We don’t understand why people get so bent out of shape over kidnapping.

Sarah Wendell of SmartBitchesTrashyBooks came to our writing group this weekend to discuss critiques and clichés. She was super-duper fabulous! Her information was spot on and she is a hilarious speaker – one of the best I’ve ever seen. Amy and I discussed keeping her at one point, kind of like a pound puppy, but then we found out she had children . . . We could have listened to her for hours more.

The venue that the meeting was held at was new to our club and there really wasn’t enough space to hold us all and Sarah (although she’s a tiny little thing) and our annual giant fund raising raffle. While everyone else was appreciating Sarah’s talk – I was appreciating Sarah’s clothing choices. Being stuck in the corner of the room, with no direct line of site to the projector screen, I fixated on her outfit. Sarah wore the ultimate “I’m going to Tucson in Oct to Speak to a RWA Group” ensemble. She was chicly attired in a dusty pink jacket with chiffon ruffles peeking out from the hem and sleeves. She smartly paired the pink jacket with the perfect color mid-grey low pumps BUT the “pièce de résistance” was that the pumps had a ruffle along the top there-by echoing the ruffles on the jacket. She finished it off with black slacks and a grey lace top. Lovely.

The only mistake she made was mixing her metals. I am totally opposed to mixed metals. You should never wear silver, gold, rose gold, etc. together unless you really work it into the theme of the outfit – no matter what those crazy designers that send unwearable clothes down the runways say, don’t do it. Sarah had on lovely silver hoops which gracefully supported the grey top and shoes BUT she had a gold watch. Yellow Gold. I know you’re all thinking – “Maybe she only has one watch, Ava! Cut her some slack!” Nope. No slack on this. If the watch doesn’t work, leave it off and consult one of the 900 electronic items we all carry these days for the time. The gold was totally wrong with the gray and dusty pink. Wrong. And that is what earned Sarah an A instead of the ever elusive A+. (Amylynn here – Ava is a bit militant about this. I mix metals all the time just to watch her grimace. Hey, a girl has to have a hobby.)

Just so you all know, I wasn’t the only crazy person in the room reviewing Sarah’s attire instead of giving my full attention to the lecture – someone else was doing it as well. I won’t give her name away (Amanda) but this person asked Sarah if she could take a picture of her shoes. Sarah didn’t bat an eyelash and readily agreed. She lives in Jersey and I’m sure she’s been asked by other strangers to take photos of far stranger personal items than her nattily attired feet . . .