new year's salinger

[Mrs. Glass] was wearing her usual at-home vesture-what her son Buddy (who was a writer, and consequently, as Kafka, no less, has told us, not a nice man) called her pre-notification-of-death uniform. It consisted mostly of a hoary midnight-blue Japanese kimono. She almost invariably wore it throughout the apartment during the day. With its many occultish-looking folds, it also served as the repository for the paraphernalia of a very heavy cigarette smoker and an amateur handyman; two oversized pockets had been added at the hips, and they usually contained two or three packs of cigarettes, several match folders, a screwdriver, a claw-end hammer, a Boy Scout knife that had once belonged to one of her sons, and an enamel faucet handle or two, plus an assortment of screws, nails, hinges, and ball-bearing casters-all of which tended to make Mrs. Glass chink faintly as she moved about in her large apartment. ~ Franny and Zoey -- J.D. Salinger (b. January 1, 1919 - d. January 27, 2010) 

Pictured:  The Blue Kimono -- William Merrit Chase, 1898