Last Week, This Week: Up In Smoke, November 5-9

Sometimes, plans will just go up in smoke, both literally and figuratively. The week had started off strong with both the work-based and home-based “big projects” well under control. And then there was a wake-up call Thursday morning.

Last Week This Week is a look back at what I actually wore last Monday thru Friday as long as it was a workday. I’ve included a brief description of each outfit and if I wore it for a specific event other than a typical workday. Without a specified dress-code in my workplace, casual Friday isn’t really an official thing but I usually adhere to it nonetheless.

Not a literal wake-up call because on Thursday, the one day of the week I absolutely had to be into the office early for an important meeting, I somehow slept through the buzzing alarm of my fitness tracker. With no time to do my now daily morning meditation, I hustled through my shower, makeup, and getting dressed routine. Fairly pleased to be out the door in about an hour, I had hopes of making to the meeting on time. But as I started my car, the news station I listen to during my commute was in the midst of a report about the shooting at the Borderline Bar in Thousand Oaks, California. Fortunately, no one I know was there the night. Then, later in the day, the fires began to burn.

Monday

I’ll go into more detail on that story in a bit.  The week started out with a pattern play look that included tweed, snake-skin, and brocade.

Tuesday

It’s been a while since I’ve sported a skirt in this weekly series and my recent closet purge/organization project unearthed a few cool weather favorites, like this tweed, that need to get into the weekly rotation again.

Wednesday

On this day, as I focused on what was important to me during my morning meditation, I’d decided that it was important for me to move more. As in “get up on my feet and walk around”. Then as I was getting dressed and deciding on shoes, I had initially put on a pair of light gray loaf-style pumps that I’ve had for well over 10 years. There was a time when I could wear them all day long without a problem. However, lately, I’ll develop hotspots on the bottoms of my feet when I wear them that result in blisters. In my current closet purge frame of mind, I was going to try them one more time but I switched to another pair even before I made out of the bedroom. I was already feeling a burn on one of my feet and it had only been a few minutes. There was no way I would want to “move more” wearing those shoes.

Thursday

It is seldom that I plan out my daily outfits prior to the day of said wear. This ensemble for this day, however, had been planned over the weekend and I’d been looking forward to wearing it. This would be the first time I’d worn this top (bought back in May) and it was a good look for the important meeting that morning. I would be feeling strong and have good memories of the day and the outfit. Or so I thought.

Alas, the late wakeup, no meditation, and the horrendous news of a senseless massacre in a nearby community, which consumed nearly all of my radio listening during my commute, made for a rough day instead. By the time I’d gotten to work, I felt rather devastated. Like one feels when terribly disappointed or heartbroken after being dumped by a boyfriend (which thankfully hasn’t happened in decades). As I said earlier, I have no direct connection to the horrific shooting at the Borderline other than enjoying an evening there once many years ago and that I really like country music and line dancing. I wouldn’t likely have been there on a weeknight and on a night meant for a much younger crowd but my sense of security with being at such a venue was shaken, to say the least.

The Husband and I have become regulars, once a week, at another local country western music establishment. We go so that I can take one of the line dancing classes that are offered and my cowboy keeps a barstool warm. That shooting at a somewhat similar establishment felt a little too close to home. Like the recent shooting at the synagogue in Pittsburgh. Like the shooting two years ago at an office holiday party in San Bernardino. Like the shootings at malls or movie theatres.

I’ve been through active shooter training at my workplace. I know the basics; run if you can, hide if you can’t run, fight if you can’t hide. Be aware of your surroundings, assess your escape routes and determine options for where you can take cover. But what if I’ve let down my guard? What if I never see it coming? What if I haven’t reminded my children of these precautions often enough?

As it turns out, traffic was heavier than usual that morning and I was a few minutes late getting to the meeting. And, as it turns out, the meeting wasn’t even scheduled for that day. There had been a mix-up in communications and it was actually scheduled for the next day. By the time I got to my office and sat down, my panic level was high. Which confused me because I hadn’t been directly affected so why was I feeling more than the typical sadness/anger/disbelief over yet another senseless shooting? And then I remembered that I had woken up late.

As I had shared in No, No, No – November, I’ve recently begun a routine of meditating when I first wake up in order to practice staying in the moment and to set my thoughts towards positive outcomes for the day. During a Q&A session at the FierceCon weekend, davidji cited the results of a study that looked at the impact that negative imagery during the first 30 to 60 minutes after waking can have on one’s perspective of whether they had a good or bad day. Even if a person had had what others would say was a good day, negative imagery dampened that individual’s perception of the overall positive aspect of the day. Conversely, positive imagery in the first 30 to 60 minutes after waking could moderate an individual’s perspective on the negative impacts of a bad day.

Mind over matter or just hocus pocus? All I know is that I didn’t feel right again until the next morning when I was able to start my day with meditation. It hadn’t mattered how much I talked about my feelings with sympathetic others or tried to distract myself with busy work, a feeling of panic ebbed and flowed all day. If you are familiar with accounts of that day, then you know that in the afternoon two brush fires had started to burn in the same general vicinity as the shooting. Initially, the first of the two fires appeared to be the most problematic as the ignition point was relatively close to location the Borderline Bar. However, it was the second fire, known as the Woolsey Canyon Fire, that was/is the one that’s caused so much damage.

Our daughter works in Westlake Village and had been living in Malibu with her boyfriend. He is one of about two dozen staff that lived on-site at one of the camp facilities that will now be facing the lengthy challenge of rebuilding. The staff had been on alert throughout Thursday night and into Friday morning watching news reports on the progress of the fire. Arrangements had been made to transport out the camp animals and everyone’s personal cars were packed with belongings. Once they saw that fire had jumped over the freeway and the electricity went out, the camp director made the call that everyone should evacuate even before they were notified by the fire department. All are safe.

Friday

Now back to our regular programming.   This outfit had also been decided on earlier in the week, mostly because I wanted to wear the boots.

And there you have it, a look back at what I wore to work last week (and then some).  How do you decide what you will wear to work? Let me clarify … unless you’ve declared yourself to be checked out from any type of routine, anything you do during daylight hours (and sometimes nighttime ones as well) whether or not you get paid for it, I consider that to be your “work” and you should/can be dressed accordingly. And even if you are retired, in whatever manner you’ve enjoyed your day is good enough for me.

Along with having our daughter back home with us for now, The Husband and I are also providing temporary shelter to two women who are on staff at the camp. My spread into the two somewhat empty bedrooms of my children has had to be trimmed back considerably and we are re-adjusting to having others in our place after being near empty-nesters.  On the bright side, I’m keeping up with my morning meditation routine and the much-awaited reveal of “big news” is almost upon us.  This last photo is another tease. I’ll be sharing more next week.

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