirl's leftover meatball sub for lunch, because somebody had to do it
*Been in the combox for Today's Poem at the Substack
*Congratulated the Viking for making the spring Dean's List and the Artgirl for making the spring honor roll --- for people who were convinced they were failing out all semester, they seem to have done okay
I still have this weird feeling of lassitude, as though I were recovering from the weekend. I suppose in a way I must be. It was a rather emotionally exhausting weekend, just because being present to old people you love can be kind of that way, and being present to young people you love can, too. Put them all in one room, and before you know it, there you are, the filling in the generational sandwich, trying to hold everything together.
The husband's back continues to heal, slowly. He's seeing a chiropractor twice a day and periodically has to lie down on his stomach on the front-porch couch with a bag of ice on his back. I have to help him get himself situated with this bag of ice, and it all looks intensely uncomfortable. My own lumbar region has developed a vague ache of sympathy.
So I made myself some blueberry-kefir sorbet and have eaten a large bowl of it. It's very easy: just pour some blueberries into the food processor, then pour in kefir to cover (you could use yogurt, and your sorbet would be even less soft-serve). I don't add sweetener or anything, just fruit and kefir --- and in this case, some maca powder, because we have it, it tastes good, and among other things it's supposed to boost your energy, which I could use. I blended it all up and ate it, and I feel better.
Yesterday I made the same thing, only with mango. It was kefir (maybe a cup? maybe less? just to cover the fruit), mango, maca, and a dash of chili powder, because mango and chili powder play nicely together. I don't measure anything, as you might have surmised already --- I just eyeball amounts. More liquid means more of a smoothie. Less liquid means something I can eat from a bowl like ice cream. Either way, it's some fruit plus some protein plus some calcium plus some probiotic, all things I need. And for me it really scratches the ice-cream itch.
I made this pan-fried spicy lemongrass chicken for dinner last night, by the way. It was very good, gave me a chance to use some more of this lemongrass I've been growing, and with cauliflower rice made a nice protein bowl. I didn't use any oil for frying, because I was using frozen chicken thighs (not optimal, but I had them), and my goal mainly was to cook out the water that frozen things always exude. Once that had happened, they browned quite nicely, and I could caramelize them in fish sauce and the Swerve I subbed for sugar. Anyway, it was an easy and very tasty dinner, with some basil and cilantro from the garden on the side, and red peppers from the garden in the chicken dish.
So far this week we've had Middle-Eastern-ish and Vietnamese: again, probably ish more than an authentic meal. If we want authentic, we go to a restaurant where actual members of the actual culture make their actual cuisine. I go for the general flavor range and try to get that right --- no sesame seeds in Vietnamese cuisine, for example (which I know because I looked that up, to see whether sesame seeds would be an appropriate garnish for last night's dinner). Haven't decided yet what flavor neighborhood we want to visit tonight. The vehicle will be ground beef. Ideally it would involve peppers, because boy howdy, do I have peppers. And basil. Got a lot of basil. Maybe some spicy Italian meat bowl . . . we really like protein/vegetable bowls for dinner. I'll have to think on my options.
Here's another wearing-my-colors photo for the afternoon --- I have now been outside, eaten, and generally gotten my blood going a little more:
I'm inside in the air conditioning, so wearing my cardigan. I really like these pinks with each other. I'm glad, as always, that I took outfit pictures, because I will want to repeat this one. It's great for now, but it'll be just as great in the cooler weather of autumn, with different shoes (maybe -- depends on how much cooler this cooler weather actually is on a given day), or boots . . . And it'll be nice in the spring when it's chilly, but I don't want to feel that I'm still being autumnal. Once the colder weather gets going, we do have it for quite a while, in an exact inverse of the autumn experience. All I want then is not to feel like winter anymore . . . and we get nice days, for sure . . . but so often it when I feel that way, it's still cold. I don't really know where one could live that this wouldn't happen. I guess farther up the East Coast they get actual fall weather on schedule, but then spring is that much later. In England you get distinct seasons, except for summer, which can be hot and bright . . . or not. I might as well stay where I am.
I was talking above about greens and thought I'd take a picture of three of the green items I own, just to illustrate what I meant, particularly, by mossy green, as in my corduroy blazer.
In the middle here is the skirt I'm currently wearing (shown more fully, and more accurately in color, above). On the right is my green tencel button shirt, shown below in the one photo I really love of myself in my most recent bout with shorter hair:
I look really good in this shade of green, even with my eyes open.
On the left in the comparison photo above, meanwhile, is my blazer, reasonably accurately represented, though all the colors here are a little off. What you can see is how much browner a green it is than the other two shades. The others are really what I think of as fresh spring greens, while the blazer is earthy and, again, mossy.
Here's a photo that shows its color a little more clearly:
Not necessarily a great photo of me, but I was dressed to go out to hear a speaker at the college, and then to dinner with said speaker, and I felt beautiful. Probably this was mostly a function of the luminous blue I was wearing, but the moss green truly didn't hurt me any. Here's a better shot of my face on the same evening, though the blazer is more in shadow:
Maybe it's the color of my glasses? But my blue glasses don't help that much when I wear black. Maybe it's the blue dress I'm wearing? That's more plausible. But for reasons I can't explain, I always feel pretty in this blazer. This shade of green should not work for me, I don't think. Yet it seems to work just fine.
So, for that matter, does this very middle-of-the-road dark green:
.jpg)
This thrifted cotton cardigan finally stretched out and faded and pilled, and I re-donated it with reluctance. I still miss it and would love to find another one in this color, because I adored this shade of green with blues and teals. I always felt pretty wearing it. This one is closer to some of the darker greens on the palette above: a slightly bluer, less yellow, less brown/earthy green than my blazer. I can explain the cardigan.
But I really can't explain why I like how I look in that blazer. Green is simply the mystery color.
Also, sorry for all the my-face spam. It's really a lot. I actually made an album the other night of close-up selfies like this so that I could get a record of what colors I have looked good in, or haven't, over the last several years, so I have these photos kind of on the brain. It's a little embarrassing that I have that many pictures of my face, taken by me. What kind of person takes pictures of her face every day, sometimes multiple pictures of her face?
A person interested in knowing what she looks like, that's what kind of person. A person who is glad, years later, to sift back through and think, "Hm, the bangs weren't that awful . . ." And things like that.