A Cross Between Rachel Zoe and a Drill Sargeant…

10/25/09

Actually got OFF the frontier yesterday. We all piled into the truck and headed to town. Hubby calls it going to Houston, but really we never got all the way there. Just The Woodlands, but hey- it was civilization and this girl can’t complain.

I typically ‘go to town’ every other weekend, at least to The Woodlands, rarely all the way to Houston if I’m without hubby. The drive is too long each way for me by myself to do it too often. I don’t know why, it just is… anyways, yesterday we had to go to town and I was thrilled to get off the ranch and not have to cook dinner.

Hubby hardly ever leaves the front gates of the ranch. He is perfectly happy to ride his tractors, doctor his calves and horses, mend fences, bale hay and watch the world go by.  Weeks on end can go by and he can never see a traffic light or fellow Texans and he’s perfectly content. I, on the other hand, would (and did) go stir-crazy. I need to see bodies that walk on two legs as opposed to four, and get lost in a sea of traffic from time to time…

So yesterday we headed to Conroe to pick up an ice maker that was waiting for us at Kiva and then to shop for rugs for the log cabin. The furniture for the house is being delivered little by little and it’s time to find some rugs. I need a ‘honker’ (yes, that would be a large rug, and that’s my only way to describe it) for the living room and probably a 9X12 for the dining room. Want kilim or dhurrie, both styles are compatible with this formal-yet-ranch-looking home I’ve created. I found something I liked in The Woodlands at the Oriental Rug store. Thank you to all of the people that showed me probably a zillion rugs. I am one of those highly visual people that will “know it when I see it”. Which means that I have to look at EVERYTHING. While I happily talked about knots per inch and lambswool and Turkish rugs and everything else, Hubby and my son stared at me, captivated by my Other Side. I was in ‘designer mode’ and they were mesmerized by my knowledge of rugs. Hey- I worked in the high-end furniture business for ten years! A thing or two rubbed off on me!

Once I was happy that there were several selections for the living room that would work (next week they will bring the actual rugs here to the house so I can see them in the room before I make my final selection), we quickly went to Pottery Barn. It was a whirlwind trip though, as we had the SubZero ice maker strapped in to the bed of the truck and didn’t want it stolen (though it weighs a ton and it would have probably been fine). The valet guy agreed to watch the truck for 10 minutes as I zipped through Pottery Barn. In the catalog, there was a rug that I really liked for the dining room and before I order it, I wanted to see it in person. They had it, and it’s perfect.

It was when we left there that things got alittle stressful. Hubby had had ample time now in all of our rug shopping, to assess my wardrobe choice. I was wearing men’s jeans that were faded and frayed and just a tad shorter than they should be (because they shrunk in the dryer and I have a 35″ inseam which is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to shop for), a black sweater, and my black cowboy boots. On our ride out of Pottery Barn and to Macaroni Grill to grab an early dinner, he asked me where the “awful jeans” came from, and if I had gotten dressed in the dark. I sat quietly because I didn’t want to fight on my lovely day off the frontier…

At Macaroni Grill, Kiddo ordered (and devoured) a whole pizza, while Hubby ate pasta bolognese AND a small side of fettucine alfredo. I had the ‘simple salmon’, which is just about my favorite, simple, healthy food. A grilled salmon steak, steamed broccoli and asparagus, and a wedge of lemon. Yum.

Walking out of there, we ran into my friend Peter from the Museum, his wife, and her brother. Nice people. Really funny and I thoroughly enjoy them.

Back into the truck after making sure the ice maker was still on the truck bed (it was), we headed down the interstate, bound for the ranch. As ZZ Top blared over the speakers (Kiddo’s fave music), Hubby launched back into his critique of my wardrobe. Somehow in all of this, he mentioned my jeans being shaped like a box and that they look awful on me.

Mind you, I have thick skin. The criticism isn’t horrific and in many ways, he’s right. They are men’s jeans and not cut for a woman’s body. So his ‘box’ reference isn’t too far off and I know it. And you have to know my husband, he thinks it is his universal destiny to help me to be a better me. This is where the rub is. I don’t necessarily always want to be improved and fussed over. Sometimes, I just want to throw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and go look at rugs. Maybe I don’t care about my appearance all of the time, and I’m certainly not a high-maintenence kind o’ gal. That is one quality about me that is both a love-and-hate with Hubby. He loves that I’m not high-maintenence but every so often he wishes that I were.

But- I’m not. Sorry, big fella…

Anyways, I sat there in silence, reminding myself that if I started discussing my wardrobe choice, it would turn into a full blown argument over something really stupid and that is not worth it. It would ruin my otherwise lovely excursion ‘to town’ and frankly, I couldn’t disagree with him. My jeans ARE box-y, they’re mens. I bought them in the hopes that the 36 inseam would work for my overtly-long-legs. It did for the first few washings. Not anymore. They have shrunk. Plus, I bought cheap men’s jeans at Target, just trying out this ‘experiment’ of sorts… to see whether or not the men’s jeans would work. They obviously don’t.

About a month ago I had asked my husband where he used to buy his Levi’s. He used to wear Levi jeans exclusively until he found a Wrangler cut he liked better. He asked me why, and I explained that I have seen many women in Levi jeans and they are really cute! I wondered if they came in long lengths and where to buy them…

The man is an elephant. He doesn’t forget a thing.

As we barreled down the highway bound for home, he exited at the Outlet Mall in Conroe. I thought he was going to run through the drive-thru at McDonalds to get the Kiddo a Coke to stop his whining from the backseat the he was thirsty. Wrong. He pulled into the Outlet Mall and backed into a parking space right in front of the Levi store. Hmph.

I didn’t know there was a Levi store there.

This man who NEVER LEAVES THE RANCH knows where the Levi store is and I don’t.

We walk into the store and my husband went into stealth shopping mode. He isn’t one of those shoppers that likes to flip through everything and browse. When he shops, he is on a mission and he moves at lightning speed. I stood there, awkwardly, trying to understand what we were doing there, what he was doing, and what I was going to do about it.

It’s better not to think too much in these situations with Hubby. Better to just keep my mouth shut and go with the flow.

I quickly found myself in a large dressing room with about 500 pairs of jeans. He shouted at me in spanish from the stacks of jeans, “Pruebas TODOS los jeans y los quiero ver!” (try on ALL the jeans and I want to see them).

Normally, this would make me mad. In this bizarre shopping mode, he barks orders like a drill sargeant and I am reduced to a soldier. Not to mention the role-reversal. I am usually the Expert Shopper (remember the rug store?), especially when it comes to clothes! We’re in a WOMEN’S CLOTHING STORE for crying out loud!

But I acquiesce. I try on all of the jeans. The medium rise, the low rise, the stretch, the relaxed cut. I tried on every last style in that store and modeled them for my husband who sat there in a chair playing our son’s Nintendo and looking up every time my door opened to give me a once-over. If he liked the jeans, he’d say ‘those aren’t bad’, and if they were pretty awful, he’d start swearing in spanish….

You have to know my husband, he’s not swearing at me. He’s swearing at the jeans, the manufacturers and the fact that there are lots of long-legged women in the world. Why is it so hard to buy jeans for us?

Believe me, it has taken over a decade of marriage for me to understand that his muttering under his breath has not a thing to do with me but EVERYTHING to do with everything else. Like I said, I have thick skin. It’s a survival-instinct-thing that has strengthened over time.

Because I know that my husband’s sudden interest in my ‘box’ jeans and my under-par appearance for the day is his way of showing affection. And sometimes his social skills and diplomacy are drastically lacking because he spends day in and day out talking to bovine and equine. It is just his way. I understand this and just do as he asks because, well… frankly, he has found me several pairs of jeans that look WAY better than any I have picked out for myself.

The guy knows women’s clothes!

When he ordered me into the dressing room, he forbade me to look at any sizes. Of course, that made me look. I was horrified that he was asking me to try on jeans a size bigger than I wear. He knew I would look, so he shouted into the dressing room that he had gone up a size thinking they might hang better and give me a tad more length… not to mention be more comfortable than pouring myself into a silly number just so I could say I was still a size 10.

Genius. The jeans look MUCH better.

I made two piles. The “NO’s” and the “OK” pile, assuming that we would sift through the pairs that fit well and pick out one or two. I was thrilled because jeans don’t typically seem to fit my body very well and we had finally found a brand and style that did. As I put my box-jeans back on to go home, he came into the dressing room to take inventory of the pairs that worked.

He scooped them all up and headed to the cashier. As I collected my purse and my trusty black sweater, I figured that he would be waiting for me at the counter to tell him which pairs I wanted to choose. Imagine my surprise when he handed me the shopping bag, having paid for all of them while I finished dressing! All 5 pairs!

I stood there in disbelief for a second before I followed he and the Kiddo out of the store. I’m not used to making mass purchases, especially for myself. I stepped up into the truck and said ‘thank you Honey, I didn’t need all of these jeans!’ to which he said, “Now- let’s do something about the rest of you… when we get home, you need to throw that black, shapeless sweater into the garbage”. We pulled into the Tommy Hillfiger store and just like Rachel Zoe with a spanish accent, he played stylist and sent me into the dressing room with armfuls of sweaters, pants, blouses, and well… just about one of everything from their women’s shop.

The funny thing is this: the things he pulls off the racks are clothes that I wouldn’t look twice at. When I try them on, they look like they were made for me. They look good. He’s got a darned good eye.

Two shopping bags later, we left. The day off the frontier that was meant for rug shopping ended with a zillion new options for my closet that I didn’t choose myself, but that I am quite pleased with. Jeans that are long enough! New sweaters! New pajamas!

It was hard to keep my mouth shut and not fight back when he was critiquing my wardrobe, but I’m glad I did. I have to admit that he has an excellent eye and he does want me to look and feel good about myself. As most Moms do, I tend to worry and fuss over everything and everybody else, and hardly give myself or my own needs a thought. Even though his way of pampering doesn’t always sound as nice and flowery as a woman might want, I know he loves me and it comes from his heart. The words he chooses and his delivery could use a little diplomacy, but I’ll take what I can get!

As we finally headed home and we re-hashed all of our purchases and he admitted he had gone alittle wild buying everything, he said “well, that’s why I don’t leave the ranch very often”!

Because when he does, it’s quite a financial setback! But man I’m going to look good in my new duds-

THANKS HONEY!