I found the four skirts today at the same shop in Old Sacramento that I went to a year and a half ago when I bought these four skirts. The store is called "Jewels Unique" and sells only imports from India; apparently my taste in skirts is very Indian, since I always like practically everything in the store there, and nothing in any other stores anywhere else. Unfortunately, however, three of those four skirts I bought last time (all but the purple one) have since fallen apart. Which is a pretty good indicator that they probably weren't very well made in the first place. But how much can you really complain about skirts falling apart when they only cost $10 each? Not very much. Anyway, I think (hope) the ones I bought there today will last longer. At least, the fabric looks much less flimsy this time, and the skirts cost three times as much this time. Which still isn't really a normal skirt price, so I guess I should still be wary. But there aren't any other stores that sell any skirts I like! And surely it's better to have clothes I like that don't last long than to not have any clothes I like at all.
(Except that I also have to wonder what kind of sweatshops they must make these things in, and whether the wages have tripled along with the price. Well, at least I supported a small-business store owner and a clothing label I've never heard of, instead of a department store chain and standard multinational corporate brands. Does that count for anything?)
I had given up on finding anything else I wanted and was heading back to the parking garage, when I happened to glance through a doorway of another shop in Old Sacramento, and caught sight of a purple purse of an appropriate size for carrying books to work, so I immediately bought that too. Then I returned to my usual suburb and bought shoes and chocolate (it would be terribly wrong to allow myself to be chocolateless on December 26th), and then I went home. And took a photograph of my loot so I could show it off to you. Since Stardust was unwilling to believe that any photograph could possibly be complete without her in it, you get to see her, too.