New Year’s Day

Well so far it looks like 2013 is shaping up to be a long-sleeved pencil dress kind of a year. Which is… a little odd for the rest of you, I guess (Terry, for instance, just isn’t sure whether he can pull off a pencil dress…), but just fine by me: it’s one of my favourite shapes, after all, and I’m building up a small (but long-sleeved) collection of this style of dress, which will hopefully see me through many a winter to come. Assuming I can stay away from the Haribo mix, that is, and so far it’s not looking very likely. So sweet, but also so sour!  And fruit is one of the essential food groups, right? Ahem.

Now, I don’t generally play “favourites” with my clothes, so whatever you do, don’t tell the rest of them I said this, but of all of the dresses I own, this one is definitely one of my favourites. For now, anyway. As well as being beautifully made, in the most gorgeous, thick fabric, with a cunning little zip at the hem (so you avoid getting into situations like this one…), I just love the sheer simplicity of it, and the fact that something so totally plain can be dressed up and made to look special. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to wear it, and I figured the start of a New Year was the perfect excuse, because obviously if you’re going to be consuming a ton of food, the best thing to wear is a pale-coloured dress, which will stain easily, no? I swear when I walked through the door for our traditional New Year’s Day dinner, my family all started crossing themselves and muttering prayers under their breath, and I’m pretty sure I saw my dad hiding the ketchup and red wine in the garage. I DID consider simply cutting a hole in a sheet and popping my head through it, but in the end I opted for a couple of strategically draped tea towels. That’s my standard dinner-time look, actually. Sometimes I wonder why I bother buying actual CLOTHES, when it would be so much simpler to just cut out the middle-man and buy a selection of overalls and aprons. Maybe with polka dots, say. Or stripes.

Anyway, as luck would have it (And I’m pretty sure it WAS just dumb luck, and nothing at all to do with me…) the dress managed to get through dinner unscathed, and will live to see another day. As for New Year’s day, well, it was a pretty good one, all things considered. My mum almost lost an eye removing a rogue contact lens, and Rubin woke Terry and I up in the middle of the night with what I will simply refer to as an “upset stomach” and allow you to fill in the foul-smelling, gag-inducing blanks yourselves, but there was lots of food, lots of wine, and it was basically a bit like Christmas, only without the pressure to buy people gifts. And, well, with a whole lot more dog poop. Yes.

We’ve been telling ourselves the whole half-blinded mother/erupting dog incidents were NOT omens of doom for the rest of the year. I mean, it COULD still turn out to be a friendly dragon, despite the slightly less-than-auspicious start, couldn’t it? A fluffy, friendly, long-sleeved-pencil-dress-wearing dragon. Fingers crossed, everyone…