All Dolled Up

I shouted down the stairs to my husband, “Are you going to wear your Packer sweatshirt to the show?”

It was just a question. I wasn’t insinuating that he should change. So what if we were taking our granddaughter to the symphony downtown at the Performing Arts Center where the carpet is red and everything else is gold.

“Yeah,” he shouted up the stairs, “Just the sweatshirt. It’s not that cold out.”

I sat back in my office chair, rolling my eyes. “Ask Grandpa if he really intends to wear a sweatshirt to the PAC.” Our 7-year old granddaughter looked at me while she repeated the sentence in her head, then she twirled around and raced down the stairs.

“Nana says are you really wearing a sweatshirt to the PAC?”

Murmuring downstairs. Little girl reappears in my upstairs office.

“Grandpa says he might wear a cocktail dress.”

“Tell Grandpa maybe he could put on a nice sweater.” Little messenger pigeon flits downstairs. She returns.

“Grandpa said he’s going to wear a cocktail dress and six-inch heels.”

I hate it when he overreacts about my fashion commentary. Like he even has six inch heels.

So I don’t get it. The same guy who has be make sure the collar on his dress shirt is perfectly creased in the back so no hint of his tie is visible, who knows the husbands, hobbies, and hangnails of all the nice ladies at the dry cleaners, and who looks forward to business travel so he can get a professional shine on his Allen Edmonds at the airport, is the same guy waiting downstairs for us to go to the PAC decked out in his Packer sweatshirt and, yes, of course, his Packer hat.

Plus. Plus. He has his new running shoes on, the black ones with the flaming red shoelaces, sneakers for the fleet footed, people who want to make sure that drivers see them racing down the road in the dark trying to fit five more miles into their evening run.

But by the time I get downstairs, I see that somehow he has taken off the sweatshirt to reveal a beautifully tailored rugby shirt from 1987. Compared to the sweatshirt, it looks like a tux. I take it. One wouldn’t want to hector one’s spouse about their clothing, now, would one?

The show at the PAC was lovely, a film of The Snowman with the symphony’s accompaniment and an amazing ten-year old boy who stood in an actual tux (without the jacket) and sang a single song so perfectly, it sort of made life worth living.

Afterward, we went across the street to get hot chocolate. What I would never take time to do with my own kids because I was always intent on getting home to do five more chores, I do with our granddaughter. Don’t ask me why. So the two of us score a little table and chairs at the Starbucks next to the City’s downtown skating rink and we settle in to wait for Gramps to score the hot chocolate.

It gave me a chance to sit back and relax and make sure I got this great picture.