Oooh, new Weeds tomorrow. I almost forgot. And now we're past the screeners.

OK, question for everyone: What is appropriate funeral attire? I was rather surprised at the funeral I attended this afternoon, I would say less than half the crowd was wearing black.

And some were wearing like, blue jeans and a blue and white striped shirt. We're not even talking "Oh, I don't have black so I wore dark purple" or "Well, she didn't like black so I got dressed up in her favorite color pink" or something.

Color wise - I'm not to worried about what people wear - I have to say I expect more conservative/more formal types of clothing.

I think of proper funeral attire as being dressy and sober. Not necessarily black (neither my mother nor I wore black at my dad's funeral), but dark and/or muted colors. I can't imagine not wearing a dress or skirt to a funeral, and I'd expect a man to wear a tie. Nothing perky or festive and nothing too revealing.

What Beth said. . . I would be surprised if the people closest to the deceased weren't wearing black but other attendees? I think formal daywear is what I would expect.

Funeral attire: I think I would be comfortable in any semi-dressy outfit I would feel pleased to go to church in - ya know, nicely dressed up so as to show respect and create the right mind-set for worship. This is as opposed to those times when I have shown up to church in slounge-y clothes on the principle that hauling my butt into a pew in any old thing is better than not going because I could not manage to dress up.

I'd be surprised at the jeans, but hardly anyone's worn black at any recent funeral I can remember, other than on people who'd be wearing black anyway. To me the new standard of funeral-appropriate is mostly (if not exclusively) dark and fairly sober cuts -- not a lot of flouncy ruffly things, for instance.

Yeah, I was just as surprised by the lack of dark/sober as I was by the informality. And heck, even some of the not-jeans was, like, a white halter-neck sundress. Which seemed odd also.

I guess I'd think of funeral attire being black and certainly more formal than jeans. I suppose if someone didn't have something black, I'd expect them to choose something that didn't call attention to what they were wearing.

Zenkitty, my nephew's vote for the best sandwiching bread he's found is a brand called Kinnikinnick. Note, he didn't have much to say about the bread except "best he knows of" but he did give a big thumbs up to their doughnuts. They can get this brand in some of the local supermarkets, and at Whole Paycheck-Foods.

As for colors, I suppose black at funerals has gone out with not wearing black at weddings. Some friends of mine wore white - ok, he had a white suit, and she had a white floral print dress - to their baby son's funeral. As devout as they were, it was a statement that, no matter how sad they were that the baby was no longer with them, he had "gone to be with Jesus" and they refused to be sad about that.

How much of our standards of what is appropriate to wear is based in formal worship attendence? What I am trying to say is that I learned what is appropriate to wear to various kinds of events mostly as they related to church going. I'm sure I am not the only one, but then I'm equally sure that many people have successfully navigated appropriate dress for various situations without ever participating in any religious activities. But I fear that my parents would not have bothered to teach me any such thing without the need to not be embarassed by their offspring on Sundays.