We all have our quirks. One of my quirks has always been that when I order something, I rarely, if ever, return it. If it doesn’t fit, I stuff it in a lower drawer or just put it in the give-away bin. This is completely contrary to Kim’s way of life with regard to online shopping. The number of packages she gets is only slightly greater than the number of packages she returns. Our Amex bill gets lots and lots or refund pings, especially from Nordstroms. It must be a shoppers mentality more than anything and as I learned a long time ago, I am not so much a shopper as I am a buyer. Once I find what I want, I’m done. I operate in much the same way in restaurants with menus. I am not a fussy reviewer of menus. I open a menu until I see something that strikes my fancy and then I close it. It’s all quite consistent as an approach to life. But every once in a while a situation comes along to upend one’s way of thinking or operating and that just happened to me. Naturally, its on account of my weight loss program, which is tending to upend almost every aspect of my life, it seems. Just to connect all my recent ponderings, as I have been losing weight and as I have been cleansing my closets and preparing for my upcoming Christmas Market expedition, I emptied my closet of my coats. Given the weather on our hilltop, there is little need for more than a polartech vest or light/medium jacket around here.
Let’s take a moment to review San Diego weather (I love reminding myself how great it is out here). San Diego’s temperature typically varies from 50°F to 77°F throughout the year and is rarely below 44°F. More specifically, every day in a typical year warms to at least 50°F, and the city averages just one night a year when the thermometer dips as low as 40°F. So, typically, there are zero days where the temperature stays under 50 degrees. San Diego might have a handful of mornings where it briefly dips to around 49°F or so (particularly in late December through February), but the daily high temperature virtually always reaches 50°F or above. This is pretty remarkable compared to most of the country. Even in the coldest months of January and February, average daytime temperatures stay in the 60s and only drop into the high 40s very late at night. In other words, I simply do not need a heavy coat for around here, and I’ve known that all along. But then again, we go back to NYC regularly enough that I knew I needed to have some winter gear, especially for our pre-Holiday visit each year. The problem is, as of today, I am down 27 pounds on my Zepbound journey, which means that I am down 70 pounds since I retired out here six years ago. I will also note that my winter coats were mostly designed to size big since they had to go over a full suit as well. That made them all WAY too big for me now. So I gave them all away just a week ago.
Knowing that we were going to London/Edinburgh/Prague and NYC in the next few weeks and that, to the best of my recollection, that was considered winter in those climes (the winter solstice notwithstanding). According to the advance weather app, London will be 51/43 (daily high/low), Edinburgh will be 46/39, Prague will be 40/32, and NYC will be 46/37. In other words, I will need a winter coat, a pair of gloves and I will even be taking a nice Bavarian fedora hat. I plan to look very Christmas Markety every step of the way. By the way, in London there will be the Christmas Under the Canopy Market at Kings Cross. In Edinburgh there’s the East Princes Street Gardens Christmas Market. In Prague there’s the Old Town Square Christmas Market. And in New York City, there’s the Bryant Park Christmas Market. We are literally staying right in the middle of Christmas markets in every city we are visiting and that means we will be walking and wandering around each and every day for two weeks. My outerwear will be a priority for this trip…and I have just given away all of my outerwear.
The internet and e-commerce to the rescue. I went to my old standby, Westport Big & Tall, who has the most upscale clothing for the larger man. I found the perfect loden green field coat with corduroy collar and figured it was the perfect sport/casual coat for the trip. When it came in the other day, it was not just a major disappointment, it suddenly became a travel preparation crisis. Not only was the garment far less robust than expected (especially for the high price tag), but they sent me an XL size. Maybe they read my blog over at Westport and maybe they have a lot of confidence in Zepbound, but I am a long way from XL (I had ordered 3XL). Naturally, they tell me I ordered wrong, but I’m not so sure that is the case. Not to worry, Kim said she would just return it…easy-peasy. But I was now less than a week from departure and without a coat. I immediately went online again and decided going local might be the solution…but this is San Diego, not Calgary, and winter coats do not abound. I started thinking I might have to take a day trip to L.A. unless the online world could solve my problem. It was suddenly so hard to comprehend the robustness and sizing of all the offerings…triangulated to which could actually guarantee delivery in time for departure. I decided I needed to adopt an urgent diversification strategy, so I would order a bunch of alternatives and do what Kim does, return what I didn’t want. It seems the gap between the working stiff overcoat and the day-laborer’s lined barn jacket is vast. I was looking at Tractor Supply, Boot Barn, DXL Big & Tall, Duluth, Carhartt, Kohl’s, and God knows what other emporiums the shopping internet could serve up to me and promise instantaneous delivery on.
I ended up placing no less than 5 orders in a range of colors from olive green to black (always the safe, if not so stylish alternative). I stayed away from the working-man colors of brown and dark tan because I am going urban and urbane on this trip. I also have plenty of working jackets for my gardening, so I do not need oilfield roustabout wear right now. My most interesting purchase is from a company called Venado, which is sending me a coat that looks nice, but also has concealed gun carry holsters on both insides of the coat. There is also a sleeve for extra ammo cartridges, should I need them. That should go over big with TSA. At the other extreme is a Tommy Bahama coat that looks very chic and stylish and purports to be winter-grade, but we’ll see about that. The range in cost of these five choices is from $48 to $260. I did not ratchet up to the expensive coats for this balls-to-the-wall emergency purchase program. I just want something that works and will be warm enough without embarrassing me and my travel companions. As a stop-gap I also went out yesterday to shop locally and to my surprise, at DXL I found what I think is the perfect olive green field coat that fits great, looks good and feels warm enough. It was $115, so I bought it and took off the tags as a way of saying, “You’re a keeper, no matter what…thank you for being there and calming me down…”. Now I await the coat bonanza rolling in for review and runway viewing today and tomorrow. I’m betting I keep three of the six choices and return three, but we’ll see…I certainly have had time to analyze the situation, right?