I'm reading Anne of Green Gables to Bianca--one chapter every night before bed (two if Eric isn't home from work yet to read Harry Potter to her). I'm also reading Romeo and Juliet [This one is because after I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the mom in that book always read to the main character from two books each night--The Bible and Shakespeare; after that, I decided that of course I had to implement this into our bedtime routine. Bianca gets to pick which "Shakespeare" she wants next. We've read Midsummer Night's Dream, Tempest, her namesake The Taming of the Shrew, and about eight others already. I'm sure she doesn't really understand what's going on, but it doesn't hurt anything to expose her to the old English while she's young.] But back to Anne, I admit that I've never read Anne of Green Gables before. And I'm loving it!
Okay, so lately, I've been enthralled with all the talk about puffed sleeves going on in the Cuthbert home. Bianca has a "Anne of Green Gables" coloring book that she fills in as I read to her that showed a picture of Anne's new dress with "puffed sleeves" Matthew Cuthbert insisted on. It had four bunches of puffiness--a quadruple puff--each accented with a bow! It made me laugh when Marilla told Anne that there was more material around the sleeves than around the waist. And I'm embarrassed to admit that I actually cried--yes, real tears--when Anne was so overjoyed on Christmas morning to see her dress with the puffed sleeves. It was all she ever wanted.
Which brings me another embarrassing point: I've been infatuated with sleeves lately too. I don't know what it is. Normally I don't care that much about clothes, as long as I'm not out of style I'm good. But I've been fixating on all the fun sleeves you can find on tops and sweaters right now--lantern sleeves, poet sleeves, Juliet sleeves. As Anne would say, they just sound so romantic. How can you not feel poetic while wearing poet sleeves--or better yet, more romantic than wearing Juliet sleeves? As I've been watching Masterpiece Theatre of the Jane Austen movies, the styles they wear is strangely similar to what's "in" right now. It's scary how much I've been buying for myself, and I can't seem to walk by the Juliet sleeves without stopping and looking, manytimes buying.
I know this is just a phase. I'll get over my fascination with sleeves, hopefully Anne does too. [We're not finished with the book yet.] Then I can get back to not caring about clothes and not spending so much on them.
But when these sleeves do go out--and I'm sure they'll date themselves so quickly it'll make my head spin--I don't think I'll be able to bear putting them away. Couldn't I just be that crazy Jane-Austen-loving lady who wears the Juliet sleeves all the time?
