Fashion During the Pandemic

Goodness, I could barely type the title with a straight face! What fashion? Yes I started out with the best of intentions, but you know what they say about that.

All the experts said that just because you're home: do the same things you would do as if you were going to the office. So up early, shower, get dressed and head for my workspace and working at 8.

This worked for about a week, and then my will got less and less. Up not as early, bird bath, leggings and sweatshirt and working at 8.

Then, as the shelter in place dragged on, some mornings became roll off of couch, stumble into the work area and hope there were no Zoom meetings scheduled. If there was a virtual meeting, 15 minutes before I would go into the bathroom to make myself presentable from the waist up and be camera ready by the time I logged into Zoom. I was doing...okay.

But as the pandemic wore on, the hardest hit for me was hair salons being closed. This was not good news for my hair. After a while it looked like Victoria was curled up on my head, which was not the look I was going for. I continued to moisturize and brush and what not but my hair waved the white flag and said 'good luck'! Thank goodness my salon finally reopened and I was able to tame my mane.

However, when the weather turned sub-Saharan and stayed that way: I knew wardrobe was going to be an issue. Even though my normal body temperature runs low, I run warm. So when the heat index is over 100, humidity is high and it's in the 90s finding something to wear is problematic. After all: if you're cold you can put on more clothes but if you're hot there's only so much you can take off in public before you're arrested.

Thankfully I have a lot of tank dresses and sleeveless dresses. But some of them are knit and no one wants to wear that fabric when it's 94 degrees. The ones that are cotton should be cooler, but that material sticks to you and heaven forbid you forget to un-tuck whatever got molded to a crevice! I have no idea why I have summer maxi dresses, when that's like wrapping your whole body in a sheet. Not refreshing! And then I was looking for a certain black and white print dress and thought I saw it through the side of a tubby. Yay! I lifted the lid a crack and pulled it out.

What I actually pulled out was a dress I had never seen before. It was a blue dress with white stripes. It looked like a beach cover up but I don't go to the beach. There was no price tag on it; and without my glasses I couldn't even read the label. So I asked Brie, "Is this yours? Have you seen it before?" She answered, "Nope! When did you buy it?" "I don't think I did!" But you know what? I threw that mystery dress on and kept it moving!

Even though the college is closed right now, I am able to work there a couple of days a week. The first day I was there I saw the Business Manager and she was wearing jean shorts. Eureka!! If that woman can wear shorts on campus, so can Rita! Until we reopen, that is. Dilemma solved!

Now I just need to hope that the weather cools before we actually reopen to the public. Otherwise I'll have to take scissors to those maxi dresses!