#sol2014 The offering from Nordstrom

"I was in Nordstrom's picking up my dress and I saw this potential dress," I began cautiously knowing that even if the Fashionist sitting in the chair was a bit frail, she still had STRONG points of view about clothes! I purposely did not pull it out of the bag.  Instead, I waited for her response (knowing full well the potential of wait time to soften a response)!

"It has to be a good dress or I won't go.  I know just what I want.  I want long sleeves, all the way to here (points to wrist) but they cannot be tight.  They can't be all loosey-goosey either.  You know, with those sleeves like you have that make you look like you have thunder-thighs on you arms," she said confidently as if she had long ago decided my own propensity towards loose sleeves was a plan to make my arms look more flabby.

Meanwhile, my mind was racing.  How long WERE those sleeves? How loose were they?

"I am not shopping on that computer like you suggested either, so don't bother to go get it.  I want to see and feel and try things on to see what I look like," she added.  I haven't bought a dress in years!" she said sadly. "You got me that blue polka dotted dress for your father's funeral and I got rid of that a long time ago."

"I want a good-for-me neckline, not a low cut plunging one. I do not want to look like an ol' prude either.  I am not wearing pants or a pants-suit like Hillary Clinton!  I want a dress that is easy to put on without raising my arms above my head. I want a color that will make me look alive, but no red.  I'd really like it to be blue like this (pointing to a nearby blanket).   I'm not going to be able to wear heels, so the dress must cover my shoes, but it can't be dragging 'cause I don't want to trip on it. I'm not going looking like I'm old but I do not want to look like a lady of the evening either!" she said sternly.  "I really want to get out and look for dresses myself because, don't take this the wrong way, but you really are not a stylish dresser."

But," she added sadly, "I can't walk that far so I am not going to the mall. Where is this Nordstrom place of yours?"  

I listened to her requests, smiling to myself as I thought about the dress in the bag.  It was aqua blue, not sky blue, and I thought it might even be comfortable, but I wasn't sure I was even going to open the bag at this point.  Then, my mind raced to how I would hypothetically do a Google search for a dress with her requirements!   I suspect too many moments passed as my mind raced and I prepared, at least mentally, to exit with my potential offering.

"So, are you going to show it to me?"she asked.

I slowly pulled it in all its aqua loveliness from the bag.

"That is not going to work," she responded confidently. "Those sleeves, the top, they are all wrong."

I slowly returned the aqua Nordstrom offering to its bag,

"I'll try it on tomorrow," she said confidently, "when I am less tired."

"Ok," I said, surprised, but not surprised at the same time.  Meanwhile, my mind was wondering aabout how many trips to Nordstroms were in my immediate future?