wocky

So those pants from H&M? Yeah, they fit in all the right places, but they're too long. And since I am a seamstress of limited, or perhaps I shoud say sporadic, skills – I can make a dress or duvet cover a cloth book for the baby but I don't know how to make that invisible stitch that's used to sew up trouser hems – I took them to Rocky, our neighborhood tailor/dry cleaner.

Rocky has loomed large in Iris' life for some time. I used to bundle her into her stroller and take her with me when I had things to drop off or pick up at his shop. One night, last year around Thanksgiving-time, I was trying to lull her to sleep with a litany of loved ones who were also sleeping. The truth was, some of them were making merry downstairs in our living room even as I spoke, but I didn't want her to fight sleep because she thought she was missing out.

Me: Grammy is going night-night and Grandpa is going night-night and Opa is going night-night and Oma is going night-night and Aunt Ronica is going night-night and Aunt Amy is going night-night and (yawwwwwn)...

Iris: Wocky? Wocky go nigh-nigh?

Maybe we should have invited him over for Thanksgiving dinner, too.

Then one fine spring morning, I announced that a trip to Rocky's was on the day's agenda. "No Wocky," she declared, frowning. Whatever, I thought, this will be forgotten by the time we get there. But she commenced inconsolable crying the minute we set foot in his shop and since then, when she insists she doesn't want to see Rocky, which is every time we mention his name, we believe her.

This is all a long way of saying that I went to Rocky's by myself today, and my favorite thrift store being only a couple blocks away – how convenient! – I stopped in there too. I found a dress and some books for Iris and some pillow forms and another vintage sheet. The colors of this one are more or less the colors I am contemplating for Iris's big-girl room, so I think it will end up as curtains or something else in there.