Last year, I spent the month of November participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I ended the month with a completed novel. It was crummy -- but it was completed.
This year, I've set the bar a little bit lower and am doing NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) instead. Instead of coming through with an entre novel, all I have to do is post here every day this month. I have a feeling that will give me more than enough challenge for the time being.
I haven't always been antisocial.
Twenty years ago (when I was young and single), a weekend did not go by that did not include at least one party or dance club visit -- sometimes both. My closet included a wide range of evening attire, which today I can only describe as um, slutty.
Well, maybe not slutty -- but back then, for bars and clubbing, I had a definite preference for short, shimmering skirts, plunging necklines and four-inch stiletto heels.
How times change!
Marriage, motherhood and middle age have taken their toll on me. Today, my idea of a good time is to kick back at home with my husband and daughter and a few of our close friends and family... enjoy a nice meal together... and maybe watch TV. The old me would have been mortified at this -- but hey, we evolve. And the person I am now only has so much energy to put into getting dressed up and making small talk with strangers.
That's why I wasn't upset when my husband's firm stopped holding huge company parties. It has been years since I've had to don a cocktail dress and high heeled shoes and smile at the other wives and girlfriends while he talks shop. And I'm fine with that.
So you can imagine my dismay a few weeks ago, when my husband informed me that he had to attend two charity events this month, and I needed to accompany him.
The first thing that crossed my mind was that I had nothing to wear.
My closet still contains some of the cocktail dresses I wore before Megan was born, all of which are two sizes too small. It also holds the dresses I wore when I did have to go to company parties. But the radical weight loss program I embarked on three months ago has been very successful (which is good) and all of those garments are now three sizes too big.
Spending money on a new cocktail dress was the very last thing I wanted to do this month. Never mind the fact that I wasn't that keen on going to these dress-up events -- I'm still losing weight and it's coming off fast, so the dress I'd buy would likely join the other unwearable ones in the closet after these two events.
I blitzed into a large department store known for its wide variety of fashion and made a beeline for the Woman's department -- then realized that I'm no longer a size 14+. The problem is, I didn't know what size I really was... so I picked out a selection of dresses with different numbers and tried them on and concluded that I was now a 10. I then proceeded to look for the best-looking one that had the smallest price tag, and settled on a simple black number which, at $124, was about half the cost of the next cheapest.
If only I'd been able to stop at the dress.
The truth is, it was so plain and simple, it had to be accessorized. I already had a pair of diamond earrings that would look nice with it and I nice gunmetal gray silk wrap. But I still needed a necklace, evening bag and shoes -- and makeup (because most days I don't bother). I spent the rest of the week shopping.
The first event was a couple of weeks ago, and it went well. I was able to overcome my shyness with strangers and make effective small talk with my husband's business associates and their wives, and I had an OK time. The following morning, I draped the dress and the silk wrap over the dresser and asked my husband to take them to the dry cleaner when he brought his suit. He did that and brought them back a few days later and I didn't think anything more of it...
...until Saturday, when we were to attend the second of the two events. This one was a big deal for a big charity - The City of Hope - and was being held in the California Grand Hotel at Disneyland. My husband's company had donated a lot of money to be sponsors, and we would be sitting at a table with his boss and his wife.
It's a shlep from our place to Anaheim, so made reservations nearby (unfortunately, the going rate at the Grand is $400. About a mile away, the Hyatt only charges $129.) Our plan was to leave the Valley around 3:00 so we'd have time to check in and change before the event at 6:00, and I had an appointment with my hairdresser in the afternoon... so at 10:00, I decided to pack.
Good thing, too, because when I went through the dry cleaning Gareth brought back the previous week, I found the silk wrap -- but no dress.
A call to the dry cleaner came up empty. They say they have no record of us bringing in a black cocktail dress. I had never even placed the dress in the closet, but we combed through it anyway. No dress. We called the dry cleaner again. They said they could look at their security tapes to see if we did bring the dress in that day, but it was not something they would be able to do that day.
Once again, I had nothing to wear.
I went back to the same department store, to see if I could find the same dress. They had one left, but it was a size smaller. I grabbed it and commandeered a fitting room and guess what? It fit. It fit better than the one that was lost. (I've lost more weight since I purchased the original dress three weeks ago).
Just to be sure, I tried on some other size 8's and they all fit. There was a beautiful dark blue Anne Klein that would have worked with the accessories I'd already bought -- but I reminded myself of why I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a cocktail dress while I'm still in weight loss mode. So I ended up buying the same dress that got lost. As the second one fit better, I could almost say that losing the first dress was a good thing. But I'm still perplexed and would like to know what happened to it.
The event itself was a glittering affair, populated by folks who look like the cast of "The Real Housewives of Orange County." There was an open bar, tray-passed appetizers, and a silent auction that seemed to go on forever.
Typically, I don't get excited by silent auctions. I never felt I just HAD to get any of the prizes offered at the ones we used to put on at my daughter's elementary school, but as that was a small community, I was afraid I'd be looked down upon if I didn't participate. So it became my habit to place a few small bids at the beginning of the event, and was never unhappy when someone else claimed the prize.
This auction was different. There were SEVERAL items I would have liked to buy, most of which were wine tasting excursions throughout the state. I put our number on all of them. There were also a few prizes offered by businesses here in the Valley, including a party for 15 people at UltraZone in Sherman Oaks. I knew my daughter would love that, and that our chances of winnng were probably pretty good, as the majority of folks attending the event were local and wouldn't want to drive all the way up to our neck of the woods. No one had bid on it yet, so I put us down for $50
Then, we found the item that broke my Silent Auction aversion forever. A night at the fabulous Montage, the exclusive Laguna Beach resort where we celebrated a friend's birthday last year -- and the site, months later, of a mysterious police shooting. Especially weird was the fact that the shooting took place in the very room we'd stayed in! My friend Tim says that this event has forever tainted the place for him...
...but apparently not for us, because we bid on the prize. After all, at that point in the evening (when the highest bid was $400), it was a bargain.
If only it had stayed that way. If only I had kept to my silent auction fearing guns.
The same husband who wouldn't pay $400 for a night in Disneyland changed his tune when it came to the Montage. He was determined to win. We kept revisiting the lot throughout the cocktail hour, and each time, Gareth placed a higher and higher bid. After we were seated at our dinner table, he made one last visit to the lot just before the bidding closed.
"You don't want to know how much we've pledged," he told me.
As we ended up winning the bid, I found out anyway. We also won the party for 15 at Ultrazone, a $240 value for which we ended up paying $50. So I rationalized that it evens out. Sort of.
Now that we were on the hook for it, I figured I may as well enjoy it. We spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out when we would redeem our prize in Laguna. We figured we would request an early check-in, leave the Valley early, leave Laguna late the next day, and really take advantage of all the resort has to offer. We talked about the possibility of inviting one of Megan's friends to enjoy it with us. It would be fun.
After the dinner, we retired to our hotel for a nightcap and I looked at our prize certificates and read the fine print. Our one-night stay at the Montage (subject to availability, of course) could only be redeemed Sunday through Thursday -- no holiday, summer or weekend days allowed. Inviting a friend of Megan's was no longer a good idea. In fact, allowing Megan to miss school was not a good idea, either.
And then I remembered that our next anniversary, in March, will be our 15th. I checked the calendar and saw that it falls on a Thursday this year. So here's the plan: Gareth takes two days off from work, Megan stays overnight at a school friend, and we will have ourselves a really memorable anniversary.
And by March, I will have already forgotten the pain of paying so much for the room. That means I should have no problem at all with signing up for some expensive spa services.
And I won't have to dress up or make small talk with anyone.
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