Waiting for Sweater Dance

Hey there I'm Robert MacEwan the author of Ideal Absolutes. If you're new to macewan.org, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed.

While the temperatures dipped into the 30s last night, nothing in the yard seems to have suffered from the chill. We have a rather large rubber plant under a Ligustrum (sp?) in the side yard that is too big to move without a crane. Hopefully it won’t “hard frost” for a while so I will have time to build a cold frame around it. We have quite a few old windows in the garage. The building of the frame should be quite an adventure… since I’ve never done it before.

Val says we will quite busy tonight. “Painting the bedroom?” I hopefully inquired. No, she told me, getting the sweaters out from the “big” closet, you silly.

Ahhhhhhh.

Silly me indeed. I’d truly forgotten the Sweater Dance is scheduled for dusk this evening. Val will prepare the refreshments this afternoon and the guests will arrive by 5:00 p.m. Family members in far away places will Sweater Dance in unison with the MacEwan household. Hands across the sea and all that. Arms outstretched toward Morehead City as faux-sister Phoebe Kate completes the circle by turning toward the north. It appears Number One (as in chronological) Son will be present for the first time in decades to watch the sacred ritual.

Of course this is all silliness but it does seem apparent, to me at least, that the women in my life, Southern Women, truly do love a bit of a chill in the air and a warm sweater on the body. Val bought some nice sweaters in Pittsburgh a few years back — knitted in Greece and soft as the dickens. I was asked to admire them last night, just as I am every year before Val does what she and her cohorts call The Sweater Dance. Apparently lots of people do a Sweater Dance.

Val told me “No woman in her right mind ever does a Bathing Suit Dance.”