In the Blogosphere No One Can Actually Hear You Scream

 OMG.
How, Dear Reader (assuming there is a Dear Reader out there), could I leave it that long?
I just did. But you'll be relieved to know that I've got Good excuses handy:

Excuse #1. One evening, my Home Computer made an innocuous little click & then stopped. I sat in front of the screen desperately clinging on to the keypad pleading with it to 'Stay Alive.' Like it was the most heart rending (is that really how you spell it? Perhaps it should be 'Heart Rendering'?) scene between  A Woman & Her Computer of all time.
I gave it all my energy & still it came up blank. A Metaphor for my life, really.
Of course I took it Personally. I take everything personally. How could My Computer abandon me like this, I wailed to the Universe.
Three weeks passed. Immobilized by grief, I did nothing.
Today, the Fifth day of my Easter Two-Week Holiday, the Veil Lifted. I made an appointment at The Apple Store for tomorrow. Perhaps it can be resusitated. Perhaps not.
In the meantime, I'm using my School Lap Top. It feels like it belongs in a Museum. And it also knows that I Don't Like It. I know that sounds silly, but I have a belief that if a computer feels even the slightest aggression from its user, it picks it up & Behaves Badly. But that's a whole other story.

Excuse #2: Death.
Yes, that's right. Death. But don't  think that it was Me that Died & that's the reason why I haven't been posting, & that this post is kind of like 'A Lovely Bones' type entry, Absolutely Not.
No, it was Aileen, the almost 98 year old who I'm photographed with above. The photo was taken   a couple of years ago, when we were off to see the musical, 'Chicago' which I loathed & Aileen couldn't hear properly. Note she is wearing a smart little crepe jacket & an angora beret with a Ferragamo bag slung around her shoulder.
I now own the jacket & the bag, along with a whole swag of other choice items of Aileen's, all bought by her over the years at her local St. Vincent de Paul Charity Shop.

Here's Aileen when she was a  Mere Slip O'er A Girl.

 
 And here I am at the Cemetery with MBFF Marge, Aileen's daughter, who now lives in Thousand Oaks, California & my beautiful daughter, Maeflower. FYI, I'm wearing another of Aileen's jackets which is v. On-Trend at the moment.  Lace. 
I know that we, well, I, Lack Gravitas in the photo, which is perhaps the preferred look one should adopt Graveside. But it had been a Stressful Morning partly because the Priest, who Marge had originally thought was Fabulously Spiritual & seemed to have an Inner Knowing about The Afterlife, turned out to be in the  Early to Mid Stages of Alzheimer's Disease. Throughout the Requieum Mass, Father Pothole kept on calling Aileen, 'Our Sister, Eileen' & then he stuck to his old version of the mass, ignoring all the Special Prayers thanking Hospital Staff & Carers  that had been carefully printed in the Mass Booklet.
But the worst part was his Sermon. His topic was the life of Edith Stein, a Jewish Girl who converted to Catholicism &  became a Carmelite Nun & then died in Auschwitz. Apart from the fact that both Aileen & Edith were Now Dead, there was absolutely nothing to link them. Aileen had never been Jewish, showed no interest in entering the Convent & even though she was alive during The Holocaust, she thankfully lived in another part of the world & so missed out on it.   But Father Pothole did his best.
 And then he got stuck in a kind of Time Loop & took ages to get out of it. He would say in a lilting tone, 'Today we feel the loss....' with a downward inflection on the word, 'loss' & then he'd finish the sentence with .....'but we feel the Hope', with an Upward Inflection on the word, 'Hope'. He must have said it at least eight times. In fact I know he did because I counted.
He did it again Graveside. He got stuck on the words, 'And May Perpetual Light shine upon her' & just couldn't stop saying it.
By this stage, I was ready to shove him down the big hole that the gravediggers had  freshly dug & into the coffin. But I resisted the urge.



 Here's Maeflower before the Mass. I thought she looked spectacular, wearing a gorgeous little beaded tunic from 'Urban Outfitters' Online Store which she paired with a pashmina from her recent trip to Nepal with 'Habitat'. Black tights & black suede wedge heels injected a Touch of Mourning.

 Here's Some Holiday Outfits. I seem to have Slightly Changed My Look. I wonder if you can notice?
I'm wearing a shirt from 'The Aileen Collection', a thrifted skirt I've had for years but I seem to be inextricably attracted to, DKNY slingbacks, also thrifted & a big Fake Piece of Twisted Bling.

 Part of the Changed Look is 1. Jackets, 2. Heels. 3. Big oversized rings. 4. Animal Prints. 5. Navy.
I totally love Navy now, even though my Poor Dead Mother always thought that Navy made me look, 'refined & nice'. Who wants to look like that when you're  sixteen? 
Come to think of it, who wants to look like that at 58? Not me.
But I am trying to come up with ways to make Navy look Slightly Slutty.

 This shirt has Ruffles on the neck & on the sleeves. A slight Elizabethan Note. I can't really do up the buttons properly so I'm not doing them up at all.

I do like my new 'Benetton' pure light wool jacket I bought from 'BednobsEtc' for five bucks. In fact, I've got a whole swag of jackets from them which is soooo timely because this week George Kotsiopolous from 'Fashion Police' drooled over Eva Longoria wearing a pair of shorts & a jacket & said that she was 'sooo On Trend' because Menswear is really really big right now. What a shame I can't wear shorts.