Some things are relative

Dressing appropriately can be tricky.

I say that only somewhat facetiously; it is often a challenge to dress not only for the occasion but also for the fast-changing weather. This morning, I had to decide what to wear to a meeting in the city... something that would look professional yet comfortable enough to not make for a miserable twenty-minute walk to and from the metro. Then, you have to consider the weather: it's hot outside, it's air conditioned in the metro-- but if the air conditioning there is broken you don't want to arrive at your meeting covered in perspiration-- but the office will be air conditioned... which blazer won't wrinkle when you take it off and sling it over your forearm... and so on.

In this light, I understand why my mother thinks I need help deciding what to wear. She'll call and ask about the weather, and then ask what I'm wearing. She really does concern herself with my temperature control:

Mom: Is it hot in D.C.?
A.: Yeah, but it's not bad on the porch.
Mom: What are you doing? [This is often followed by, 'if you were here you could come to the lake with us. How can you live somewhere with no lake?]
A.: Just sitting on the porch, cat's sitting on my lap.
Mom: That must be uncomfortable, since it's so hot.

That can also be filed under 'mom misses no opportunity to slam my cat.'

Anyway, as I walked out the door, blazer in hand, I thought about how throughout the three-plus months in 2000 during which I lived with my parents and commuted to Boston, before I'd found an apartment closer to work, my mother would follow me to the door and sometimes out of the house saying, "you don't need that blazer/sweater, you're going to be hot in that! It's [N] degrees out, leave the blazer...and by the way, what time will you be home...and..." and I would answer back, "I have to go, I'm going to miss the train..."

She still does it, all the time. This is amazing to me for the following reasons:

A. I am thirty years old (shhhhh... this is actually privileged information). I can dress myself. Even at 23, at the time of that commute, I could dress myself.
B. Temperature changes, especially in the evening, and especially when you take a boat to work, which I did then.
C. A blazer, or a sweater, is a layer. The whole point of layers is that you can remove them when the temperature changes.
D. My mother didn't take the boat, I did. I had a better understanding of the temperature of my commute than she did. Also, different people are comfortable at different temperatures.
Most people realize all of the above and let it go, but my mother, every time, argues with me to try to convince me to leave the extra layer. She also announces proudly that, well, she's not cold, implying that I shouldn't be, either.

The things that many people see as relative or in any case variable among individuals, including the relationship between temperature and comfort level; the placement of rear- and side-view mirrors; taste in clothing; tastes in just about everything; working at Google; etc. are in mom's view absolutes.

I was happy with my choice of blazer, although had Mom seen me leave the house, she would have told me that I didn't need it.