Faux fur is for real. After all, what beats the winter blues better than synthetic fluff in cruelty-free colors? Even if I considered the alternate title Faux Fur, My Chauffeur. Because these coats take me wherever I want to go -- which is anywhere and everywhere as long as I'm wrapped in cozy and kitschy. To that point, the first pic was taken two years ago at Smithville, one of the coziest -- and cutest! -- places around.
Who knows where my outerwear will take me next? Hopefully, not the DMV.
I wasn't kidding about that chauffeur.
I hadn't celebrated my birthday at a restaurant since before the pandemic. But this year I felt ready to venture back out into the land of breadbaskets. So on Friday night, the husband and I went to the historic Smithville Inn. When we walked up to the hostess stand, the manager asked if we were there for the sweet sixteen party. "No," I informed him, excitedly. "We're here for my forty-first birthday."
Apparently, being sequestered from society for so long has only made me blunter.
He smiled, amused, and the twentysomething hostess looked up from her Colleen Hoover novel (sidebar: who is this Colleen Hoover that's all over Insta, and should I start reading her?), smiling also. Then she led us to a table for two, pointing out that it was "good for photo ops." Either she'd seen us taking pictures outside or was proud of the enormous Christmas-turned-Valentine's wreath presiding over the table. Which she very much should be! It was a thing of beauty and completely in keeping with my more-is-more aesthetic. I was only too happy to pose my punk rock-wannabe-self beside it. (The hand-drawn heart, by the way, is camouflaging the husband's leftovers. I had no leftovers, having scarfed down all of my shrimp-on-shrimp appetizer and entrée)
Then on Saturday it was time for the family party at my parents', which also included my sister, brother-in-law, and their three kids. I proudly donned my LC Lauren Conrad sequin dress, Betsey Johnson pumps and necklace, and my very own birthday cake and balloon barrettes.
Somehow, I managed to get my birthday crown over my enormous barrettes. And yes, in case you're wondering, that's my wedding picture in the background. Also, nutcrackers. Because my birthday bridges the gloomy gap between Christmas and Valentine's Day. I used to quip that just when you thought the holidays were over, here comes Tracy's birthday, implying that it was a nuisance. But now I like my positive spin on my day as a bright spot.
As well as my new philosophy to leave no shrimp behind.
We all have our holiday high points. You know. Baking, decorating, cards. Maybe even carols, ice skating, and/or a gag gift exchange. My focus has been on wrapping presents, as well as reading Christmas novels and coming up with festive outfits. Which makes sense given my still-bare Christmas tree. It wasn't until tonight that I lifted the lid off the first storage box of decorations. Not these, but aren't they fun?
Anyway, as I arranged some knickknacks around the fireplace, I couldn't help but think that it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas -- at least until I ran into a cave's worth of spiderwebs and thought, more like Halloween! Not that I was surprised; I'm no housekeeper. Oh, I do what I have to, but to me, sweeping away the handiwork of arachnids falls somewhere between the to-do list of a Victorian maid and a '50s housewife. Still, the dust-choked filaments served as a reminder that all was not as it should be -- and, indeed, seldom is. I guess that's why I liked this passage in Leslie Meier's Christmas Cookie Murder:
"Lucy flopped on her back and stared at the ceiling, gray in the dim light from the hall nightlight. Above its smooth blankness, she knew, was a jumble of wires and insulation, a century's worth of dust, insect colonies and, no doubt, families of mice. Tinker's Cove was the same, she thought, a quaint little fishing town with a drug problem." (182)
We're all harboring webs and insects and rodents (although hopefully not in the form of narcotics). Some of us are just better at keeping them hidden -- whether in clean houses or behind other fronts.
On an, ahem, lighter note, despite getting a late start on my decorating, I made it a point to check out the lights at nearby Smithville. That's where I am in the first pic. If you're from across the country or world instead of here in South Jersey, then suffice it to say that Smithville is a faux old-timey shopping village with a big lake and an inn.