Wrangler butts drive me nuts

It suddenly occurred to me last week that I had exactly two pairs of functional, fitting jeans, and one pair of pants that weren't jeans and weren't Nice Work Pants. So last weekend, we went in search of new jeans for me (and some for Dan).

Saturday's excursion was singularly unproductive. Every singe pair I tried on, everyplace we went, felt like a pair of tights made out of jean material. Now, I understand that jeans go through fashion seasons and styles just like anything else. In my opinion, jeans are comfortable pants that are acceptable to wear in public. Personally, I don't find tights made out of denim to be comfortable. I'm not "slim through hip and thigh" like every pair of jeans I tried on seemed to be. Even going up two sizes to fit the hip/thigh area created a bizarre waist gap.

Look, I'm not asking for a lot. I want a pair of jeans that look good on my ass, and aren't creating sausage casings for my legs. I want to be able to sit in them and still have circulation. I like a bootcut or flared style to help counteract my enormous calves, and a dark rinse. Once upon a time, it wasn't that hard to find what I was looking for, but Saturday was an exercise in futility. When we came home empty-handed, Dan brought up the idea of a brand of jeans I'd tried on before and never purchased, Cruel Girl.

Cruel Girl jeans are sold at the local cowboy superstore, Shepler's. So on Sunday, we went down to the cowboy store and I tried on about 89983049835 pairs of jeans in every imaginable size, shape, rise, and iteration, and at least 6 different brands. I gotta say, if you're looking for quality jeans at a decent price and a wide variety of brands, Shepler's in Denver is a good place to go. Dan managed to find a new brand of jeans he liked, too, and I found one pair that I decided I had to get. They were 30 bucks and comfy as hell. They weren't Cruel Girl, though, which I decided were just took expensive for one pair. Then, when we got home, Dan found that the brand he liked (Cinch) and Cruel Girl are made by the same company, a local company, that has an outlet in North Denver.

On Monday I took the opportunity to head down the 16th street mall and look for jeans at TJ Maxx and Cross Dress for Less. After several false starts, I found a pair that made my ass look fantastic for $20 on clearance (Seven brand!) so I bought 'em. I wore them on Tuesday, and probably should have washed them first, because they had sizing that made me itch all day and I got welts on my skin around the waistband. (They're in the wash now). And then today I had off (unpaid furlough day, and don't get me started), so we went to the outlet store that sells Cinch and Cruel Girl, and I tried on at least 20 pairs, with several I really liked, while Dan found a pair that look great on him on the clearance rack. But after buying 2 pairs of jeans already this week, and with the expense of having a Very Sick Kitty, I decided against buying any of the Cruel Girl jeans. Maybe next time.

Good things

*Tomorrow we go to New York City. I've never been. I am thoroughly excited, and will get to meet up with a few different friends while we're there. We plan to see a broadway show and eat some pizza and spend hours walking around and saying hey, I've seen that before!

*I finally finished knitting Dan's sweater, and have only some finishing touches to add (grafting the armpits together, weaving in ends, etc.) Photos forthcoming.

*After 2 solid years of looking, I finally managed to find acceptable work pants to buy. NY & Co, a store I've never actually shopped in before, had a great sale and I got 3 pairs of well-fitting work pants that don't make me look hoochie for 40 bucks this weekend. SWEET.

Whelmed, slowly shifting to the over- kind

I finished a book this week: The Android's Dream, by John Scalzi. Wil Wheaton talks about Scalzi in his blog on a semi-regular basis (I guess they are friends) which is how I'd heard of him, but Dan picked this book up at the library a few weeks ago and I read it when he was finished. Woo, one of the best and most original science fiction novels I've read in quite some time! I don't want to give too much away, but this is seriously funny (and well-plotted, well-characterized) stuff. Let's just say that several moments had me laughing out loud. Elements of the plot include a device to make farts communicate insults to an alien race, a church totally made up by a hack who wanted people to pay him money for it, an extraordinarily rare sheep, and an alien on rumspringa. If you are at all fond of humorous fiction, whether that be in a sci-fi-type setting or not, I highly recommend it.

It kind of hit me yesterday that we will be going out of town a week from Thursday and will be out of state and out of the country for nearly a month. There is so much to get done - mail to stop, kitty sitting to arrange, cleaning to do, packing and organizing. Plus there is all kinds of wedding stuff that we need to figure out when we go to CA because we both won't be there again until a week before the wedding. Plus it's Christmas (duh) and we have to figure out presents for everybody either from the internets (and have them shipped to mom's), when we get to CA, or made by either Dan or myself. Dear EEK and Monkey: Um, your giftmas presents may be a little late. By, like, a month. Dan's still finishing our invitations, and when they are finally finished we have to spend hours at my work printing them out. We have to figure out envelopes and address the envelopes and have them ready to mail when we get back from Italy.

And have I mentioned that I haven't cracked an Italy guidebook since October? We really don't have much of a trip itinerary planned, other than what city we'll be in on which dates. I guess it won't be that big of a deal to plan the trip on the plane across the pond (it's not like we'll be there during high tourist season). I was in the same boat when we went to China, but Dan had done all the planning so at least ONE of us knew what was going on. This time, we might be flying by the seat of our pants.

Speaking of pants, I am still lamenting the demise of my China pants. I bought them at a Cross Dress for Less a few weeks before our trip in 2005, and I wore them all through China, and wore them when we got back until they fell apart. Not the seams; the fabric. It wore through. That's how much I lurved those pants. I haven't had a chance to find more pants like them, but I desperately want a pair before we leave for Italy, because I don't want to deal with jeans when we're backpacking. So this weekend we have about 894085409348509 things to get done and on top of everything I need to find some damn pants. Or maybe I can do that in between all of the holiday- and socializing- and wedding-related activities in California.

I haven't even written about a really stressful thing that has been related to family and Christmas this year, but I'm not allowed to talk about it. Let's just say that planning a wedding and trying to buy nice Christmas presents and going to Italy all at the same time is both stressful and expensive. I'm kicking myself that Sunday felt like a wasted day; there's so much more that we (I) could have accomplished if I hadn't felt like poo. Oh, well, tonight there will be more projects on my needles and more progress on the invitations, and I'll pick a room and clean it when I get home (already went to the gym, so won't be going after work), and I will feel better because more got done. Maybe I'll even flip through the Tuscany book we borrowed from QIR before bed.