Ruth's Diary

19/7/2010

I have a tendency of ruining things without meaning to. I still feel a pang of sadness when thinking of the time that at age 12 I proudly wore my navy Adidas ensemble. I was also excited to try out my nail varnish. But then, whoops, droplets fell onto my leggings. I had no idea that nail varnish was unwashable. Dad tried to use tough stain removers to get the droplets out. But to no avail. I ended up avoiding wearing that tracksuit, because while it was very smart the two puffy white droplets on my thighs were just too obvious and I was crushed that I could only wear it in its perfect condition for a matter of hours.

Well wouldn't you know it? 10 years later I ruined my graduation uniform. But nobody noticed. I was careful to make sure I didn't pay any attention to it. When I first got the full outfit together a few weeks ago, I was anxious to try it on. I got my ivory wedding slippers, slipped on the white tights. Then came the dress. A genuine sleeveless Chinese dress that was golden. The zip is on its side, so I got it down as far as I could...which was not as far as it could have gone. The zip goes as far as the hip. But when I tried it on I'd forgotten that, so with the zip only opened as far down as below my breasts, I slipped it on. It was tough, at one point I felt trapped, but it finally went where it was meant to. And then I discovered where the rest of the zip was. It was so well hidden dammit!

Now because of this moment of rash stupidity, I noticed soon after where some of the woven threads looked ripped and stretched. At first I was gutted, but I made no notice and didn't raise anyone's attention to it. Even more annoying, on graduation day itself I was strongly recommended to take some safety pins. I had nowhere to put them, so 3 were put in along the sewn fold at the side. I didn't need them it turned out, so there are some holes where the safety pins were. (Not large) Yesterday I went to the Baptism of my cousin Christopher, I reused my graduation outfit in order to get the most mileage out of it (so to speak). Problem is, Baptisms attract children and I was too happy to be lifting them up and bending over too suddenly during my more active moments. Parts of the dress are now scuffed and the sewn seams at the front are now coming apart.

I'm not too sad though. The dress has served its purpose and while it may not be in perfect condition anymore, I've decided to keep it. It'll certainly come into use as an outfit or something one day. I have 2 other Chinese dresses anyway, so I still have something shiny for a special occasion. ^^

In case you're wondering, I'm writing this as we're riding the Channel Tunnel. We literally spent a weekend in Germany to get to the Baptism. We're on board 'Le Shuttle' and we're still in the tunnel. Dad's leant the driver's seat back and is taking a nap. Mum's reading the paper. (Nathan isn't here.) This morning I learned the lesson of why I should still give myself deadlines or target times even if I have time to spare. At 7:30 (the time at which we thought we'd have breakfast in the hotel restaurant) Dad knocked on my hotel room door and explained he and Mum couldn't find any sign of life, so it seemed a safer bet to just go to Calais and get breakfast before boarding. All he said was "when you're ready". In my head, I thought "no hurry". Problem is, I daydream so easily when doing the most mundane things like packing away shampoo bottles or going to the toilet. (Ah, we've just surfaced.) Mum knocked on the door later and I thought Is it 8 o'clock already? Oh no, it was 15 minutes past that.

So we left soon after and arrived at Calais in time to check in for the 9:50 departure and had enough time to buy breakfast to go (tea, orange juice and pan au'chocolat) and eat it while waiting to board. So, no problems, but I was lucky this time...

 First    Previous    Next    Last
Archive    Main