Woman in Hat with Veil

     We’ve been celebrating Bradley’s birthday all weekend here in Oysterville. The Big Party was yesterday which was the official/legal/real date of his fiftieth. In typical Bradley fashion, he filled the available rental houses with his friends and loved ones and cooked a ton of food and laid out the red carpet for us all. It was fun! fun! fun!
     The original plan was to dress up à la 1961. “Think of going to a cocktail party at the Kennedys,” he said.
     Not long after that, I found the perfect hat in a thrift store. Five bucks! But not long after that, plans changed somewhat and the dress-up part was off. I wore my hat anyway, of course. A five dollar investment is a five dollar investment! And besides… it had a veil!
     Putting together the rest of my outfit was hard. A hat with a veil certainly deserves a dress and these days I only have one. Really. Fortunately, it’s black with a cute little flowered chiffon jacket. It would do.
     The party was held in the house next door – one of the places Bradley had rented. (I have LOTS more to say about that, but I promised that I’d wait until tomorrow when the rental period is over…) When we walked over about six o’clock there were people standing out in the front yard talking and we stopped and chatted for a minute. On the porch, more people, more chatting. And, I’m gratified to say, lots of attention to my hat!
     As we made our way toward the front door, one of the women we’d been talking to tugged at my arm and whispered in my ear, “Your dress is on inside out.” Lordy, lordy. You just can’t take me anywhere! Fortunately, it was just the little jacket and I was able to rectify the sartorial error then and there without much ado.
     It was the tell-tale label and the seams that gave me away. When Nyel looked back to see why I wasn’t right behind him, all of the women gave him ‘that look’ and he knew immediately that he had failed in one of those husband duties. We didn’t even have to have the ‘you-never-look-at-me’ ‘that’s-not-true’ discussion.
     Thank goodness it was my hat that was the center of attention anyway!