“Where are you taking those good black jeans,” asked my husband as he checked out the pile of clothes at the front door. They’re too short in the waist and too belled in the bottom, I explained. And these hiking boots kill my feet. And the mango colored shirt? Well, we agree that was a regrettable purchase.

The occasion was a clothes swap at a friend’s backyard in Forestville. The basics of the swap are pretty simple. All the guests bring items from their own closets that they’re ready to give up. The clothes are not tattered or hopelessly outdated. You might admire them on a friend, just not on yourself anymore. If ever.

I don’t know the origin of the clothes swap but it may have started in the pioneer days when women had to make do with one dress all the way from New Jersey to California and somewhere in western Kansas one yelled out “I’m so sick of this rag,” prompting the woman in the next wagon to yell out, “I’ll take it” and with that, one ripped off her gray muslin and the other her yellow calico and they swapped.

By the time everyone got to Sacramento the word had spread and someone had a party in her backyard and all the women got silly and tried on each other’s clothes and had something to drink and came home with a brand new look. When their husbands inquired, “Where did you get that?” they could say, “This old thing?”

It’s the best kind of shopping. You are surrounded by personal advisors who won’t hesitate to urge you to “take it, you can wear it with jeans.” Or to frown and say, “leave it.” It costs nothing. You’re recycling. And you might make a score. Like I did with my new pencil skirt that can go with sandals or boots and according to observers makes me look tall. And which my friend Maureen is ever so grateful to never wear again.

What’s left at the end of the day gets taken to the local hospice thrift store, so even though you haven’t spent any money you do end up stimulating the economy.

It’s the best kind of shopping.

You would not mistake this scene for a garden party in spite of the Jamaican music, wine and food and women spilling out of their underwires. On the clothesline by the garage were coats, pantsuits and near-formal dresses suitable for fund-raisers. Along the deck was a lineup of shoes - mother-of-the-bride wedding sandals, running shoes bought online but never worn and a dreamy pair of cowboy boots that no amount of straining and pushing were going to fit a size 9.

On the blanket next to the vegetable garden was a pile of summer sweaters where a couple of teachers held forth on the California budget. Tank tops and T-shirts stretched out on a blanket by the pool where some of us wished for a return to shoulder pads. There wasn’t much action at the lingerie table except for a tasty discussion over whether nightgowns or T-shirts are better for sleeping but dont’ do much for your sex life.

The clothes swap is such a good idea I don’t know why men don’t try it. They wouldn’t need hardly as many tables. Maybe one for khaki pants, one for button down shirts, one for those baggy shirts with pictures of surfboards and martini glasses. Here’s an image: a bunch of men walking around in skivvies and black socks asking if plum goes with their hair color.

My sister, who lives in New England and who supplies clams and lobsters when I visit, expects oysters at this end of the country.

We are familiar with each other’s regional delicacies and neighborhood attractions from all the years we’ve been traveling between coasts. Some of our best visits are when we get together and do things on a whim, on the cheap and as local as possible. This concept of playing tourist in your own backyard, known as the stay-cation, is not new to us. We take turns at it.

The weather forecast for the week was moody and indecisive, typical for Northern California in June but a soggy surprise for even a regular visitor, especially a New Englander who doesn’t consider fleece vests and socks necessary summer wear.

We decided to ignore the weather and head for Tomales Bay. Taking the back roads, up and over Sonoma and Marin farmland and hills, the route presents spectacular vistas that are pretty routine to me, which is why you want a non-local along, to remind you where you live and to ooh and ahh over cows and egrets and sudden outcropping of poppies.

This concept of the stay-cation is not new to us.

I feel the same in her world. On the short drive from her house to the beach, I go wild over stone fences, corn stands and salt marshes. When I’m back there I always need to stop at one of the funky old fish shacks you see sitting on the water in most coastal towns, un-fancy places where you can grab a plate of fried clams or haddock and take in that raw briny sea air which to me is perfume.

Why, I always whine, can’t California have our own funky fish places? The choice is either a white linen sit-down restaurant with large menus or an oyster farm where you buy a bag of raw ones to take home and grill. But on this day driving along Tomales Bay my keen-eyed sister spotted a store in the tiny town of Marshall with a sign promising cold beer and barbecued oysters. We sat on the water’s edge at a table made from a board across two barrels, slurped a dozen garlicky beauties, mopped up the juice with slabs of sourdough and watched Point Reyes pop out of the fog. A vacation high-five.

There were others. Another night we drove up the road to Healdsburg for outdoor burgers and wine followed by sweet, live jazz. Because my sister was coming I thought ahead and ordered tickets for the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, something I tend to often regrettably let slip until it’s long over. At the Sebastopol farmers market we ate tamales for breakfast and my sister bagged up rhubarb and strawberries to make a pie. She rolled out the crust – she has the pie gene, not me – and we talked about our grandmother and her rhubarb patch in Pennsylvania and our dad’s strawberry garden in Connecticut.

A stay-cation is not as exotic as going to Venice or Barcelona. People don’t listen dreamily to your story about how you stayed home and drank coffee for half the morning, then walked downtown to the book store, scored a blue sweater on sale and bought an ice cream cone.

I know that eventually I will get the yearning to go some place where I need a passport and a dictionary. When a friend said she was taking her family to France this summer, I felt a twinge of Frequent Flyer envy.

Yet, for now, the recession has made backyard vacations the chic alternative, and I’m thinking I should soon plan another one. Maybe a place where the sun comes up over the ocean and there’s a bucket of steamers and a free bed waiting.

Photo from Marshall Store

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There’s a newspaper photo of Clint Eastwood that I use as an example of how the media look more kindly at men than women. There’s the unmistakable Clint squint. The famous steely gaze. Up close it’s a ruggedly handsome face, but what’s most amazing is that it’s the face of a man who’s been around for almost 80 years. And yet you still want to look at it.

We don’t see many female faces like that. Unless it’s a fading actress caught by the paparazzi in a “Gray Gardens” moment, older women’s faces don’t warrant a lot of close-ups. Who’d look? You’d just want to shudder and say, “Oh, honey, put on some blush or something.”

At least that’s how we’ve been conditioned to react. The line is that men age better than women, but that’s not true. The sun delivers funny brown spots on their faces, too. They get puffy. Lines deepen. Chins happen. The difference is we have a higher standard for what we want to look at in a woman’s face.

Basically, men get to look real. And women don’t. And that’s at just about any age.

However, something may be happening to change that. Perhaps we’re seeing a trend to natural beauty. We did have those Dove soap commercials showing ordinary women of all ages and sizes, some plump, some practically naked. Then, this spring the French version of Elle magazine did a photo spread of models without makeup. Stars like Sophie Marceau and Charlotte Rampling (pictured). No eyeliner. No lip filler. No retouching. No apologies.

It got a lot of attention. People called it refreshing. A photographer made it sound like even he thought excessive retouching was an unfair way to portray women. French health officials had already been pushing for this kind of reality check with a proposed measure that magazines have to report when and how images are altered. The fact that the health department got involved shows how damaging it can be for the public to try to measure up to faces where noses have been cloned and cheekbones moved around.

We may never see such a reversal in American fashion magazines but imagine what would happen if real faces and bodies became more the beauty standard than manipulated perfect ones. From time to time we get these glimpses of reality. Remember how excited we all were when Jamie Lee Curtis appeared in More magazine with her cellulite showing?

What if there were a beauty version of the slow food movement? Where human beings, like vegetables, get to be appreciated in their natural state. With soft spots and lumps. Preferred, actually, over the hothouse chemically pumped-up alternative.

Of course, you don’t have be famous to get a camera to lie for you. Wedding photographers can do better body shaping on a bride than her Spanx. As well as remove a groom’s paunch and trim a mother-of-the-bride’s ankles. And we have our own digital cameras that can zap out a life line or two before we plant our latest mug on Facebook.

Yet, models without makeup is an encouraging development. Even if it’s only a trend that lasts no longer than gladiator sandals, we could slowly move toward a greater appreciation for what all there is to study and admire in a face.

Get past the skin tone and the jaw line and what do you see? Kindness. Serenity. Wisdom. Courage. If they’re there you can spot them. If they’re not, you can’t add them, even with Photoshop.

French Elle photo of Charlotte Rampling