Fancy

Last Thursday night I slipped on a black cocktail dress and grabbed my $10 clutch I bought at Forever 21 BEFORE I got home to read an email from Karin, who owns a boutique on Washington called Charm. I Twittered earlier that I needed to buy a clutch and she offered to loan me one, no strings. Why the internet is awesome, lesson 1. (I have one photo of the dress on Flickr and another Chris took of me with my award but I'm exceeding my tolerance for self-portraits, so maybe I'll upload the latter another time.)

I took the boys to the mall with me in search of the aforementioned clutch (you did know that there is a difference between a "clutch" and an "evening bag," didn't you? I didn't. However I do know that there is a difference between taupe and beige so give me points!) and as we passed Victoria's Secret Liam intoned to Ewan "That's where mom gets her boob holders." Yes. How observant of him. As we entered Forever 21 I said a tiny prayer and asked for God to not let me take the store's name literally and to allow a lightbulb to go off over my head when I officially become Too Old and Out of Shape to Shop There.

While there Liam looked for "pirate jewelry" and Ewan indulged his obsession with cheap ladies' handbags. He walks around the house in his hat with one of my purses, in which he stores his water gun, a Thomas the Tank engine, some stickers, and his half-eaten snacks which he always tells me he's saving for later. The sad thing is that the contents of my purse and the contents of his purse are exactly the same.

After all the preliminary gussied-up-ness was out of the way, Chris, my cleavage, and I arrived at the St. Louis Business Journal's 30 Under 30 awards where we met some incredibly cool people, including this local political blogger, a herd of lawyers, doctors, and PR people. While they talked and waved around their wine glasses and laughed about law school days I tried to forget how, moments before we left the house, Ewan pointed to my chest and laughed "A BUTT!" I must be as juvenile as him because I thought it was hysterical.

My friend Susan ran over to me, anxious to show off her über hot red dress, on which someone spilled red wine moments later. I accepted my heavy granite award on stage and hid behind my new bangs. At this moment I'm unsure of where I'll put my trophy, in my office, or worn as a giant belt buckle. After the awards we headed to Schlafly's with the people we just met and talked about fish and chips and being German. We were home way before my carriage turned into a pumpkin and I collapsed into bed and rested up for my early flight out to San Francisco the following morning. The end.