The Adventures of the Little Indian Girl

I have always apparently loved pockets. Mom's favourite story she recounts about me and my temperament involves pockets. I was maybe 3 years old but not more than 4. I spent the night throwing up. Mom had changed me couple of times. I was miserable and crying uncontrollably. It was somewhere around 3am during my fourth change or something, mom put on an outfit for me, a dress? She wasn't sure. She wanted to sleep. And said outfit had a pocket. I stopped my crying for the moment. Put my hand in it, looked up in wonder at mom and gave her the biggest smile and said, "it's a pocket!" And although I didn't stop throwing up, apparently I stopped my crying.

A pocket. Never to be found again on a dress, on a salwar kameez, nor on a langa blouse - any outfit a girl in India would wear in the 1970-80s. Saris were more creative, you just use the pallu (the part that goes over the shoulders) to tie items in, or tuck it into your blouse. still. I think my uniform shirt had a pocket? I don't remember. And when we moved to Rome, I loved pockets in jackets. I noticed the boys had more pockets than girls. But it wasn't really a big deal then because we hardly ever wore the jackets we had.

In Singapore, our school skirts didn't have pockets. And unless we had a religious objection, girls (and female teachers) could only wear skirts (it did change for the teachers though). But you know what did have pockets? Culottes. And you know there were only two girls in all of high school who wore them. One was me. All because it had pockets and I needed them for my hanky since I had terrible year-round allergies in my teens. I wasn't going to put my snotty handkerchief in my breast pocket! I was ridiculed enough as it is. So, I adorned the cullotes instead. It didn't reduce the ridicule. But they didn't bother me because I really didn't care. Pockets were important. (And ha! to them, apparently culottes are making a big comeback! egads!)

And after moving to Hawai'i, I forgot my love for pockets, because well, hard to insist on pockets on swimsuits. It doesn't make sense.

In India too, women didn't get pockets. Most of us got our salwar kameezes tailored. And tailors would refuse to give us pockets because they couldn't apparently. Men had pockets in their kameezes. So, it's not the sewing machine that couldn't do it. Anyway, we had other bigger issues to worry about.

And then FabIndia came around. They have done some amazing work and have great outfits. And we women finally got pockets, in the salwars and the kameezes but not leggings, well for obvious reasons - there I agree with no pockets! And I only shop with those who give me pockets. I have stopped going to tailors who twist a face into disgust when I request a pocket. There are other tailors who will do it. And they are losing their livelihood to the ready made industry, and so they kind of have to. And yet there are still more who don't give women pockets. I don't get why.

But apparently it's not just an Indian thing. It's an universal thing. When I first got here and looked at winter jackets. I noticed men got an inner breast pocket, and a ton of others that are actually usable. We didn't. My new jacket I got two months ago, finally has a breast pocket - for the smartphone/headphones!

We still have big issues we as a world have to face. But yay for these small victories!

And for the men, they should not be ridiculed for man-purses, because we are tired of carrying all their stuff. 

You know, how you find that one pair of jeans that fits and you feel like THE happiest woman in the world?! Jeans shopping is my least, absolutely least favourite of clothes shopping.

And thanks to voyageofdreams comment, I haven't worn jeans in forever. I don't even know where they are! My wardrobe is filled now with dresses!! I really did go all out!! I finally wore my jeans capri pants last week after a month!! They are more forgiving!

ah well, but this post is not about me but about D feeling like the happiest girl in the world. We FINALLY found like three pair of shorts that actually fit her. Fair enough, I only looked at target and bought like 10 of which three fit. Fit in a sense they are not just sliding off. It seems someone complained about the elastic being too elastic-y to Target? And so now all their elastic are not-at-all-elasticy, it's a decorative piece.

So, this morning I can just picture D going to her favourite teacher and showing off her shorts that finally fit her!!! While I have to donate 4-5 of them to goodwill. Silly me for assuming that all 4Ts would be created the same by the same company, removed tags and washed them. Ah well, some one else will benefit.

I really need to clean up the sewing machine and add my own elastic bands..... It will happen in time for winter!

D absolutely refuses to wear dresses. We have two (full sleeves) dresses that she had since fall, one I had purchased and one was a gift. These past 8 months she has worn them twice.

The one time she wore it she insisted because her friend at school also wore one. But you know, she never sees me wear a dress. Never.

Plus she knows she can't slide down a slide smoothly without pants/leggings on and hence even shorts are out of the question! ah the priorities of a little one...

oh dear me! I went and spent $120 at the thrift store!!! The whole point is to be thrifty and I have no idea how I spent that much! But you can imagine how much stuff I got too!! Way too much!!!

I love shopping for D. If you see my cart it will look like I have twins...a boy & a girl! :P D & I are completely ready for snow this winter! To play in the snow!! She has snow boots & pants and a beautiful woolen (actually woolen, not polyester) jacket! I have boots too that will (should anyway) keep me warm, with nice woolen (yes, actual wool and not acrylic or polyester) sweaters! I already have a woolen jacket.

My sensitivity to cold got worse last winter. None of the fancy gloves have helped. This year I will have to fork out and get ski gloves that have wool in them! Hope I never lose them and should last me ten years! That's usually how my clothes go too. I have stuff I have worn for a decade! It embarrasses my dad to a point who sends me shopping, but heck it still looks nice, then I still wear it! My hubby is just like me. A pair made in heaven! ;)

So, it usually gives me a reason to be unthrifty and so you can imagine what a thrift store is! It's like I found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! They actually had boots that I liked in a size 5! (It still was a little big for me, but that's how life is)!! Yes, my feet are small!

oh yay! My first shopping trip in a shop in months too! I don't like shopping actually. Now I need to get a new pair of jeans too...the ones I got last year in India are tad bit too tight. I could get back on the treadmill and exercise, which I really need to, as my knee is acting up too. But yeah....

But I did enjoy the shopping, which I finished in 45 minutes!! That's a long time for me!! hah haha...

Blizzard... you are stuck at home. You get tired of the minute-by-minute of weather updates showing all day on all the local channels. I think I preferred the soap opera that would be playing at the time. But really, why do we need to hear, "it's snowing! It's windy! Another inch has accumulated! Look at those idiots out in the snow! You really shouldn't be out if you don't need to!" all day! I can look out my window and see it's snowing a lot. It's windy, visibility is poor. No normal person would go out in the blizzard. But apparently we need to be reminded every minute by someone who is not following his/her own advice! 

So, what do you do?! Go shopping online of course! I shopped for clothes, a new phone, and a few other things. I felt ever so productive! 

The aftermath showed a lot of packages that seemed to have left the respective warehouses but just didn't want to be tracked/found. It made the news! Packages sitting in some crate somewhere in UPS or USPS or FedEx lots. Completely understandable I guess. Glad I did enough shopping to qualify for free shipping and so fine, I can't really complain nor can they really do much about it.

I was at the gym the other morning. I saw the usual UPS guy get out of his truck. Usually he comes out with maximum of 10 packages on a "heavy" day. This morning, three days after the blizzard had passed and the roads were getting better, he came out with two cart full of packages. There must have been at least 30 packages in each! It took him over 45 minutes to distribute. And by then I had finished my routine! Then came the USPS man with nearly double the number of packages. Ok, maybe 1.5 times!

Slowly our packages have been trickling in. One package for me was left in the management office, who store the USPS boxes in a separate store room which is locked after office hours. As I got the key to the room and went to get my packages, I was just astounded at the mountain of packages waiting to be picked up by other residents! So, I had to go through at least 15 or so boxes/packages of all sizes and shapes till I found mine! 

Either this was really a backlog or also a culmination of people like me who took being stuck at home to do their shopping online! 

And so the clothes I ordered came...and these brands I usually get have gone and changed the sizes I normally get on me. So, now I have to spend tomorrow figuring out return policies. sigh. what a waste.