16 June 2019
Happy Father’s Day: Sprucing Up
I began this morning with organization, of a sort. I am venturing forth today with Dear Husband on his Father’s Day to In-N-Out-Burger — for the meal of his choice! A change of purses for this august occasion is required to accessorize the more casual (cazh) outfit that is appropriate for California Suburban Quick Food.
Surely, the striped leather tote I recently grabbed on sale at Ralph Lauren online (“Ralphie” as I call him) will stick out like an elegant thumb amongst the monotonous ath-leisure slob look of the Bay Area refugees, the elites who swarm the place on the weekend on their way “back” from the Sierra Nevada.
We have learned to time our trips on the Interstate on Sundays to avoid the heaviest mob of the Freeway Blob, popping in at In-N-Out. Sometime during mid-afternoon, they hit the yokel stretch of the Sierra Foothills on their return-sojourn to the Bay Area. They make their noisy pitstops at In-N-Out to gobble down this politically incorrect food. And then off they go — in their eco-go-carts, top-loaded with kayaks and bicycles and trekking gear or ski gear, or both!
They robotically head west on Interstate-80 toward those 800-square-foot boxes they call “home” in what Dear Husband refers to as the brackish back-waters of the Bay. No matter what the weather, this cycle repeats itself the next weekend, and the next, and the next, and the next . . .
But enough comic-tragedy!
I put Dear Husband to manly use this morning, a proper and fitting way for him to celebrate his own Father’s Day!
Living in our 3-story rental house while construction of our Dream House is underway, I have organized my purses on an upper shelf, a 1-foot-by-3-foot cubicle space in the bedroom closet. There are purses packed away in Rubbermaid bins in the Storage Unit, ones that I’d intended to use a lot sooner than I am going to be able to get my little hands on them. These handbags-at-hand are mostly vintage items and sale goodies acquired during the past year.
Never let a woman go without all of her handbags in sight!!
Actually, none of my purses are in sight. The Storage Unit handbags are becoming fading memories, and the Closeted Purses have not given me enough time to build any memories. They are on the shelf, each one, free of dust, in a fabric drawstring storage bag. I’ve not much of a clue as to what is inside each goodie bag. The feel-test fails:
Square and soft. Hmmm, perhaps the small croc-leather satchel by Ralphie. Large and rectangular. Might be the vintage 2-tone Dooney & Burke from an online selling platform. Squishy and shapeless. Could be that red pebbled leather vintage Coach from the same selling platform. The mental and tactile activity is not unlike picking out fruit blind-folded at the produce stand!
I decided to look into each bag. After five or six peeks into the fabric storage bags, I called downstairs to Dear Husband for help. “This is no way to live!”
He came upstairs and pulled down the entire haul of drawstring pouches from the shelf. Finally, I found the small round straw handbag (stored inside the large, sage green leather circle-shaped “canteen” handbag from an artisan in Poland). He then suggested I consider another storage method. Maybe labeling them.
I said that in The Dream House I would have more room for storage of accessories, that I could arrange by season into compartments. But the fact remains that a fabric storage bag protects the leather from dust, and it allows the leather to breathe. (The rainy-season fuchsia PVC handbag from Fossil doesn’t warrant a storage bag.) Dear Husband then suggested I research, while at the Breakfast Table, Handbag Storage Systems online.
I told him there are some wacky ideas out there. Furthermore, I am not one to fall into a faint on the floor and suffer an anxiety attack at the sight of accessories looming at me in a chaotic mess. I simply flee the scene! In this rare case, when confronted with fight-or-flight, I choose flight.
With my warm cup of tea, I Duck-Ducked the topic of Purse Storage Ideas. I “went” to a place called The Spruce. Dear Husband informed me that this site is a good resource. It then occurred to me that my spousal unit was much more savvy, indeed more knowledgeable, than I, who know nothing, about the online world of Home Improvement websites.
In honor of this day, dedicated to all fathers, I would like to thank the manly art of methodically dealing with the world — online or elsewhere — for granting to one adult male, among many, the heroic chance to rescue a woman with her ongoing need for organization.
Chivalry is not dead! The Spruce really spruced me up! And I, an individual who shuns labels, have decided to go with Dear Husband’s suggestion of LABELING the storage sac of each handbag.
