Getting Dressed

I find my behaviour perfectly sensible, but when I was telling a couple of friends, they went into fits of laughter and said I had to share it.

One of the things I missed when I retired was getting dressed up every day – I liked suits, I liked high heels, I liked pantihose. I also knew when I retired how easy it would be to just sit around in sweats, watching Oprah and eating bonbons (well, more likely watching Netflix and eating Cheetos, but bonbons sounds classier). So I decided that every weekday I wouldn’t wear jeans; in fact I would be dressed by 9am in ‘nice’ clothes. By nice I meant that if a friend called at 11:45 and said, “Hey, I’m in Milton and my 12 o’clock appointment just cancelled; meet me for lunch”, I would be in nice enough clothes that I could just walk out the door. And yes, that did happen. I even took it a step further during the first lockdown; while the rest of the world was on Zoom calls in a nice shirt and pyjama bottoms, I made sure that I was wearing my most expensive scarves, or nice jewelry, when I took Scout for a walk. (I’ve gotten over that.)

I also don’t like leaving my bedroom in my pyjamas or nightie – I mean I don’t schlep around the house in pj’s for the first hour or so. I don’t know if that’s a bungalow thing, but as soon as I get up I drag on some yoga pants and a t-shirt, or some leggings and a sweater. And then, of course, I have to walk the dog, at least once, usually twice a day.

So, when you put that all together, this is what a typical day looks like: wake up in my pj’s and change into comfy clothes immediately. After breakfast, change out of those clothes and into my dog-walking clothes. Return from walk, and put on something nicer like wool pants (trousers for the Brits reading this), a pretty top, some jewelry, and make-up. Then for the afternoon walk, put on my warmer dog-walking clothes. Return from walk and put my day clothes back on. At bedtime, back into nightwear. So, yes, I change clothes six times each day.

I don’t know why my friends found that odd.