Indian Hangover Pants

I am still suffering from a very persistent hangover two days after a wine tasting. At my age I don't even have the fun of getting drunk - anything more than a glass or two of wine, even with food, and my body is ravaged. I go straight from sober to suffering.

This morning, day two of the hangover, I took a couple of Tylenol and pulled on my India pants for maximum comfort while trying to nudge my brain back up to speed solving the Los Angeles Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle.  Zuzu and I bought these loose cotton pants with elastic waists (aaaah..for sitting in a hot van all day) and elastic cuffs (roll 'em up for wading in the Arabian sea) while shopping at street stalls in India. Here I am in Goa, wearing the $5.00 per pair version.

Out of curiosity I did a quick search on-line for similar pants and found these at Bloomingdales. 

Stella McCartney $750.00 at Bloomingdales

My hangover was acquired at the wineries in Temecula Valley. We've avoided them for years but one of our relatives is building a new house in the valley and on the way to visit his masterpiece, our little party stopped for a tasting. One visit was to Monte de Oro which boasts a glass floor.

Monte de Oro - glass floor

A sign is posted warning women to watch out. Keep off the glass if you're wearing a skirt!  The half-crocked cycler guys sitting at the tables below the glass ceiling automatically raised their shaved heads for a look up as we walked overhead, stopping to peer back down at them. Seems to me that ceiling might be more trouble than it's worth! After all, not everybody participating in the wine tastings (especially if they're getting plastered riding from winery to winery in a van) behaves predictably. A few weeks ago at the Bel Vino winery, four women started fighting in the ladies (?) room and a brawl (reputedly involving 100 people). Details here. Brawl at Temecula Winery

Bloomers: The Bloomer Costume. www.paperdroids.com

Although I wasn't wearing them, I thought about those Indian pants and the subject of brawls and modesty. In one fashion cycle, the pants were known as Harem pants and earlier as bloomers. Bloomers were named for Amelia Bloomer, a contemporary of Susan B. Anthony. She liberated herself from the corset and began wearing this costume (above) for bicycle riding. At first, the pants were seen as dress for trouble makers: temperance advocates and feminists. In time, as clothing changed, they became a symbol of modesty, keeping the figure waist-down completely under cover.

So here's my plan: the winery could keep a few pairs of harem pants/bloomers on hand in case of emergency - plain black ones, after all, one size fits all: the $5.00 kind from India - not the Stella McCartney version. When drunk women wearing skirts tumble out of the van looking for a fight, the winery could offer them a pair of these bloomers for the tasting session thereby reducing the risk of trouble with that glass floor.  I don't care how wild, angry, drunk and crazy you might be - once those bloomers are in place, behavior should improve. Why would you want to throw a punch when you're freed from lycra and wearing comfortable bloomers? No worries about your jiggling butt or gut - you could relax and stand around on the glass floor to your heart's content. Anyway, once word of the bloomers got around, I'm pretty sure the cycler/oglers would evacuate the basement wine cave and roar off to greener pastures.

I'm pretty sure Amelia might like this idea.