Thanks Richard

This lavender prom dress is several decades old, as am I.  Richard, an old friend gave it to me.  One Monday morning, he came into my office in that downstairs yellow space with the French doors, and he handed me a plastic bag - "here, I thought of you when I found this", he said.  Looking inside, I saw a strapless chiffon-ey dress in a beautiful color - "Richard, what will I do with this,"  I asked. "You'll think of something," he said, with that slight chuckle and twinkle  in his eye.  I thought of Richard last  night, about midnight, as I lay  pondering what creation I could throw together for a Halloween outfit for work today.  I had already made the meat loaf shaped like a hand, and the Q-tip snacks - lollipop sticks with mini marshmallows dipped in a little peanut butter - ewww, you get the picture. 
But I remembered the dress, and jumped up to start ransacking the closet.  There it was - a vision from the 50;s - wrinkled and impressive in it's lines and color..........I had  my outfit.

Well, Richard passed about five years ago, but I couldn't help thinking of him quite a bit today, as fellow workers admired my "prom" dress, studded with brooches and pinned together at the side to allow for my burgeoning midriff...I had great fun spraying my hair with green color, and smearing gray, pasty make-up on my face and pinning the black crow to my birds nest of a teased hairdo............and I thought "You were right Richard - I did think of something...and Thanks."

Suppose

If you are taking a walk in November on the streets of Kingston and you find a plastic poinsettia blossom, this is good luck.  If you continue on, and you get a screw piercing thru your shoe, scratching the sidewalk so that you have to stop and lean on a tree to pluck it out, well then what is that? 

First you are flowered, then you are screwed?  But one continues on, chatting non-stop with your walking buddy, till several blocks later when you both hear “Ladies!”  And then there is the smiling man in the soft purple sweater, the very color of lilacs in the Spring, and he says “Would you like some roses?”  And he says he was going to have to throw them out anyway, and he walks you over to where they are, and he presents you each with a small bouquet, done up with wheat grass and rubber banded; one is dark blood red, the other peachy yellow.  You offer surprised and warm thanks, and continue walking, your moods elevated and belief in serendipity restored…if we hadn’t walked down this block at this time, etc….then of course, in the way of true buddies, you wrest the rubber band off, and share the colors – now…a true blending of the hearts.  So, things do come in threes of course…..and amidst the flowers, you may get screwed…………..

So, if on a particular Tuesday, one felt like employing the hair dryer to one’s usually flat, wavy style, and that someone came out of the experience with large fluffy hair and a slightly windblown look, is it professionally acceptable for that someone’s supervisor to comment that someone looks disheveled and is everything ok?