Walk Away Renee

A couple of years ago, when I wrote about my “bucket list” of items I wanted to do as Dee, item #9 was to visit my GG friend Renee.

Here’s what I wrote at the time:

I’ve written often about my GG friend Renee, a long time ago FWB, and about how we reconnected via Facebook. She helped introduce me to dressing all those years ago (I dropped some pretty broad hints) and she bought me my first pair of heels. We text on a regular basis, talk on the phone occasionally, and she is my sounding board for a multitude of outfits and thoughts (yes, she loves seeing pictures of me dressed).

She lives in a college town (think of a couple of big NCAA hoops rivals) about 800 miles away. Yes, there is plane service there (see item 8 above). She has mentioned the possibility of a visit if we can figure out the right time, but we would both enjoy face-to-face time instead of just communicating by thumbs and photos. And we might find time to do something else fun (see number 10).

I need to find a good race to do in her area as a cover story and hit the friendly skies (likely another airline so I can carry two suitcases of girl stuff instead of one).

Desirability: 10; Probability: 7 (coordination of schedules might be tough).

I found the time (four days in late March), and not one but two cover stories–a Parkrun and a Bruce Springsteen concert–and booked my flight. Come back next week to read about those.

Renee has had some health issues, and I wanted to visit her to cheer her up, AND to have some extended Dee time. I decided I would pack virtually only Dee clothes, except for my running gear. That meant, of course, flying pretty–my second time doing so.

I had several outfits but I knew I was going to fly “business professional”, meaning a dress and heels. I wavered between a couple of outfits, but decided on a blue peplum dress, black patterned tights, and booties (which are some of my most comfortable heels to walk in), along with my black fake leather jacket. 

To complete my business professional look, my GG friend “Ms. Dee-ism”  loaned me her yellow Michael Kors purse, which I dubbed the “K-bag”, so that I could carry my android tablet on the plane. Of course, I had to get a picture to text to her. 

I usually text pictures of outfits to Renee for her assessment but I decided I wanted to surprise her, so I didn’t. I just thought she would like it–and she loved it.

To my surprise, so did others. While at the St. Louis airport, I received two compliments on my booties and two on my patterned tights. While I was waiting at the curb for Renee and John to pick me up in Raleigh, a lovely woman walked up to me and said “You look very nice”. Of course I thanked all for the compliments.

I did have one complication. Usually when I fly these days, I take the Metrolink light rail train from my suburb to the terminal. Unfortunately, the elevator at the terminal has been out of commission for several months, which meant walking down two flights of concrete stairs in heels, lugging two suitcases. I managed to do it without calamity.

There was a bit of confusion as to where I was when I arrived, so I had a fifteen to twenty minute wait while Renee and her husband John arrived to get me. During my time dressing these last six years I’ve become pretty blasé about being dressed in public, and, as the nice lady said, I did look pretty nice.   

As the weather was a lot warmer in Durham (North Carolina) than St. Louis, upon arrival I changed into a halter dress to do some shopping with Renee at her local mall, which included a Belk’s, a store I had not been to before. 

We perused the racks, finding clothes for me and Renee. I picked out some things for me and Renee picked out some things for me (music to my ears is when someone tells me “I want to see how you look in this”) and Renee picked out some things for her. I generally scope the discount racks, and found some things to try on. Renee and I shared a dressing room, and we took turns trying things on. I found a cute professional polka dot dress and a much more fun green velvet dress, and bought both (Renee paid for them to get her bonus points, and subsequently I paid her back).

The last order of business was dinner with Renee and John at a local restaurant that is a favorite of theirs. As I had plenty of outfits I had dragged along, I chose a top and skirt combo I had bought together a few years prior. It was an outfit I considered for the plane, but chose the blue peplum dress instead.

While I was dressing for dinner in Renee’s master bathroom, Renee saw me in the mirror and said “wow”. I’ll take that. We had a lovely dinner and had a chance to have a long conversation with John, who I had met only once around 35 years before. John was very complimentary and accepting of how I looked and dressed, which I greatly appreciated during my stay. 

P.S. For those not in the know, “Walk Away Renee” is a 1966 hit by the group The Left Banke that’s one of my favorites, and if you haven’t heard it before, it’s definitely worth a listen.