Trench Deferred

Last April, while I was in Paris, my uniform consisted of black tunics and sweaters, black denim, leather riding boots, and my trusted classic camel trench. The Parisian skies are known for their unrelenting cascades of gray, in all varieties, for their caprice, suddenly bursting into loud tears of rain, then clearing up just as easily. At some point, traipsing along the streets, or perhaps enjoying an espresso or a glass of red wine in a café at a corner in some neighborhood, foreign and new to me, one of the top buttons loosened and was nearly lost. Thankfully, with some dexterity and mental acuity, I was able to recover the button and safely stow it away, to repair when I returned home. Mending this button has been on a variety of sketched up "to do" lists, half completed then discarded, the past five months. With the sweating sun hot, grabbing along the back and the shoulders and the nape of the neck, a rain jacket is just not a priority. Just last week, staring down into the eyes of this lonely and isolated button, abandoned on my dresser near a messy array of rhinestone necklaces, I thought how I should sew the poor bastard on the coat before autumn descends and I find myself wrapped in a maelstrom of rain without my favorite, and fashionable, protection. 

Naturally, in the early hours of this morning, an intense storm has swept across the landscape, puddles and foreboding clouds abounding, leaving commuters cowering, or aggressively swerving and honking their brash horns. I had plans of a highly anticipated and social nature this evening, now, a bit dampened at the prospect of having to dash from apartment to train to subway to apartment in the rain. My trench coat is still functional, especially when equipped with an appropriate umbrella and footwear, but, my mildly obsessive compulsive mind will be agitated at the thought of a missing button, forlorn. Obviously, though, not obsessive compulsive enough to have made any actions to ameliorate the situation. 

(image taken from That Kind of Woman)