Gate-Crashing and Kitten-Kicking on My Left Wing, Autumn Fashion, and the Mystery of Undertones

Some days, I don't know what gets into me. I went over to one of the gated communities for affluent white Americans who like to style themselves as more "moderate" than Daniel Pipes, and like I said I wouldn't do any more, inappropriately crashed the gate, and not satisfied with that, went back and kicked kittens for a good hour or so this afternoon, taking advantage of the modern laptop of a descendant while cooling my heels as Madame tried on autumnal attire in an emporium which did provide me with a chair (one that was actually comfortable, for a change, brought down from someone's office reception area by a team of sturdy store operatives), and some Lemon Perrier, but alas, no tea, and for which I did scold them a bit, not to disappoint the descendants, who have come to expect this as an important sub-ritual part of the solemnly comical Shopping With Ancestors ceremonies.

Later this evening, when I attempted to return to the scene (My Left Wing) to check the invective levels, alas, the spittings and sputterings of loyal Americans eager to demonstrate to their fellow affluent white people and the world that their regulation Unconditional Support For Israel is firmly in place had swollen the thread beyond the capacity of my own fine museum quality drunken squirrel-powered computer, and the modern laptop-owning descendant had taken it home to perform her evening database exercises or xhtml crunches or some such. So if you wish to see the kicked kittens, and the righteous wrath of right-thinking you will have to go look for it because I can't go there and get the link.

I then checked my email, and was disappointed to find not even one message of recognition or offer of suitable honorarium from a single American manufacturer of nerve pills nestled among the unusually large number of death threats from individuals whose writing styles bear purely coincidental, if uncanny, resemblance to those of a number of popular My Left Wing denizens.

The important part of the day, however, went very well, no day passes that I do not learn something, and usually several somethings, and I am pleased to report to you the following Important Messages:

Brown will continue to be the New Black throughout the fall, and ladies with black hair can wear brown without fear of being "washed out" as long as they are careful to make sure that the shade is one that harmonizes or contrasts with their "undertones." (I am still working on understanding undertones, or perhaps forgetting them, I have not yet decided which will be best).

The "twinset" will never go out of style as a basic and essential wardrobe item of western style feminine clothing, and it does not have to be worn with pearls. It can be worn with other bling, even eastern bling, as long as it "looks right."

Oversized purses are "out" except in cases where they are legitimately needed, and used to contain large items such as laptop computers or schoolbooks. Ladies who do not have such requirements may return to their smaller bags without fear of being viewed as unfashionable.

As western ladies have discovered the benefits of embroidery and beaded "embellishment" of their blouses, there are some embroidery houses in the east who used to be very nice people, and reasonable, too, until they got contracts with these western companies and now they have raised their prices and stick their noses in the air in response to inquiries about what they now consider to be too small an order to bother with, but which they used to be quite happy to get, thank you very much, and they need not worry, they will not be troubled further with such annoying requests, at least not from a certain family.

Just because a lady has not worn anything in any shade of pink for three or four decades, even going so far as to give away anything of that color she receives from well-meaning but misguided lady friends (family members know better), that does not mean that she does not need at least half a dozen "tops" of varying styles and shades of pink THIS year, because she has changed her mind, and didn't I always say I thought she looked perfectly lovely in pink? (I did, and she does).

Pink can be a "semi-neutral." Pale pink for all ladies, and any becoming shade, even "hot pink" or "fuschia" for ladies whose skins are not pink. Knowing which shades of pink are becoming is very dependent on how well a lady understands her undertone.

Whichever ancient Rabbi who wrote that prayer with which even today some Orthodox Jewish men begin each day, thanking God they were not born female, probably wrote it after accompanying the love of his life shopping, and realizing that he does not understand undertones, and for a brief and rather frightening moment, wondering if he, though a man, might have one that he has not been taking into consideration when making sartorial decisions.