My sister and I were looking through boxes of old family photos last weekend and among the pictures of people in World War I-era wedding gear and snapshots of children we couldn’t identify we found some really glamorous relatives. I wasn’t surprised that the best was Noma, our paternal grandfather’s younger sister, who got into some kind of trouble in Warsaw and was sent to live with an older brother and his wife in Paris. When you see these pictures of her from 1920 and 1922, you can imagine what the trouble probably was:
There are also a lot of pictures of Noma and her sister-in-law, who clearly shared her taste in stylish hats:

Even right after the war, in 1945, she managed to pull together a pretty good look:

And here she and her third husband look like they’re getting ready to send their head shots to Hollywood for the next Bogart movie:

In her 60s, which is when I met her, giving my grandparents the classic tour of Paris, she could obviously pull off a pose like no one else in the family:

More to come–including someone we don’t recognize wearing a dress with sparkly swastikas on it.

I’m the kind of person who wears mascara when I’m spending the day alone pulling weeds or cleaning the house, so you can imagine how I feel when something beyond my control impinges on my self-presentation.

About a month ago I managed to break the big toe on my right foot and lose the nail (I know—eeewwwwww), which means something like 6 weeks before the bone heals and 4 to 6 MONTHS before the nail grows back. It also means that my choice of footwear has been strictly limited: no shoes that press on the broken joint and nothing that makes anything hurt.

I left the ER wearing The Shoe, one of those hideous post-operative things that are supposed to protect the injured part:
I was horrified at the thought that I might have to wear this contraption for weeks but fortunately, the injury occurred in August and once the pain receded a bit, I managed to find a couple of pairs of sandals that didn’t touch that toe. After another week or so I was able to start wearing my favorite Trippens again and all seemed right with the world.

Until today. It was pouring long before I got up, presenting me with a choice about which pair of sandals should get soaked. I stood there, looking into my closet, discussing my wardrobe with the cats, as one does, and I said, “I wish I were young enough to wear Converse sneakers with a dress.”*

Well, once the conditional mood shows up there’s just no going back. (This is how I started wearing skirts again: I found myself saying over and over again, “If I wore skirts, I’d buy that.”) So now I’m at work wearing a black and white sunflower-pattern dress with black and white striped socks and lime green Converse sneakers. It may look silly—and there’s probably someone saying “She’s too old for that look”—but what the hell. It works.

*I actually said “I wish I was young enough,” but one of the great things about a written blog rather than a live video feed is that I can correct my grammar before someone catches me. The cats are not prescriptivists.