All dressed up ...

Yesterday I was invited to help fill a table at gala event tonight for which a friend had extra tickets. "Red carpet attire requested."

Though I knew it was going to be a fruitless exercise, I hauled out my tiny collection of vintage gowns. Vintage as in my mother went to the prom in this one, my grandmother wore that one to the Charity Ball, my great-great-grandmother got married in this other one. They don't take up a lot of space, and I've loved looking at them and trying them on my whole life, and worn a couple of them, too, so I keep them. The blue dress looks the worst on the hanger and the most fantastic on (at least I think so) even all wrinkled and not zipped all the way up. It's a wrapped sheath in cobalt satin, with a stiff sort of train-thing behind it. I could just fit into it 20 years and 20 pounds ago for a college costume ball. My grandmother was a stick.

Finally I settled on a tried and true bias-cut gown that I've worn to umpteen weddings but which still looks terrific and, more important, fits. Today I met up with my friend and we got manicures, and I bought some new makeup.

Got home. Walked the dog. Phone rang: There was a mixup, and the extra tickets for the gala were no longer available.

Phooey. At least I enjoyed my unexpected trip down memory lane. And my nails look nice!

(P.S. Mom says the blue dress, which my grandmother first wore to the Charity Ball, is also the one Mom wore to a subsequent gala ... the night my dad proposed!)