Datebook: Monday, July 16th ~ 2007

Two weeks until Lake Placid.

It is now time to make the lists.

There are two of course: Things to do and Things to pack.

Under “Things to Do” are the usual. Get the car serviced (oil change and tire rotation). Hair cut and highlights. Eyebrow waxing. Manicure and Pedicure. Go shopping—this requires 3 sub-lists of Grocery Store (Juice, soda, Granola bars) Pharmacy (disposable razors, travel toothpaste, new issues of Us and People all with Jessica Simpson on the cover it seems, snacks for the trip up), and the Liquor store (wine, Seagram’s mixers, and maybe miniatures for those moments that come up during the week that require celebration or oblivion).

The “Things to Pack” list is much smaller. My wants and needs have changed through the years. I now want to be comfortable and hope for some style, but if I have to choose-- I go with comfortable. This means there is elastic somewhere in each of my ensembles—linen with elastic, lycra with elastic….

I also now only pack three pair of shoes. Nine years ago, on our first trip north, I packed seven pairs of shoes or one for each outfit. I also used to try to coordinate wearing the same color as my daughter’s costume, which I now admit may have been a little weird and like a tradition from a medieval jousting tournament—luckily my daughter was only nine at the time.
Although we are there for six days, I still need to pack about 10 outfits. The extra are for the moments when my daughter looks at me before we leave the room and asks,

“Are you wearing that?”

There are some implications you cannot ignore in life, like when someone asks if you have eaten onions for lunch, and you haven’t.

My daughter has impeccable taste even if she only wears a size zero and cannot fathom the necessity to “minimize” anything. Still, I try to stall the inevitable.

“I planned to.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She comes over and tries to make some adjustments, she tries to push some things into new places, and tug some fabric away from other areas. This doesn’t work of course so she gives me a little smile. A minute, petite, size zero, extra small little curve of the lips.

I could take that moment and remind her that when she was six she used to wear socks with her jelly shoes (always making sure the toe line was perfectly even) and wear a sweater buttoned at the neck like a super hero cape. I could remind her that she wore her Jasmine Halloween costume until Thanksgiving weekend, even though it was made of polyester and the tie strings in the back were uneven.

“Did you pack anything that you didn’t get at a craft show?”

“This is art! The fabric was hand-dyed and the gold paint symbolizes growth and rebirth.”

“But this is Lake Placid. A moose is the motif here…but if you want to wear that, it’ll be fine”.

I imagine all of the fisherman driving through Lake Placid on their way to the various fishing spots, stopping for the ice dancers to cross the road from the Golden Arrow to get to the rink. The ice dancers, in full make-up, wearing their OD costumes this year that seem to consist of Riverdance, yodeling, belly-dancing, African-drums, Tibetan monks, and I take pity.
“Perhaps it is too much,” I murmur.

Maybe I’ll add to my liquor store list, something at adds a bold, yet fruity flavor to the dressing process.

Mombo