Holly frickin' hobby?

My brother-in-law, C, showed up on one of his unannounced afternoon visits today. After all, it is his house; I just work here. Upon passing by the doorway to the tiny lavender tinted bedroom that serves as my office (he laughs when I call it 'the study'), he backed up and peered in.

"What the hell kind of get-up do you have on today?"

I glanced down at my ruffled skirt, white lacy tank top and jean shirt. I was wearing footless tights which I thought complimented my new brown flats. Oh, and pink socks.

"I dunno...a skirt. What's wrong with it?" I asked, miffed as his face crinkled up in laughter.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, still laughing, and started walking down the hall again.

"I get sick of wearing jeans every day!" I yelled after him. "People who work from home want to look nice sometimes too, you know!"

He popped his head back in the doorway. "Nice? You think that looks nice?"

I looked down again. Okay, the pink socks were a bit much. "My feet were cold. It looked better without the socks."

"Jesus Kim, you look like...what's the name of them dolls, you know the kind, they wear a little bonnet on their heads?"

I shot him a look of utter disbelief. "You mean Holly Hobby?"

"Yeah! Yeah!" C looked excited. "Them dolls! Well, that's what you look like." He set off down the hall again, chuckling like an owl. Funny funny, ha ha.

I refuse to take fashion advice from a dairy technician who, as of late, has been wearing narrow legged jeans he found in the back of his closet that last saw the light of day in 1985.

When I was about 7, I had a Holly Hobby doll. She had the weirdest face - flat as a pancake, with all her features painted on. We used to toss her upside down because her dress would fly up, revealing elaborate white bloomers.

Come to think of it, I had another doll we enjoyed flipping around - she was a blonde-haired, pale faced girl wearing a pink ruffly skirt on top, but when you flipped her ass over teakettle, she became a black-skinned girl with a red kerchief overtop of dreadlocks. Now that's a pretty progressive doll for a 1970's kid to own.

Then again, my younger sister had a black Cabbage Patch Doll named...oh, what was its name? Sabine? Sabrina? (T, help me out here) I think my mother thought it would be more interesting to own than a peachy-faced one. My mother was quite ahead of her time in some ways. I will refrain, however, from posting my father's comments.

This is H.H. in her pink socks, signing off.