Clothes Woes

When your senses are assaulted on all sides sometimes it is just easier to focus on one small thing and examine it in depth. In this way you can focus the full might of your intellectual powers and examine an issue in depth. So, for me this time it's clothes.
Packing for our trip caused me more anxiety than anything else. What to take, what to leave behind, what would I miss. I read all the packing books and tips about colour coordinating, fabric choice, rolling versus bundling. “ Choose a few basic pieces and build around them...” I ignored all that. It took we two weeks to pack. Each day I went back and revisted the mountain of clothes I had piled in the guest room. My intention was to take away half each time I went in. With gritted teeth I took out favourite tops, pants, blouses. I wept because I knew what would happen. I would come to hate the clothes I did take. I do already and we have four months to go! Besides missing my favourite clothing the major challenge was packing for the different seasons we were going to encounter. The two sweaters, vest, raincoat and hat, jeans and scarf really came in handy in Ireland but have become something of a burden here in Turkey. Every time I lug (or I let someone else lug my luggage and feel embarrassed) I curse those bulky items.
Everything I have with me right now seems all wrong. Starting in Prague I said to A J, “Maybe I should be looking for one or two cooler dresses. I only brought one with me. "Why don't you wait until you get to Turkey?” was his most common response. So I waited...through Prauge, Vienna, Budapest, Nessabar, Bulgaria and then we were in Istanbul. After spending several glorious days in the mosques and museums I said in my most confident voice, “It's time, a dress is needed” Then the fun began. You know I'm a fairly observant person and what I've noticed is the Turkish women who are not draped in long dresses/coats/headscarves and general burka-like attire are not the skinniest women in the world thank Allah. They seem to enjoy their food and the many that I saw were as rounded as me. So imagine my horror, depression, chagrin when all the stores I went into had dresses made for sticks. Funny shaped sticks. Some of the stick dresses had lots of room for boobies and no room for the rest and the others were the reverse. But the really startling thing was the proportion of mens' to womans' clothing stores..they were ten to one for the men. It seemed a huge conspiracy all these great clothes for guys and either the stick dresses, or super sparkly, froo froo dresses for women. “Where were the cute little summer dresses,” I wailed. We left Istanbul and I was still dressless. I write this from the lobby of the Yacht hotel in Fetiyhe,Turkey. We have just completed a four day trip on the Turkish Med. We met a wonderful Turkish couple and she, with the aid of a Turkish/English dictionary told me that there were places to buy clothes we just weren't in the right spots. Hmmm, but what kind of dresses I thought? I wore my bathing suit during most of our sea time but now we are back on dry land the need for a dress has returned and having been denied so long has reached crisis proportions. AJ is off for a day of blue water diving and I when I have finished this blog am off to get a pedicure (my feet look like camel hooves)get a dress, if I'm feeling brave find a hairdresser and get a trim and maybe a colour correction.
It's hot out there. I am only going into dress shops that have AC. Trying on dresses when you are dripping is not only hard, it's dangerous..you could pull something. Wish me luck. Soon AJ will post more pics and I think he has a blog in the works too. I promise my next submission will be just a tiny bit more esoteric.