Secret Agent Josephine

Tomorrow is the big day and I’m starting to get nervous. I’m not a wreck but I could be. I haven’t blogged about it because it didn’t seem newsworthy (and I didn’t want anybody not coming just because they were afraid of germs) but…. I have had a cold all week and guess what, my voice is completely gone!

No voice! Imagine that! Arg. I’m crossing my fingers, drinking tea and hoping it comes back by tomorrow. I am pretty much better. I feel fine and I’m sure I’m not contagious but my voice, it has left the building. So if you are thinking of coming, PLEASE COME! Don’t be afraid of my germs. I’m harmless!

You know why you want to come? Because you want to see me magically transformed from this:

…into something fabulous! I don’t know how it’s going to happen or what I’m going to turn into but it’s going to be good. So please come and see. Otherwise the suspense is going to kill you.

How did I get to be such a slovenly looking hippie mom anyway? This sort of snuck up on me. It had something to do with having a baby and not being able to go shopping for clothes or get my hair cut. I like to think of myself as someone with style but lately the comments from my friends have got me wondering. It’s not that I don’t care about how I look it’s just that… well, I can’t be bothered. I have no time for vanity!

Except today I was crippled with vanity. I started thinking about all the people who are going to meet me for the first time and how my pictures on my blog don’t accurately portray me as the shabby hippie mom that I am. I started to freak out a little bit, actually.

I decided to go dress shopping. More for my self esteem than really needing a new dress. (I must be crazy. Who goes dress shopping to boost their self esteem?) I know everybody’s still going to like me if I wear that black strapless from 1998 or my old stand by “seagull poop” dress (as Toby calls it except he doesn’t say poop) that I wear all the time for any photographable event like going out to donuts for example. But I wanted to get something new.

Shopping is the pits for me. I hate it. I hate all the new styles. I hate all the new colors. I hate how nothing fits. I hate how I’m always drawn to styles that are not flattering to my body type. I hate how everything is for fall when it feels like summer. You want me to wear wool and brocade when sweat is dripping down my back? Fashion is crazy.

Baby Bug was a good sport but the endless hours in dressing rooms even wore her down. She was very frustrated when I would pick out something orange or green and not let her try it on too. She’s obsessed with orange and green.

Get this, while buckled in her stroller, Baby Bug tried to take her shirt off and put on an orange brocade dress from Anthropologie that was hanging on the wall beside her on a hanger. Her efforts were worth a gold medal. I’m not completely cold hearted so I gently let her put the five thousand-times-too-big dress over her head.

That turned out to be a big mistake. She got twisted up in the rolls and rolls of sweaty thick fabric and the more I tried to pull her out of it the more she cried. It was really really sad. We both left the dressing room feeling frustrated and completely deflated.

We wandered out of Anthropologie in a daze and somehow, probably because I just plain wasn’t looking, I walked straight into a couture boutique shop not even noticing that the dresses I was looking at had price tags of $700 and up.

I do not belong in such a shop. I don’t know what I was thinking but guess what, a miracle happened. Now that I think about it, I think I did say a little prayer of desperation to God while we were tangled up in the orange dress at Anthropologie. I think I said something like, Please God, help me get out of this mess. But I never expected my prayer to be answered like this.

There I was wandering aimlessly in a fancy boutique shop, probably muttering to myself, when this very friendly sales guy came up to me and asked me if he could help. I think I said something like, “There is no hope for us.” He laughed but I really meant it. He somehow got it out of me that I have a big gallery opening tomorrow and decided to take me under his wing. I think I might have said something about being a painter… in my hoarse whispering voice.

“Stay right there,” he said. “I’ll be back in five minutes with five fabulous dresses that will be perfect for your show.” He didn’t even ask my size. He just looked me up and down and was gone in a flash of fairy dust.

That was about when I finally woke up and noticed that the price tags had extra zeros on them. Uh oh. How was I going to tell this guy that I can’t afford to be trying on clothes in a shop like this? I decided I would humor him and just pretend I didn’t like any of them.

But he read my mind. He came back with five dresses in shades of dark grays and browns. “You don’t really want a couture gown for your event,” he said. “Your art is whimsical. You need something fun that you’ll feel comfortable in.” I looked at the price tag of a dress dangling from his arm. Phew… it was totally affordable.

How did he know? He must be an angel. I took all five dresses into the dressing room and proceeded to try them on with my eyes bugging out of my head. Guess what? Every single one of them fit. How did he know my size! I would have never picked any of them out myself. They just hung limp on their hangers, looking like nothing special.. but then when I put them on they became magic dresses! Hip hugging dresses with low scoop necklines and fancy sleeves that offset my um…generous pear shaped lower half. How did he know!

I wanted to hug him and do a little dance. The dresses, they fit! I didn’t feel ugly or fat or shaggy or unkempt. It was a miracle. He even played peek a boo with Baby Bug through the dressing room curtain so I could examine the hem and swoon over the pretty magic dresses. It was wonderful.

I bought one dress and I’m wearing it tomorrow. Maybe you’ll get to see it.