Ten-Finger Exercises

Dressing for the season

Everybody certainly loves decorating for Christmas, and every other season it seems. I'm not talking only about decorating homes, indoors or outdoors. I don't do much of that myself. I noticed at least six houses with their lights still glowing today, but the lawn Santas and peppermint candy canes seem to have been put away. No more giant 6' snow globes with a compressor blowing around simulated snow, not till next year.

Seasonal decorating extends to clothing and accessories as well, of course. I do have a few Christmas, or holiday-ish pins I like to wear. One is a hand carved very dour Santa. One is a marcasite treble clef with a sprig of enamel holly on it. And I have a couple of decidely winter sweaters, one dark red and one in blues, with snowflake motifs.

So, now that it's January, there's suddenly no holiday cue of what to wear. Gray, for the gray days we in the Northern hemisphere are living through? Or neon, for contrast?
I don't have anything especially in mind for Martin Luther King day, do you? Next month we can fill with hearts and valentines and red sweaters; maybe throw in a flag or red,white and blue top hat, or a silhouette of a dead president for Presidents' day?

Then we have to get ready for St. Patricks. Have you seen all the strings of lights in the shapes of shamrocks and harps? How silly we are! We really do have too much disposable income in this country I think.

Personally, I'm dressing to stay warm this weekend. It's down in the teens here, and mighty nippy.

I sent my story "And the Meaning of Life Is..."  to a magazine today. It was about half again as long as the version here, and probably will be rejected. Most of the fiction I read is much deeper than that. I tend to write frappe instead of filet. Maybe there's a good resource out there for frappes. I'll keep looking. I can't be the only one with Saturday Evening Post and Norman Rockwell tastes.