Fingerless Gloves and Other Sundry Pleasures

Fingerless Gloves, a Christmas gift

My long, skinny arms get cold, quickly, and often.  I have a lifetime of moments spent tugging down sleeves.  The sleeves on most shirts, dresses, coats and sweaters are most often, too short. Growing up, I lived with snow-packed sleeves on my parkas, because mittens did not extend far enough. I have spend several semesters in college wearing gloves, under mittens, while I studied in my thrifty, 62 degree apartment.  I have eschewed three-quarter length sleeves; they always seem both too short to be fashionable and too short to be warm.   

The movie Flashdance brought with all its publicity about sexual tension, an acute understanding on my part. Shirts with extra long -- albeit, shoulder-bearing -- sleeves could look sexy and fresh. In the decade I spent looking for shirts that would do that whole iron-worker ballerina thing for me, the style came and went.  My lust for these Goliath-armed sleeves did not fade.

I caught glimpses of Carrie in Sex in the City wearing sleeves with thumbholes. This design anchored the sleeve and allowed her to type her blog.  I also saw her wear fingerless gloves.  I poohpoohed these frivolities until my own hands and arms grew colder and more achy from the winter chill.  Bring on the gloves, long sleeves and cashmere shawls. Less a fashion statement than a simple matter of comfort and survival, I was hooked.   For Christmas, my daughter, Hannah, surprised me with a long, knit pair of teal fingerless gloves.  I want to wear them everywhere, even in the bathtub. I have succumbed to reason and have limited myself to wearing them outside of the bathroom and the kitchen.  The long-sleeved shirts with thumb holes have eluded me.  I did feel some thrill however, when, searching for that kind of shirt, I found arm warmers through dance suppliers.  Sign me up.  Still, those shirts with thumbholes escaped me. Then, on New Year’s Eve - 2013, one of my closest friends changed for a gathering we were attending together. Wouldn’t you know, she emerged from her bedroom sporting a blouse with delicately hidden holes for her thumbs?  I was awash in fashion pleasure and curiosity about her shopping adventure.  Had I been a kitten, I would have been purring. I knew with utter confidence, that my quest for warmer arms was about to take a twist in a new, warmer, direction.