Packing for the Tidy Cat Express

On Sunday, I am leaving for a five-day bike tour with five friends.

We will bike around 280 miles through north central Nebraska, and we will haul everything we need -- sleeping bags, tents, camp stove, food, clothing, bike tools/gear, etc. -- in panniers fashioned from Tidy Cat kitty litter buckets. Tidy Cat buckets are both plentiful (if you have cats, which I do) and waterproof, and they have the advantage of being far less expensive than traditional panniers (free, if you have a bunch of Tidy Cat buckets laying around and a brother who is willing to make them for you and everyone else on the trip).

I've gone on various supported bike tours before, and I've gone on extended camping trips before, but never at the same time. I can be a relatively light packer when I need to be, but I'm a girly girl at heart. Which is making packing both difficult and stressful.

I want to make sure I pack everything I need to be at least moderately comfortable on a bike/camping trip in Nebraska in July. I also want to make sure I have all the bike stuff and camping stuff I need, and that all of this stuff fits easily inside two Tidy Cat buckets without weighing a billion pounds and thus slowing me way, way down.

And (VANITY ALERT), I would like to pack one outfit that does not look like biking/camping clothes. It doesn't have to be fancy, but I would also prefer it not be made of spandex or nylon. I would also like to pack some shampoo, and maybe even a very small amount of makeup (powder, lip gloss, mascara) so I feel sort of like my normal self when we see other humans.

So far, I've begun by throwing things I think I might want to take into a laundry basket, which I'll cull down to the necessities the day before departure. Preliminary (and very, very incomplete) packing featured above includes: various articles of biking apparel, world's smallest bag of toiletries, thin striped top (this is my non-biking apparel), leggings, bike tube, rain jacket, and fanny pack. I'll also pack a jacket, some wool socks, sunscreen, bug spray and my beloved track pants and my sleeping bag (presuming I can find it in my basement).

If you have ever packed for a five-day self-supported bike trip (or backpacking trip, camping trip, etc.), this would be a great time to chime in.

Getting ready in the car

For now, I'm a commuter. I hope to not be for much longer (do you want to buy my house?), but for now, I'm back and forth between Lincoln and Omaha so often that I can tell you which varieties of Clif bars are available at pretty much every gas station between Wood Park in Lincoln and the Omaha World-Herald, and I have both Lincoln and Omaha's NPR affiliate schedules memorized.

I have also fine-tuned the art of getting ready in the car.

I regularly fix my hair and touch up my makeup in the car. Less often, I also brush my teeth and even change entire outfits in the car. I was talking to a friend about this the other day, herself a former commuter very accustomed to getting ready in the car. There is an art to it, we decided.

First, some givens:

-- The weather hates you

-- No matter how awesome your outfit looked when you left your house (60 miles away) in the morning, you are probably going to either hate it or have spilled something on it by the time whatever post-work event you've committed to rolls around. Or you shoes will have given you gigantic blisters. Or your belt will have broken. Et cetera.

-- After eight hours at your desk, your hair is flat and your skin is greasy.

I have taken to having the following things in my car at (almost) all times: an umbrella, a roll of paper towels, a pair of relatively comfortable shoes, a plain T-shirt, a pair of big blingy earrings to dress up the T-shirt (should the need arise), a hoodie, toothbrush and toothpaste, water, hairspray, pressed powder, mascara and lipstick (actually, the lipstick stays in my purse, where it won't melt). With these things, I can make myself look presentable and somewhat appropriately dressed for most unexpected post-work occasions. I've become pretty good at changing discreetly in the car (though a gas station bathroom works, too, in a pinch). And also at using lipstick as blush and chapstick as eyeshadow (a trick I'm pretty sure I learned from Sassy magazine, though it may have been Mademoiselle. In any case, RIP, magazine). For the summer, I think adding a swim suit and beach towel to my survival kit might be wise.

I feel simultaneously like a bag lady and like I'm never *quite* prepared -- if I also happened to have a pair of shorts, or a plain black skirt, or a bigger/smaller/dressier/beachier bag THEN I would really have everything I needed. Alas, my whole closet won't fit in my trunk, so for now, I'm sticking to the above survival kit. I know I'm not the only person who has one of these. What's in yours?

Swap

My friend Jill is a pro clothing swapper.

She and some friends in her adopted hometown of Denver periodically cleaned out their closets (and jewelry boxes and even make-up drawers), hauled everything to someone's house, and had sort of a party as they picked through each other's castoffs.

She got to the point where she barely shopped, she just swapped. And then last fall she moved back to the Midwest and the swapping stopped.

Last night, though, she organized a swap in Omaha. She and four other girls (myself included) show up with laundry baskets and shopping bags of tops that that didn't fit right, dresses that weren't quite the right length or color, perfumes we'd been given for Christmas and had never worn.

Jill, champion swapper that she is, set out snacks and wine and arranged these cast-off items alluringly on the dining room table, the coffee table, on couches and chairs. And then she set us loose. 

For maybe 20 minutes, we rummaged through the sweaters and skirts and pants and dresses and tank tops and cardigans and pajama pants, and I don't even know what else. We constantly asked each other "why are you getting rid of THIS?" and then explained that the color was wrong or the cut was weird or that our boobs were too small/big for the clothing article in question. Or whatever. And then we moved the party into the kitchen and talked for like two hours. It was really fun, and everyone went home with a big pile of stuff. And it made me wonder why I hadn't jumped on the swapping bandwagon when the trend first hit years ago.

Most of the stuff I took home was stuff I know I'll wear -- striped tops, cardigans, a couple of plain T-shirts. I have plenty of all of these things, yet I often find myself buying new ones out of boredom (or something), and swapping seems like a good way to potentially break that bad habit. But better than that, it was a great excuse to get together with some great girls. Thanks, Jill!

(Somewhat blurry photo courtesy of my dumb Blackberry)

Summertime craft project (and another use for my iron)

In the summertime, I feel like making things.

Cookies, pin cushions, embellished T-shirts, simple sewing projects, bread, jelly.

It is because of 4-H.

Each spring throughout my pre-teen and teenage years, I ambitiously imagined myself sewing away the hot summer days, returning to school donning amazing Hawaiian print shorts and elaborately puff-painted tees. I would sign up for many, many projects -- varied projects, each requiring a blend of things I liked (sewing, painting, measuring ingredients) and things I hated (threading the sewing machine, ironing, kneading). Then, with county fair deadlines looming ominously, I would procrastinate until my 4-H projects became basically a miserable four-day all-nighter.

Results were mixed.

Even so, I mostly look back on 4-H fondly, and the organization left me with two things:

1) The aforementioned desire for summertime craft projects

2) A fairly clear memory of basic sewing skills.

Over the past few months, I've thrifted a number of things that needed small alterations, and yesterday, in a fit of 4-H nostalgia, I decided to hem a skirt I bought a few weeks ago (see above photos) for $1 (!) This involved several extremely easy steps:

1) Deciding on a new length (50 cm, bringing the formerly awkward ankle-length to just above the knee)

2) Drawing a line (measuring with  my little sewing tape measure from the waist, instead of from the hem, just like 4-H said to! or possibly that was home-ec)

3) Chopping off the excess fabric

4) Folding the fabric over once, measuring to keep the roll even, pinning, and ironing

5) Folding the fabric again, and again measuring and ironing (bonus: another reason to use my new iron)

6) hemming.

I loved the result (which I didn't bother posting, because it looks basically exactly like the second photo and my crummy Blackberry camera didn't capture the detail of the hem, anyway). I wore it Monday, and I'm hoping to find a whole bunch more of these so I end up with a summertime fleet of full, knee-length skirts.

An ironing love story

I have never enjoyed ironing. In fact, I have always actively avoided ironing. For many many years, I tried to buy only things that did not require ironing. Clothes that probably should have been ironed spent a lot of time bouncing around in the the dryer with a damp towel. I often wore slightly wrinkled things anyway.

My mom bought me an iron of my very own when I started college. I used it mostly for basic sewing projects, and before internship and job interviews. Then I ironed a synthetic black skirt with the heat too high, melting the skirt and ruining the iron. I bought a replacement at a thrift store, but it didn't work very well, and no one wants to iron for 20 minutes and still end up with a wrinkled shirt. My ironing board sat unused in my guest bedroom, except for when I needed it for craft projects or when the cat wanted to use it for a bed.

AND THEN....I house sat for some friends, and after living out of a duffel bag for a week, could not pretend any longer that my clothing did not desperately need an iron. So I used theirs and...

It was the best iron ever.

I didn't realize that having a really good iron -- a heavy duty one with a good shape and good steam -- made such an enormous difference. I asked my friend what kind of iron she had (a Rowenta, as it turned out), and went out and bough one that was nearly identical. Last night, I ironed two year's worth of hand washed silk tops, a bunch of very thin knit tops, a couple of button downs. I ironed until midnight. And tonight, I shall move on to pants.

I feel a bit silly writing so much about an iron, but it was a small thing that I can already tell will make a big difference the the type of clothing I wear, as well as how often I wear some of my favorite things. Have you ever bought a household appliance or gadget that ended up changing a part of your life for the better?

The coolest girl in Lincoln/Omaha

Eight years ago, I made an appointment at a salon chosen at random from the Lincoln phone book. I was young and broke, and hadn't had my hair cut in an entire year. I didn't care what happened to it, just that something happened to it.

When I showed up for my cut, I was greeted by a tiny girl with long dark hair. She had bleached a star over her ear. She also had thick, heavy bangs and leopard-print tattoos. I immediately trusted her to do whatever she wanted.

That visit, she gave me layers and bangs. Over the next few years she gave a few bobs and many incarnations and colors of a messy pixie cut. Every time, it worked. It wasn't too heavy. It made my fine hair look thicker. She did weird stuff sometimes -- crazy colors, asymmetrical cuts -- but she knew how much crazy I was comfortable with and worked within my personal crazy spectrum. I referred tons of friends to her, and even an extremely snobby friend conceded she was an artist as much as a stylist. And she always looked awesome in vintage dresses or shredded jeans and her ever-changing jet black hair. One of my friends began calling her "the coolest girl in Lincoln."

Then the coolest girl in Lincoln left town.

Not far, but to Omaha -- far enough that it was impractical to see her after work or even on weekends. I found someone else to cut my hair, then someone else, then someone else. Some haircuts were good or really good, and most haircuts were OK, but none were as good as hers.

Then I moved here, too.

My friend who called her the coolest girl in Lincoln had also moved to Omaha and begun referring to her as the coolest girl in Omaha. One of the first things he asked me was if I would return to her to get my hair cut.

Last night, I did.

Her hair was still jet-black, she still wore vintage dresses with tights and heels. And she gave me the best haircut I'd had probably since she moved away -- another incarnation of the messy pixie cut, similar to the way she'd cut it before.

The style, the conversation, the weirdness of remembering what someone's scissors feel like in your hair,  made me feel both more like myself and also as though I really live here now. Welcome to Omaha, haircut. I have missed you.

Thrift lunch

On Fridays, my friend Sarah and I often skip regular lunch and go to a thrift store instead.

Creatively, we call this "thrift lunch." She's written about this before.

This week, we went yesterday. Both of us had just finished writing long stories we'd worked on for what seemed like ages. We both felt drained, in need of a break. And there is something weirdly therapeutic about methocially sorting through racks of clothing, shelves of housewares, mountains of scarves and belts.

We started thrift lunch a few years ago when we both worked in Lincoln. We didn't know each other very well well then, but we both liked thrift stores. Our style is similar but not identical, we often wear the same size but we have different frames. These are good attributes for thrifting buddies.

We always started in the purse section. Then the tops and sweaters, then the skirts, then the shoes, then the housewares. We saved the jewelry and boutique items for last. We bought 1970s polyester tops, vintage shoes, Pyrex mixing bowls, countless Christmas decorations, and many, many vintage Coach bags.

We talked about mundane stuff -- weekend plans, work deadlines. We talked about bigger stuff, too. We became better friends.

She started working in Omaha, at the World-Herald, late last summer. I was still in Lincoln, sad to lose my thrifting friend. Six months later, I began working here, too. My very first week of work, thrift lunch returned.

At a Goodwill in Council Bluffs, we found brass bracelets, high-waisted red pants, a blazer with brass buttons. We talked each other into and out of assorted purchases. We returned to work high on our bargains. We again looked at the purses first, then the tops, then the skirts and shoes, housewares and jewelry.

This week we went to a Salvation Army. I found a bunch of great khaki skirts, all from the early 80s, two with pink Kleenex in the right pocket. They had to have belonged to the same person. Sarah suggested perhaps an elementary school librarian.

Next week, I shall look like a librarian all week long.