13th

I usually go grocery shopping on Wednesdays, but I tempted fate and went today – Friday the 13th!

I drove 5 minutes to the nearby Aldi and as I turned the last corner, I could see that the parking lot was packed! This was not normal for a weekday morning. The only times I have seen Aldi so busy on a weekday is when a snowstorm is in the forecast for the next day. No snow this winter in our neck of the woods, so it must be coronavirus panic.

I found a distant empty parking spot, parked my car, grabbed my purse and walked as quickly as I could in heels to avoid getting too wet from the rain.

I only had a few items to buy and they were all in stock. (Good thing I did not need bread because the bread shelves were bare.) All the registers were open to handle the crowd and I was able to pay for my purchases quickly.

In contrast to Aldi, CVS across the street was dead. I had to buy some vitamins and was in and out of the store in no time. I arrived back home five minutes later unscathed by the 13th.

Roundtrip was less than an hour, so some may think it was a waste of time for me to spend over an hour doing my makeup and hair and getting dressed to go out en femme for such a short time. But with everything being cancelled because of the coronavirus, the opportunities to go out en femme are getting fewer and fewer, so a girl has to take advantage of any opportunity to be girly.

Wearing Venus

Robert Reed femulating on a 1975 episode of television's Medical Center

Grocery Shopping

As a housewife, there are some chores I enjoy doing, some I am ambivalent about and some that I do not enjoy. At the top of my list of chores I dislike is grocery shopping, mainly because it is time-consuming – it basically kills a whole morning.

The only times I did not mind grocery shopping is when I shopped en femme. On those occasions, I was doing something else en femme and had to make a side trip for groceries.

For example, on one occasion, after attending a conference, I promised to pick up a few things on the way home.

During 15 minutes of going up and down the aisles of Stop & Shop, I noticed three or four guys checking me out, but no one else paid much attention to me until I queued up to check out. After I emptied my shopping cart onto the conveyor belt, I noticed the woman ahead of me look down at my shoes, a pair of nude pumps with 4-inch heels. Then she looked at me and remarked, “You are a brave woman to wear those heels to go grocery shopping!”

An episode like that puts grocery shopping in a new light! Perhaps, I should always go grocery shopping en femme.

Wearing JustFab

Patriotic chorus girl femulators in the 1943 film This Is the Army.
View the film here.

Halloween Washout

(Updated Below) I had no plans for Halloween.

Nothing was going on at my former workplace, so there was no reason to go there. And the weather was supposed to be lousy ("Chance of precipitation is 90%”). I did not feel like going out just to be out and have to dodge rain showers while dressed pretty. So my only Halloween plans were to distribute candy to the trick or treaters. (Last year, only two trick or treaters showed up and as luck would have it, they were crossdressed!)

I did have one non-Halloween task to complete from my list of housewife chores: grocery shopping. While I was perusing the shopping list that my spouse had composed, it occurred to me that I could do my grocery shopping as a housewife dressed appropriately for Aldi and Stop & Shop.

The weather forecast sounded better for the morning, than the afternoon, so I planned to get up early and get out of the house as early as possible. To make that possible, I prepared as much as possible Wednesday evening, but it was all a waste of time.

The weather forecast did not do the weather justice. It was so bad that I considered not shopping for groceries at all. But mid-morning, there was a calm period and I made the grocery run in boy mode. The break in the storm was very brief and I was very damp by the time I returned home 90 minutes later.

By the way, I saw only one person in costume (a female employee at Stop & Shop), so I think the weather put a real damper on Halloween and I don’t expect a big turnout of trick or treaters this evening.

UPDATE: The bad weather persisted throughout the day and night. As a result, not a living soul showed up to collect candy, but some non-living souls may have showed up after we went to bed because some of the candy was missing Friday morning!

Wearing Veronica Beard

Dave Foley plays Dave Nelson on television’s NewsRadio attending the office Halloween party en femme.

Whole Lot of Shaking Going On

My grocery shopping outfit!

Two days out as a woman in the same week was a rare and wonderful experience. And it will take more than one blog posting to tell you all about it, so bear with me.

Before I get into the details, I want to mention how supportive my wife has become. She does not bat an eye when I tell her I have plans as a woman. Although she still can't get over the time and effort I put into my femulation, she heaps praise on me when I show her how I look for each outing. And so it goes.

Thursday's plans were to have lunch with four trans girls I have known like forever and then do some shopping.

The weather was on the cool side, so I wore the same sweater dress I wore in January when I attended the Prudential Financial dinner.

Lunch was at an old Victorian house that had been converted into a restaurant. I had never dined there, but the other girls have and found that the staff was accepting. The staff treated us respectfully, but I noticed that the other diners noticed us.

You could not help noticing us. All of us are tall and some of us have voices that are decidedly manly.   So any civilian that looked twice could figure us out and many reacted that they did figure us out. Nothing untoward — just a lot of stares and amused looks, but it shook my confidence and I thought about abandoning the rest of my plans and return home.

I reconsidered when I realized that I was so close to the store I had to go to that it would be silly to drive back in boy mode on Friday. So I drove to Shop Rite to buy dog food and a gift card.

Although I was overdressed for grocery shopping, no one paid any attention to me. Perusing the pet aisle, I came out empty-handed because they did not have the brand of dog food I wanted, so I sashayed over to the customer service desk to buy the gift card.

I waited in line while a guy cashed in his winning lottery ticket and then it was my turn. The woman at the customer service desk was friendly and handled my request in an efficient manner without giving any indication that she knew that I was femulating. So I returned to my car with renewed confidence and proceeded to the nearby Stop & Shop to continue my quest for dog food.

No luck at Stop & Shop and no indication that anyone knew I was femulating... I was just an old woman who lived for shoes. Which just goes to show you that passing/blending when out in a group is much more difficult than being out solo.

This Stop & Shop was next door to the roz&Ali (nee Dressbarn) that I frequented when I was employed, so I decided to visit the store, say hello to the sales reps who knew me well and maybe find something that fits.

I walked in, began perusing the racks and the store manager, who I have known like forever, approached me and we got caught up since it was almost a year since I had last seen her. As she asked me if there was anything in particular I was looking for, I saw a dress on display to die for and said, "I love that dress."

She said that she was almost sold out and did not think I had any in my size, but she took that back when I told her I'm a size 14 and sometimes a 12 now. She found a 12 and a 14 and escorted me to the dressing room.

The 12 was a little tight, but the 14 was just right, so I opened my purse and bought the dress that I intend to wear to my high school reunion, if I decide to go as a woman.

Wearing New York & Company (Source: New York & Company)

📺 Bert Wheeler femulating in the 1931 film Peach-O-Reno.