Easy In? Whatever.

voltee ♦ January 27, 2011 ♦ 6 Comments

Item: Coat Color/Fabric: Moss, nylon/faux fur Designer: Spiewak Where Purchased: Urban Outfitters Years Owned: 7
I hate January. I ‘m willing to give February the benefit of the doubt, but so far, I am skeptical. Winter is just no friend of mine.
And it’s been the worst week of the worst month.
So I am not in the best of spirits tonight, but usually writing this perks me up a bit. Let us see!
My theme, and this is very original, so be prepared, is outerwear!
I have too many coats and jackets. My surplus of outerwear my exceed any other clothing type or accessory I own, excepting, of course, shoes.
My plan is to get toss two coats by next week.
The first coat that I offer for your thoughts is a nice and toasty one. This is made by a company called Spiewak, which makes actual flight jackets and warm things and has been around for many, many years. They are a little expensive.
This one, I bought for $1.
Yes, this is one of those fabulous finds from the Urban Outfitters dollar rack in East Lansing, Michigan.
This was one of the best treasures I found there. It had a little sister, and they were almost twins. The sister was black, and had a little fur collar instead of a hood. I decided to sell that one on eBay.
It was one of the most exciting moments ever to have happened on an internet auction site! Seriously,during the last five minutes of the auction, we had half a dozen people crowded around a single laptop, cheering excitedly every time I hit “Refresh.”
We watched the jacket go from $5 to $18 to $32 to $45 to $63!
And I only paid a dollar for it!
I felt exactly like Rudy.
After that, I tossed around the idea of selling the green one, also. But I ended up keeping it, and I have worn it oodles of times. Such as here:

This is when our friends Deke and Andee came out to visit us. It was in March, and if I posted all of the coats involved with that weekend, I would write for an entire week!
Andee didn’t bring a warm coat, for some reason. They live in the tropics of Columbus, Ohio.
Here, it was Andee’s first snowboarding experience, and my second. My first one happened in Michigan, and it was so bad that I missed two days of work afterwards.
Armed with this knowledge, our husbands thought it seemed like a good idea to let us putter down the mountain on our own, with my vast troves of experience to guide us, while they sped down like Olympians.
“Meet us by the start of the easy trail!” Nate called over his shoulder as he showered us in a wake of snow.
Almost three hours later, we reach what seemed like the bottom, and were presented with a a problem; a splitting of the trail.
There was an arrow pointing to the left that said “Apache” and one straight that said “Navajo” or something similar. And one that pointed to the right that said “Easy In.”
“Which one is the ‘easy trail’?” I asked.
“That one says ‘Easy’ on it…” Andee answered hesitantly pointing to the right.
So we went to the right and saw a lift. We should have realized that there was a problem, since as we stared at the lift in confusion for about ten seconds, 27 skiiers zipped around us and flung themselves gracefully into the lift without missing a beat.
“Is this right?” Andee asked.
“Hmm.” I answered, tripping over my feet, on our third attempt to get up into the lift.
20 minutes later, we were airborn!
“Does this look like the right path?” I asked.
“Hmm.” Andee answered, as we climbed higher and higher and higher, over top of a shiny, vertical slope.
And before I know it, we’re at the top of the highest peak. The Black Diamond.
“We’re just going to ride this back down!” I shout to the lift attendant. “We made a mistake!”
He stops the lift. It’s apparently against the rules to ride a ski lift down. This is something that I feel should be explained during the half-hour when you’re struggling to get onto the lift.
We had to ride a little emergency vehicle to find a guide to take our sorry stupid selves back down the the mountain.
I was beyond humiliated. I wanted to cry, but my tear ducts were frozen. But at least the view was breath taking!
I wanted to kick Nate when we finally see him again. But I couldn’t, because I had frostbite on both of my feet.
Can you believe that I haven’t been snowboarding since?
Back to the coat. I do like it. My only complaints are that it’s a touch too big, and it doesn’t cover my bum. I do like a nice, thick bum cover on a winter’s day. But it does keep my torso nice and cozy!

**I’m keeping this one around; it is nice for snowboarding. Just in case I ever do that again.