The Pregnant Goat

Out in the boonies where my mother lives, there's a ranch where people raise and sell llamas. It's only a few blocks from my mom's house. Every time I go visit her, I walk over to the llama ranch to see the llamas. They're really beautiful and graceful, and they have such big eyes and long eyelashes. They look very intelligent, and they're curious--they all come over to look at us when when we go by to look at them!

The people with the llamas also have a herd of goats. This time the goats were even more interesting than the llamas. They were totally pregnant. I've never seen anything quite like this pregnant goat. She looked like she'd swallowed a flying saucer. It was kind of disconcerting, actually.

And a Lump of Coal

This is a Nintendo DS Lite, and my little sister wants it. She is not a brat, she is not spoiled (in fact, she's deprived, in my opinion) and she did not throw herself onto the floor of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory screaming that she had to have it. She mentioned it to me when I saw her last, a few weeks ago.

I e-mailed our father to ask if he had already gotten it for her, in which case I would have gotten her some games for it. There are age-appropriate games for this thing, with such titles as "Build a Bear Workshop", "Hamsterz Life" and "Charlotte's Web."

Our dear father responded saying that she doesn't need this game, that she already has the "keeping up with the Joneses" syndrome, and that even if she had this game (meaning if I buy it for her) they will probably not let her play with it, because she doesn't need to "zombie out" in this way. My dad fancies himself a non-consumerist hippie, but only when it's convenient for him. Please, they live in an affluent neighborhood where white people and a handful of Asians who don't want to live around people of color and poor people go to live, and her mother drives a Mercedes. Hypocrites! The last time I saw my sister, her hair was a rat's next, uncombed, her pants were five inches too short and her shoes didn't match anything else she was wearing (none of it matched, actually). Why not get her some cute clothes? Soon enough she will have to deal with breasts, bras, body issues, and ugly office-appropriate clothing.

I'm hardly saying they're neglectful parents... they're just so out of it, so cheap (they can WELL afford the stupid Nintendo DS), and they dress her so goddamned ugly.
It's really a shame. And at my age (no longer in my twenties, shall we say) and my dad's (61) I can't exactly go off on him the way I'd like to. I'm old, he's old... I can't really just tell him where to shove his granola. My poor sister. Shall I give her a ball of homespun wool (I can pick the little fuzzies off my rug and save them for this) and two sticks to knit with as her educational, non materialistic Christmas gift?

I have half a mind to go out right now and buy an overpriced, hot pink velour sweatsuit that says "SPOILED JUICY BRAT" or "HOTT JUICY KID" (or some such nonsense) on the back and send it off to her... WITH the Nintendo DS Lite. In pink.

Twilight

I've just finished reading, in rapid succession, the three novels in the "Twilight Series," a vampire teen love story/thriller by author Stephenie Meyer. I thought it was a trilogy, but apparently there is another novel in the works.

Twilight has a cult following, and is quite a phenomenon. (A movie is forthcoming.) It taps into a lot of the romantic fantasies that make people tick, I think. There's a gorgeous guy (Edward) who is mature (he's something like 100 years old, though physically he's stuck forever at age 17), rich, generous, protective and hot. The female protagonist, Bella, is sort of the classic heroine of romance novels: smart, beautiful but she doesn't know it, stubborn, headstrong yet vulnerable, kind of unemotional with most people, but of course extremely passionate with the guy she's in love with, and so forth. I think that's the gist of the romantic plot, but there are many twists and turns, and the novels create and describe the magical/supernatural realm in ways that really pull you in! They're very fun to read... Freud be damned... and adolescent literature is still a genre that I love.
Although a lot of adolecent lit does have sex in it (did that start with Forever, in 1975, by Judy Blume?), the Twilight series (SPOILER ALERT!) doesn't. It's a big sexual tease, actually!

The Devil Wears Fleece

I rarely write about work, because, let's face it, I (along with so many other millions of employees) could fill blogs, novels and additional external hard drives full of accounts of horrid work experiences. Besides, it's depressing. Fashion, home, design and style are just so much more fun.

But sometimes work collides with blog in ways we cannot ignore!

For years I've been seeing these Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT) shoes in the Bliss catalog. They're ugly, they're expensive for an ugly pair of shoes, and they're supposed to give you a great workout while you're walking around, building up strong legs and a superbutt. I've long wanted a pair, but it just seems there are so many cute shoes to be had for that price, so I've never actually gotten around to getting them.

Yesterday I overheard an executive at work bellowing into the phone in her office, having a loud personal conversation. (I don't get why people don't understand that today's modern telephone equipment is not the same as it was when a phone was two styrofoam cups and a string. We don't have to YELL into the phones anymore. The microphones are powerful, and they pick up your voice and convey it anywhere it needs to go. But so many executives do this, right? They love to sit in their big offices bellowing their personal conversations. I've heard it all... screaming at the contractor because the new sliding doors at home don't slide. Son going into boarding school... blah blah kicked out of boarding school. Something something dog coughing need a holisitic vet. It's all part of their obnoxious entitlement.)

This conversation happened to be about the MBT sneaker! She was doing a poor job of explaining it, but that's definitely what she was screaming about. Will wonders never cease? I thought the MBT sneaker was for models, the wealthy and bored yoga/nonfat latte crowd, the body-obsessed, and readers of the Bliss catalog.
Who knew that the devil who wears fleece would know about this shoe?

Mickey, Minnie and all the other Mice.

My hamster died a few months ago, after a long hamster life. He was a fat, slow, adorable ball of fluff, without a tail, of course. (Well, hamsters do have a tail but it's just a tiny stumpy thing.) I know hamsters are rodents, but they're really more like tiny teddy bears.

Having been rodentless for some months, I couldn't have been more shocked one evening when I was sitting on the couch, talking to DD, who was in the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something little and dark run FAST along the wall and disappear into the kitchen. We have inhabited our apartment for two years and have never seen such a thing--a mouse! (People who liken mice to hamsters have never seen the lightning speed with which house mice run, whereas a freed hamster will often just stand in one spot trembling and looking befuddled.)

We keep the apartment extremely clean and spare. Our place is small, our aesthetic modern, and we just don't have a lot of stuff. I like to think that if DD and I died suddenly, whomever would have to clean out our apartment could empty it in about an hour, and clean it with barely a quick sweep and a quick spritz of glass cleaner, and no bizarre secrets would be revealed in our drawers, under the beds, or on our bookshelves. My first incorrect assumption about mice, that only dirty places have them, was corrected in a hurry.

Like complete idiots, DD and I purchased various humane rodent repelling devices, like an electrical sound thing that they can supposedly hear, the sound bothers them, and they leave you alone. HA HA HA. Those don't work. Next, I purchased some sort of "humane" electric chair for mice. You put 4 AA batteries in this little box, smear some peanut butter inside, and the mouse goes in and gets electrocuted "painlessly". Well, we will never know. I have yet to catch a mouse in it! We also threw out all our dry food and teas, and purchased some expensive super sealing containers for the new dry food, rice, noodles, chips, sugar, etc. Same with the trash can and recycling can. We got rid of them and are now shopping for the fancy tight-sealing kind. They're more than $100 each!

We learned that our landlord has a whole rodent control department. Nice to know that the entire complex is infested, not just our unit! Awesome! A guy came and set up the traditional awful, scary mousetraps, plus some freaky glue traps that look like an old fashioned meat tray, only they're coated with some super sticky glue.
He looked around our apartment and determined that it was well sealed and that there was no way mice could get in, which of course, makes no sense. He also said that from the "evidence", or lack of, he concluded there were no more than 2 mice.

We've now caught a total of 4 mice... in the glue traps. Yes, this means a mouse gets stuck in glue and dies a horrible death. I read on the internet that the humane way to kill mice is either to drown them in bucket, in a bag held down by a brick, or to put them in the freezer. DD yelled when I told him this, and said we are neither setting up a drowning device, nor putting mice in the freezer with our ice cubes. I am afraid of my kitchen and am losing weight, without exercising.

But we got some good advice from someone else who had a mouse infestation where we live. She said to raise holy hell with the work order desk and make them come out, move appliances out, and stuff every conceivable hole with copper mesh before putting the appliances back. Apparently this is the best thing for blocking all access points. She also shared some DELIGHTFUL information about the hantavirus.

Whole Sizes Only

Along with the Isabella Fiore Peace Out bag I would like to wear these John Fluevog "Rainbow" sandals. They only come in whole sizes, and I'm almost always a 6.5. Sometimes a 6, but really rarely. Why are some shoes only offered in whole sizes? That makes me crazy. I hate it!

For Rich Hippie Wannabes...

I'm in LOVE with this bag. It's by Isabella Fiore and it's called "Peace Out". I think it was released in summer.
I'm not usually the biggest fan of Isabella Fiore. A friend of mine loves the older style IF beaded bags and would show them to me. "That's a lot of shiny beads," I thought. But some of IF's styles are hippie chic or motorcycle chic and they appeal to me a lot.

This Peace Out business was something like $700 orginially. Too rich for my blood! But I've got my eye out and am checking Ebay regularly! The fact that a lot of fashion bloggers have declared it the most hideous, ugly bag IF ever made can only work in my favor!

Holiday Card Dilemma

I went to Catholic elementary school. Much time was spent in class between Thanksgiving and Christmas making a highly involved craft gift for our parents, nearly always of a religious nature, of course, except for the one year when we glued individual red pistachio shells all over a pointsettia cut out and then shellac-ed it. There was the profile of a wise man, covered with macaroni and spray painted gold. There were 3D Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus dioramas... there was an advent wreath. That was my favorite, because I liked pink and purple.

I still get sort of crafty around the holidays, often this craftiness takes the form of a handmade or self-designed Christmas/holiday/winter solstice/Japanese New Year card. Last year DD and I worked on them together. The theme was gingerbread men.
The resulting cards kind of looked like something a ten year old would make, but they were cute. We recently discussed different themes and ideas this year, coming close to agreeing on one, and then throwing in the towel and deciding to just BUY preprinted, boxed holiday cards. We're totally giving up, I know.

Choosing them is not as easy as it would seem. Everything feels falsely cheerful and ironic to me. You know, penguins doing cute things, ditto polar bears--I mean, let's face global warming. The wintry scenes have always felt weird to me... I grew up in Southern California, where the closest thing to a white Christmas was my mom saying, "Should we get a flocked tree this year? Should we? They're pretty, huh? Should we? Nah." I try to go for general holiday messages out of the desire to respect everyone's spiritual beliefs. Also important to me is paper quality. I love nice paper!

These are two pretty appealing designs, although neither quite nail it for me. Almost. "Hope Peace Cookies" is a Kate Spade design, and the bright stars are available at the Museum of Modern Art store.

Christmas Starts On Halloween

On Halloween I went to the market to get some things for our dinner and came across a big end display of Mrs Meyer's Clean Day Holiday cleaning kits-- the package is shaped and decorated like a gingerbread house, there's a recipe for gingerbread and butter frosting on the side of the carton, and the carton contains mini versions of four Mrs Meyer's products-- Countertop Spray, Concentrated Cleaner (mix with water to make more Countertop Spray), Dishwashing Liquid and Room Freshener. I wish it contained a mini Glass Cleaner instead of Room Freshener, but, oh well. All the products are scented like gingerbread.

There are so many cool things offered around the holidays, and it's like you have to get them now because they're limited to the holidays. Of course I know that this is all some massive corporate ploy to make us consumers buy a lot of stuff in the last fiscal quarter (duh). But dishwashing liquid that smells like gingerbread? Can you really fault me for buying a $15 Christmas-scented cleaning kit while literally wearing my Halloween costume?! The very next day my friend Meagan and I hustled it over to Lush, where we bought more limited-edition, "holiday" items. I tell you, these companies are shrewd and cruel.

Jordan Crane

Happy Halloween! I like artist/comic book artist Jordan Crane's kind of scary, kind of sad, bittersweet images. They're melancholy, but cute, to use an over-used word. Oh, they're not just for Halloween, either. I just thought I would talk about them today. The green one is called "late night long walk high hopes" and the poison one is called "write note if swallowed".

These are from a postcard book of his. It's called Uptight All Night: 30 postcards. The colors are super saturated and the postcards are much more beautiful than what one would usually see in a postcard book. I like sending postcards through the mail often instead of notecard + envelope. I took on this habit after receiving a postcard in the mail from my calligraphy teacher. His writing is so beautiful that every letter and number just makes your eyes bug out of your head! It's show-offy, or somewhat exhibitionistic, to send a postcard instead of a note. In spite of that, or because of it, I like using postcards.

Cinderella Says

It's really simple: if the shoes don't fit, I don't buy them.

A great principle, very simple--but there's this phenomenon that happens to me sometimes, usually when a beautiful shoe is on sale for a really good price.
The phenomenon works like this: I try the shoe on, and it seems to fit! It feels great! It's like walking on clouds! Gleefully, I buy the shoe. I get the shoe home, admire it for a few days, possibly crow to my friends and boyfriend about the deal I got. Then, the first time I'm going to wear the shoe, it hurts like a motherf*cker.

That's what happened with these cute John Fluevog chunky platforms. I love Fluevogs--on other people, and in the store.
They're beautiful, they're weird, and they're not common. But I've never found a pair that fits me. My shoe size is usually 6.5 but sometimes 6. Every shoe or boot of Fluevogs' that I've ever tried in 6 has been too tight, and every 6.5 too big. And I go to the boutique and try at least twice a year, trying several styles.

The other day I was supposed to meet my friend at a certain time on a certain street, only when I called her she said she was just waking up from a nap. She was going to come in 1/2 an hour, she said. So I wandered over to Fluevog and saw these brown, apricot and pink platforms on sale for a mere $89, regularly $225. They were the only pair left and they were a 6. I wasn't even going to try them on, but since I was waiting for my friend and there was no one in the store, I did. And they felt great! I was in shock... happy shock! Of course I bought the shoes. The next day when I tried them on with all my outfits that would match, they had suddenly shrunk and my toes could not move around and I felt like I had my feet bound. DAMN IT! So I took off my thin sock and put on an even thinner nylon socky thing and they were still killer. Sadly, I examined my receipt and sure enough, it said FINAL SALE. "FINAL SALE" was even circled in pen by the salesperson.

I let my friend try them on, thinking she might want to buy them from me--she also loves Fluevog, and she has a slightly smaller foot than I do. She got the same happy glaze on her face that I recognized from my own-- she was talking really fast and saying they were slightly too tight but she was sure she could make them work, etc etc. I think it's the $89 dollar thing, really. It's just such a great price that it makes people crazy. I don't know, maybe a cobbler could stretch them for her where they're tight. For me, it was the length of the shoe, and the arch didn't even hit my arch in the right place, so it kind of felt like the shoe was trying to eject me out of it, with only the strap like a seat belt holding me in, so I know that stretching them won't help me. I'm like Drucilla and Anastasia trying to cram my caveman feet into Cinderella's shoe. But maybe they will work for my friend. If the shoe fits, wear it! But if not, stay away, no matter how inexpensive!

Georgia Rule

If I wrote about all the bad movies I see, it would just be endless. I kind of purposely try not to write about all the bad movies, much like I try not to write about all the clothes and shoes I want, because where do you stop with that kind of thing? A person could have a whole blog, updated about 20 times a day if you write about bad movies and all the clothes and shoes and handbags you want.

But Georgia Rule was just SO, SO bad that I must make an exception to my rule! It was so bad that I can't believe the studio producers had the nerve to write a scolding letter to Lindsay Lohan telling her that her bad behavior was jeopardizing the film. Umm... she could not have made the suckiness of this film any worse. It had a bad screenplay, bad dialogue*, pathetic attempt at making LA look like rural Idaho... and Dermot Mulroney as a veterinarian... Jane Fonda's stiff, expressionless eyes and eyelids... everything about Felicity Huffman, oh, God, Georgia Rule is SUCH A BAD MOVIE!

Tangent: look at this old picture of beautiful Jane Fonda.

The movie sucked so bad I can't even write a coherent post!

* Some of Lindsay Lohan's character's BAD lines:
1) "You don't have to brush me or feed me after riding me."
2) "I'm going to find your boyfriends and f*ck them stupid."

and this profound pearl of wisdom:

3) "You can't stop what's done to you. You can only survive it."

I know, I was a total moron for even putting it on my Netflix queue...

The Panty Fight

I was introduced to the concept of Nordstrom Rack by my friend Eileen, who till recently was also my co-worker. She would always come to work and say, "Like this top? $12 at Nordstrom Rack," or "I just bought a bunch of underwear... Nordstrom Rack..."

So the other day Eileen and I went to Nordstrom Rack. I had been there once before, I remembered upon entering the store, but it was such a traumatic experience that I must have blocked it out. Actually, Nordstrom Rack wasn't the bad experience... I had dropped a metal luggage cart thing full of sex toys on my foot and it literally cut off two of my toenails, and at the time I only wore high heeled shoes or high wedges. I had to buy a few pairs of shoes that were open toed, because I could not put any pressure whatsoever on the completely bare, sensitive nail-less toes, and also low-heeled, so a sympathetic pal had taken me to Nordstrom Rack, but I'd forgotten that it was Nordstrom Rack.

This time, I realized that there are remarkable deals at Nordstrom Rack, like a $1,000 Isabelle Fiore purse for $265, and Citizens of Humanity jeans for $78. The pain in the butt part is that you kind of have to dig around and rummage around and you might find something wonderful but they don't have your size, etc. But it's fun and you might find some great deals.

So then I went with my friend Ruth, who got into a panty fight with some woman. Apparently, the woman grabbed a pair of panties that Ruth would have bought almost right out of her hands. Ruth laughed about it. She wasn't too mad. That lady was lucky. Ruth has a black belt in kung fu!

The panties I like best are Cosabella's. They're really pretty and really comfortable. The plain solid colored ones are around $21 a pair, and some of the more lacy ones or ones with ribbons and other details are more like around $35 a pair. Sometimes you can get a great deal on them from Ebay sellers, like the solid ones, brand new with tags for like $10 or $12.(They don't let you sell used panties on Ebay, but they used to. Technically you weren't supposed to, but people would have ads that said things like, "unWORN, unUSED not DIRTY panties for sale..." But Ebay put a stop to that.) The other night I bid on and won a lacy pair for only $15.50 or something like that.

The next day I have this email from another person who was bidding, and the email says something like, "Sorry to bother you but I bought the matching bra and I was trying to win the matching panties and I was wondering if..." Never say that I am not a nice person, because I wrote to her told her that I can understand wanting a matching bra and panty set and yes, I will sell the item to her for the same amount I paid. I am not engaging in a panty fight! I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Hardier than Cockroaches?

There's a fennel plant growing out of the asphalt in a parking spot right outside my work. I can't believe this thing grows there--it's such a filthy, industrial part of San Francisco, and people are constantly snapping off its branches with their oh-so- skillful parking.

Even more astounding is that swallowtail butterflies have laid their eggs on this fennel plant and now it has some caterpillars on it! There's also one chrysalis attached to the railing of our stairs. It's incredibly hard for me to spot the caterpillars because their camouflage is so good! I took a few photos. Here's one.

Butterflies and Rainbows

Gloomy day. I had to pick up the company bagels at 6:30 am for work and it was raining.
(I was impressed with myself because I put fresh new windshield wipers on my car a few weeks before it actually rained. Hey, I'm turning into one of those organized, prepared people! Now if I can just start actually saving some money...)

As I was leaving work, one of the managers found some swallowtail caterpillars on a fennel plant outside. She was so excited, showing them to three of us who were leaving at the same time. There was already a chrysalis hanging from the railing of the stairs, too. My work is located on a really dirty, dangerous street; by dirty, I mean it's a common passageway for diesel semis and it's a very industrial area--it's polluted and gross. Pretty amazing that butterflies would want to come lay eggs there.

Then on the way home I saw this rainbow. Butterflies and a rainbow in one day. I thought it was a sign I was going to get into a car accident and die on the way home, but I was wrong. I lived to tell.

Dahlias

The dahlia garden at Golden Gate Park is one of my favorite annual San Francisco events. (My least favorite is Fleet Week, which just ended two hours ago. This annual display of miliary might literally flies right over my apartment, with all its earsplitting, booming, shrieking scariness.)

The best time to see the dahlias was probably a month or three weeks ago; the flowers are on the downturn now, but still outrageously beautiful! The dahlias are so amazing in their mathematical, patterned perfection. Although the word "dahlia" comes from "Dahl"-- the name of a Swedish person, they actually originated in Mexico and Central America. Aztecdahlias.com says they originally had an Aztec name-- "acocotli" or "water-cane", and they are the national flower of Mexico. Go see them, before it's too late!

The Great Jade Hunt

My sister's birthday approacheth. What to get? I rembered her telling me something about some doll she has-- a "Bratz" doll with "yellow" hair, as she says. She's turning six.

The Bratz dolls, in case you don't know (I didn't), are a popular line of dolls who have really big heads compared to their bodies, large cat-like eyes and big, inflated looking lips. They wear slutty fashions and often come with interchangeable miniskirts, tiny tops, and feet. That's right... you don't just change their shoes... you change their feet, which have the shoes painted on! A few years back there was some scandal because one of the Bratz was being sold with a thong panty.

I'm somewhat horrified that my sister is into these Bratz, but on the other hand, I remember what it was like to be my dad's child. He's extremely unconventional, and while I now appreciate my hippie upbringing, at the time, as a kid and teenager, I often just wanted candy, Guess? jeans, name-brand stupid toys (not super educational toys), and a lunch pail like everyone else's that wasn't ergonomic and made of renewable hemp or organic cotton. I usually get my sister books or art supplies. But she's in kindergarten now, and is now old enough to realize that she who has the most toys... well, she who has the most toys has the most toys, that's all. Kindergarten can be competitive. I remember!

So off to the toy superstore went DD and I.

There was a whole aisle of Bratz and Bratz paraphernalia, but it was at first difficult to find "Jade"--the somewhat Asian looking character. I was also looking for the "Bratz Kidz" line of dolls, which are more age-appropriate for my sister. The Bratz Kidz are dressed more modestly than the adult-ish Bratz, and they come with accessories like a pony or school things or fairy wings and wand. Their changes of clothes include bell bottomed jeans and little cardigans (thank God). There was no Winter Fun Jade, though... no Back to School Jade... no Jade with Pony, although there were all the other characters available...the one with "yellow" hair (Cloe), Yasmin (possibly Latina, Yasmin is a brunette), and Sasha, presumably African American. Fortunately, DD found Jade in the clearance aisle... I ended up purchasing Sasha, Jade and someone named Lilani. I chose Lilani because she seemed more rare and because she came with a fairy costume. After three days of researching Bratz, their potentially harmful affectz, their availability, and their pricez, I've gone completely nutz!

Snow on the Mountains

Sometimes I like a green bouquet--Bells of Ireland, eucalyptus, some lemon leaves, and other green things florists bundle into a green bouquet can be really pretty and kind of a soothing change from a colorful bouquet of flowers. So, at the Farmers Market I decided to buy this plant--"Snow on the Mountains", or Euphorbia Marginata.
Turns out this stuff bleeds a milky white sap that is potentially irritating to the eyes and skin... in fact, the whole plant is potentially irritating to the eyes and skin. The person who sold me the plant cuttings said, "Don't touch the plant and touch your eyes..."
"Okay, thanks for telling me," I said, trying to be nonchalant, but actually sort of wanting to not buy them after all. Anyhow, the plant cuttings sat around our apartment for a week and in that week some of the flower parts opened, releasing some kind of insect hatchlings that were striped yellow and black like bees, but much skinnier. Fabulously poisonous, infested Snow on the Mountains! Just great!

When Coffee Snobs Fall From Grace

The other day I was helping with what we at my work call Worker Food. Worker Food is this program where we all put in a certain set amount of money and with the money, the Worker Food Committee makes a budget and buys fruits and vegetables from our company. Then they display it in this kind of makeshift "store" we have, only the store is "free"-- or you take on the honor system, based on your weekly $$ contribution.
The company sells the produce to us at cost, which is very nice. I'm not on the committee currently, but I was subbing for someone who is, who had to miss work that day. So we were cleaning out the old produce and displaying the fresh stuff when I discovered three cans of this Starbucks Double Shot Espresso and Cream stuff.

Well, I'm a coffee enthusiast, shall we say, and I like good coffee, recently roasted and ground up right before the brewing. I don't like Starbucks, and I only drink it once a year on my Christmas pilgrimage to see my family, because it's the only coffee that's slightly better than the coffee from a fast food joint along the seven hour car trip. (Why drive? Because there are lots of Christmas presents in the car.)

And yet, the fact that someone had put these weird little cans of espresso-n-sugar in the Worker Food seemed serendipitous... so I took one and tried it. I poured it over ice and actually drank half the thing before the sweetness became overwhelming and I stopped. But it actually wasn't half bad. Now, see. Someone's going to kick me out of the Blue Bottle coffee line next Saturday, outing me as someone who not only drinks Starbucks, but drinks it out of a CAN.

A Head for Business and a Body for Sin

I'm fascinated by a new manager at my work who wears horrible clothes, like straight out of the 80's, and I'm not talking cool 80's fashions worn with a 2007 sense of tongue-in-cheek; no; I mean 80's shoulder pads, big square navy blue women's suit with ill-fitting skirt and huge gold double breasted buttons, a loose polyester scarf around the neck, and closed-toe, high but thick-heeled clompy shiny pumps. I feel badly for her.

Whenever I see her and am stunned anew by the hideousness of her clothing, I think, "I've got a head for business and a body for sin," which was one of Melanie Griffith's lines in the movie Working Girl. This woman reminds me of that era of work fashion. Th funniest part is, everyone else dresses casually at my work. I mean, it's a vegetable warehouse, for God's sake. Most of the people are warehouse workers and truck drivers, our office is grubby, and we're always on recycling bin duty or kitchen duty or some other dirty duty. Her dressing up is so weirdly out of place, which is what makes it so fascinating!

Pink, Poodles, Paris

The moon is full tonight, and the weather is so mild it hardly seems like we're in San Francisco. It was a wonderful night to take a long walk, and good thing, because I would have been forced out of doors regardless of the weather and the moon's cooperation by my insane downstairs neighbor (that's always one of my common whiny refrains-- "insane downstairs neighbor"... the only thing I say more often is "insane boss") Anyhow my INSANE DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR bought some tacky little paintings or photos or something like that, apparently from Ross Dress for Less, or perhaps Marshall's, and was hammering nails into the walls to hang them. At first I thought maybe she was building a piece of furniture from IKEA, in which case all the hammering would make sense. But then I went outside to escape and saw that she was hanging all these little 8" x 10" frames with ugly pictures in them in a row on her living room wall. It looks like she's decorating a dental office in 1989 in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

Don't ask why but this got me thinking about color and style and my current cell phone, the Sanyo Katana II in "Pink Fascination". I like the phone... I don't like a lot of bells and whistles and accidental connections to Mars for $10 a minute... just a nice basic but not clunky or outdated cell phone, and this phone fits my criteria.
Okay, I really do like the color of it, but the only other colors were black and gray. If there'd been red I might have gotten red... Sometimes pink is a little gaggy, like who would carry a pink cell phone except the silliest of the silly? It goes along with having a dog who weighs less than a coconut, and carrying said dog in a handbag...

Retrolite, Bakelite

My newest bauble is from Classic Hardware--they make this plastic jewelry and they call it "Retrolite". It's supposed to be an homage to Bakelite. There's a wonderful little antique shop near my home and the woman who owns it has owned it for thirty years! One day she told me all about Bakelite--how it was this miraculous plastic and it was used for knobs, appliances, etc. It was incredibly strong and took color very well. Then they started making napkin rings, bracelets, pendants and other jewelry out of Bakelite because they could make the colors so vibrant and beautiful. Then, people who worked in Bakelite factories started getting sick. Yup, Bakelite was toxic. So, no more Bakelite.
Now, people collect Bakelite--the finished products aren't toxic, it was the manufacturing process.

(Boy, that was a pretty crappy explanation of Bakelite, but you get the idea.)

A Sucker is Born Every Day

Although I've grown out of See's Candy, as far as their chocolates go (they were always around at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Halloween when I was growing up), I still love their square lollypops. My favorite ones are the butterscotch and cafe latte flavors, and the chocolate flavored one is pretty gross... like a Tootsie Roll... that type of weird artificial chocolate flavor. They used to have peanut butter, which was gritty and kind of weird, too.

Now comes this Pumpkin Spice flavor... I had to try it. It's kind of strange and waxy or plastic-y at first, but then it's okay. Overall it's like that vanilla pumpkin spice flavored product that they pump out of an enormous jug at Starbucks. One of my friends loves that stuff. All through the holidays she carries around an enormous Pumpkin Spice latte from Starbucks, although she only sips at it and never drinks more than a few inches of it. She found the one Starbucks in San Francisco that had still had Pumpkin Spice into February last year.

If you try See's square lollypops, definitely go for butterscotch or cafe latte. I think you could safely skip Pumpkin Spice and you'd not be missing anything.

From Harry Potter to Mary Gaitskill

I was happily reading a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when DD said he had to return it to someone at work. "You can't just take it away from me now..." I protested, but he promised to buy it for me the next day. (Cut to a full WEEK later... I still don't have the Harry Potter book...ahem.) Anyhow, I began reading a book of Mary Gaitskill's short stories which someone lent to me. The book is called Bad Behavior, and the stories are mostly about characters who are somehow getting sexually involved with each other, and their inner thoughts about each other, many of which are quite mean and unkind. I guess that's realistic. One of the stories is "Secretary", and it was the basis for the film "Secretary" starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. The original story is very interesting; it ends after the attorney spanks the young typist once, for making typing errors, and after he makes her pull up her skirt once. After those two incidents, she doesn't go back to work for him any more, and the story ends.

Barbra, Soft as an Easy Chair...

It's Barbra week here on my blog. I love Barbra Streisand. It's practically genetic-- my mother loves Barbra Streisand and I grew up thinking Barbra was the right music to clean house to, to have dinner parties to, and to take a bubble bath to! Fortunately, DD also loves Barbra Streisand, or else we probably couldn't be together!

This is my favorite Barbra Streisand style era-- when she had long, flowing hair and looked very soft. Kind of like Gisele Bundchen... except Barbra came much earlier, of course!

Of Nails

Last Friday I was getting a manicure at the end of my day, which was around 3:00 pm, and my co-worker R. came with me in order to take a break in the middle of her day, which wasn't going to end till well into the night. She wanted to get acrylic nails put on, but she didn't have an appointment and not everyone at the salon applies acrylic nails, and no one who applies them was there at the time. "Well, just get a regular manicure and get the acrylics next week," I said. But she was really bent on getting acrylic nails sometime in the very near future, like probably Saturday.

I was really surprised when she showed up Sunday afternoon at a party we were both attending-- without acrylic nails. She's a very determined person. But it turns out her boyfriend dissuaded her from getting them.

All the talk of nails made me think of this teacher I had in 8th grade for Social Studies. She made us copy the preamble to the Constitution out of our textbook while she read the newspaper. She had super long, curly nails, painted dramatic colors like metallic ruby red and purple.

Then I started thinking about this song by Lil' Kim (with Lil' Shanice) where Lil' Kim goes, something like, "Keep my hair done all the time/even got a manicurist in the booth while I rhyme". The song is "Shake Your Bum Bum" and involves diamonds like disco balls, Dolce and Gabbana flip flops, and Lil' Shanice's anus.

Briefly, I remembered Florence Griffith-Joyner, the amazing athlete known as the fastest woman ever. Now that is something-- the fastest woman ever! She was also known for her flamboyant running clothes and her long, dramatic fingernails.

Speaking of long, dramatic fingernails... last but not least, there's Barbra Streisand! Her long nails are a signature style, and they're almost always painted a natural color. They're very elegant, but sometimes they're downright distracting, like in the movie The Prince of Tides.

Hmm, maybe long nails go along with confidence and power.

Carrot and Stick Press

I got these beautiful letterpressed skull and crossbones notecards at an art store the other day. They're made by Carrot and Stick Press in Oakland, California.
The paper, or cardstock, is wonderfully thick, and they make designs ranging from sweet pink polka dots to classic candy stripes to the skulls, which are my favorite notecards ever ever EVER!

Carrot and Stick Press

Pink Pearl apple

A coworker gave me two Pink Pearl apples on Friday at work. Hers were grown by Apple Farm. I like tart apples, and Pink Pearls are very tart and crisp, like Granny Smith apples. The apples she gave me had a white and pink mottled flesh.

At the Farmers Market on Saturday I saw that De Voto Gardens, from Sebastopol, CA also had Pink Pearl apples so I bought a few pounds. Theirs are sweeter than the ones I had on Friday, with a deeper pink flesh. The Pink Pearl apple is a hybrid that was developed in the 1940's. The skin is yellow or cream colored, and you can see the blush from the flesh through the skin. The people at De Voto Gardens' stand said these apples have a very short season-- late August through mid September! They compared it to an Arkansas Black apple for density, crunch and tart flavor.

Steven Shein jewelry

Sparrows, roller skates, rainbows, skulls, butterflies, old school boomboxes, anchors, headphones and many other iconic shapes, made of wood, laminate, glittery stuff and gold-- Steven Shein's made-in-LA jewelry is wearable pop art.

The heart-shaped one that reads "break this" is my favorite piece of jewelry lately!
It's made of five candy colored layers: purple, green, orange, pink and white, and is thick and chunky, suspended from a delicate chain.

Check out the amazing array of designs here...
Steven Shein

Limited Edition

The two worst words to see when it comes to some beauty product you love: Limited Edition. "Limited Edition" sends me into a panic and the need to stock up on Limited Edition items throws all budgeting and spending planning into chaos!

On a shopping venture the other day, looking for a bridal shower gift and a birthday gift, I walked hurriedly through the middle aisle of the cosmetics department at Bloomingdale's. The middle aisle is pretty much the straightest shot through Bloomingdale's, if you can keep your head from turning and keep your gaze trained straight ahead, lest you catch a glimpse of the various shimmering, glimmering colors and pots and sticks and spray bottles of fun makeup and lotions and potions to the sides. Unfortunately I made eye contact with a salesperson who smiled at me, which wasn't the true undoing, it was the fact that I smiled back. "BOBBI'S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR IS COMING SO IF YOU'RE A BOBBI FAN" she screamed at me, and about fifteen people turned to look at her and at the person she was talking to (me). I hurried over to her just to get her to stop being so goddamned embarrassing and picked up a bar of soap that had sand all over the top. I sniffed the soap while the saleswoman prattled on about Bobbi Brown's "Beach" fragrance. The soap, called "the Sandbar" is impregnanted with the fragrance, which really does smell fresh and reminiscent of suntan lotion from the 1970's. That smell has a lot of sense memory and happy emotion associated with it for a lot of people, I am sure. Flash forward... I bought the soap.

It's rich and creamy and smells great, and I love it. I was thinking about buying another bar soon. Then I found out the Sandbar is Limited Edition! Time for a freak out. The only thing worse is the dreaded "DISCONTINUED".

The Edible Woman

Someone left this book on a table at work with a note saying that it was good and whomever wanted to read it should go ahead and take it. The pages were yellowed and there was an orange "clearance 1.00" sticker on the front cover.

It has been a long time since I read Margaret Atwood's books Surfacing and The Handmaid's Tale. I read them both in college... a million billion years ago.
That was when I starting getting the itch to be done with school and go on to law school and be done with English majors and English professors and theory theory theory and deconstruction. We were always deconstructing everything. Well, I was stupid. Law school sucked some major ass and I only went for one year. It goes down in my own personal history as the most wasted year of my life, mostly because I had to study so much that I did nothing creative--absolutely nothing. It wasn't even studying, it was just mind-numbing memorizing. Of course, once entering The Workforce I quickly realized how much better it was back in school. Ah, hindsight!

Anyhow, back to The Edible Woman. It was so good that I read all over the weekend. (I'm currently reading some books that I've been reading for weeks, and two I've been reading for months. I should just give them back to the people I borrowed them from and admit, "I can't read it".) It was written in 1965 and published a few years later. It's about a woman who is engaged to be married. Her boyfriend is dull. He's a lawyer, up and coming financially. He's good-looking, dresses well, and is self-centered. Marian, the narrator, is nowhere near as "together" as he is. In one interesting part of the book, she describes how bad her kitchen has gotten. There's not once single clean dish, there's a scum on top of the cold water in the sink, the sink is piled with dishes, and the fridge is full of rotting food. After becoming engaged, Marian starts to get grossed out by meat, and then eggs, and then she's a vegan, and then a carrot one day freaks her out, too. She can barely eat. At the end she breaks free of her fiance by baking a cake in the shape of a woman and telling him to eat it instead of eating her. He thinks she's weird and he leaves. She eats the cake herself, and then she shares it with someone else. I like her because she seems really on the verge of losing it. It's kind of refreshing.

That was a horrible synopsis; I kind of feel the way you feel when you're trying to explain a dream to someone, like all bogged down and heavy. Anyway, The Edible Woman is really, really good.

Elizabeth McGrath

I like to visit the creepy, always-Halloweeny world of artist Elizabeth McGrath.
I want her book, entitled Everything that Creeps!

Elizabeth McGrath's site

Put down the tweezers!

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TAG. You're it.

Get a really good, really precise pair of sewing scissors, and don't dull them by using them for cutting your bangs or the woody stems of hydrangea (for Pete's sake). Slip the point between the thread that holds the fabric of the tag to the fabric of the panty, and CUT THE TAGS OFF YOUR PANTIES. Do it because tags are crisp and hard and scratchy.
Do it because tags are white. Do it because if you don't, someone will take a picture of your panty tag sticking out of your pants!

(All bets are off it it says "La Perla".)

Do Not Try This at Home

Goldfish are really messy; they eat a lot, produce a lot of waste, and tear the heck out of aquarium plants. You have to change their water very frequently. Goldfish are not a low-maintenance pet! Well, emotionally they are. They don't climb on your neck while you're sleeping and jab their curved sickles of death into you the way cats do...
But they're not for the lazy, the forgetful, the procrastinators.

My goldfish has been alive and well in my care for over two years! Yes, I'm a bit smug and self-congratulatory about it. These plants are really cool; when you first buy them, they're like moss, and you tie them to a rock. In time, they affix themselves to the rock and grow onto it. It's a really beautiful effect. I also use plain ole' elodea. The fish destroys it and then I replace it. He seems to like to hide in it (and eat it), and it's like a miniature kelp forest.

Lush Ice Blue Soap

This soap is so good. It smells weakly like peppermint and something else... ocean or seaweed. It looks like it would be drying, because it's kind of translucent instead of creamy-opaque, but it's really plushy feeling, it only lathers a little bit, and it makes you feel cool without feeling all tingly and cold, the way Dr Bronner's Peppermint soap makes you feel. It comes to the LUSH stores in a huge round cake, and there's a white salt crust on the top of the cake. If you get some of this soap, be sure to get some of the salt!

LUSH Ice Blue Soap

Juicy Couture Charm Mania

Some months ago, friend M. and I were passing through Bloomingdale's on the way to Out the Door, Slanted Door's lower-priced but still delicious inside-a-mall restaurant. (Oh, excuse me- it's a Shopping Centre or Center, not a MALL). It's hard to pass through Bloomingdales, walking a straight line from the door to the opening on the other side, for glittering lights, sparkling display cases, polished floors and heavily perfumed salespeople smiling alluringly at you beckon you from every direction. Hold your wallet closed and just look and walk straight ahead, if you can.

We couldn't. A display case of Juicy Couture charms and starter charm bracelets got hold of us and we stared at the amazingly detailed miniature charms in grudging awe. Juicy Couture-- the ubiquitous and played out velour tracksuit of years past, the rather vulgar logo "JUICY" spelled out across the buttocks of overly sexy pre-teens, with the legs of the pants terminating in pink Ugg boots... Ugh, indeed.
And yet, the charm bracelet! So charmingly heavy, so shiny, so tongue-in-cheek feminine... and the array of wonderful charms! Pegasus, headphones with miniature mesh in the earpieces, cherries that are twin tiny lockets, a black butterly with moveable wings, a roller skate with a rhinestone in each wheel (and the wheels roll!), a tiny treasure chest that really opens, with strands of pearls and gold chains inside!

Yeah, we were hooked like two largemouth bass.

For M.'s birthday in June, friend R. and I conspired to get her the bracelet and a few charms. R. gave her the green and white headphones, and I gave her a pink cassette tape, which it turns out is a pretty rare one, which has been discontinued.

My current obsession is looking for these charms on Ebay, where sellers post Juicy Couture charms that were discontinued before I caught the mania. I don't even have the bracelet yet and I just bought my first charm, a little deer or fawn, which I'm happy to say is long discontinued and rather hard to acquire. I also like the owl and the acorn.

Neighbor Woes

Before I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area five years ago, I never hated my neighbors; any of them. I grew up in apartments in a rural area with other poor, trashy people (I'm not saying poor people are trashy. Middle-income and wealthy people are often also trashy. I'm just saying I lived near trashy people), and neighbors were never a problem. When my mom was finally able to buy a house, it was a little tiny 800 sq foot house that cost less than $90,000, therefore there were a lot of young people in the neighborhood, struggling people, and people who packed ten relatives into one little house. The couple I babysat for both worked at Mc Donald's, okay. Their kids were hopped up on junk food and would frequently exit the house in a whirling ball of screaming fistfight through the torn screen on the windows rather than use the door, while I dejectedly ate a few of their frozen blue ice pop thingies and hoped they wouldn't kill each other on my watch.

When I went to college and lived in apartments, my neighbors never bothered me.
When I moved to Los Angeles, my neighbors never bothered me, except for some stray wisps of cigarette smoke and a few late night yelling fights, but it was rare.

Since moving to the Bay Area, I've hated every since neighbor I've had, in the three apartments we've lived in.

I thought new Miss Downstairs was going to be okay. She has some kind of weird emphysema medicine in the back window of her Jetta, so I figured she's either an invalid or in the medical profession, and if she's in the medical profession she must be responsible, right? Fast forward to her either building a bed or a dresser or both at 2:00 am and possibly installing a disco ball into the ceiling (my floor).
There's nothing wrong with being awake at 2:30 am, but hopefully you'd be coming back from dancing or a bar and you'd simply pass out quietly on your bed, rather than putting your clothes into your dresser and slamming the dresser drawers 300 times.

You know it's time to look for housing where there are no downstairs or upstairs neighbors when you find yourself lying awake at 2:30 am hoping Miss Downstairs will drink a refreshing glass of bleach or have the bed collapse upon her while she's trying to hammer or nail something in, killing her instantly. That's where I'm at.
I feel trapped in crappy apartments by my paltry income and foolish lack of savings.
Or maybe it's living in San Francisco, where $2,000 a month rent gets us (barely) a basic, clean white box, a tree outside the window and a guaranteed parking spot. For less, you can have mold, layers and layers of old lead paint dating back to the Victorian era, a streetcar right outside your window, and a view of the peeling paint on a neighboring apartment's wall. Sigh.

Rebecca Barry

I just received this pretty little deer bauble, by Dallas-based designer Rebecca Barry. I'm kind of getting into the deer motif...

Toilet Seat Covers... P - f*ing - lease!

I went to a paper store this morning, and having had a glass of water and a cup of coffee and walked around the store about ten times, I had to pee. Why on earth would I take a photograph of Kelly Paper's rather average and unexciting bathroom, you ask?
Because it has a very special, very sanitary, very comforting thing that the bathrooms at my work do not- yes indeed - TOILET SEAT COVERS.

We have 101 employees, and four bathrooms with a total of five toilets. One bathroom and toilet belongs to the Human Resources manager and is attached to her office. Yes, she has a private bathroom. That's twenty five people per toilet for the rest of us.
"Can we have toilet seat covers?" I asked our resident person with a Master's degree in Public Health. She loves to make people cross at the crosswalk instead of running across the road, she loves to chastize us for not putting the cream cheese on ice, and she likes to tell people they're too fat and should ride a bike more. I figured she would take up the cause of the toilet seat covers once I got her going on it, but she didn't! I told her I know we can't catch STDs from a toilet seat, but still, people SPRAY and DRIBBLE. It was very fun saying this to this prissy woman, so much fun that I added in a loud whisper, "Menstrual blood...I dunno... kinda gross..."

So she tried to pass the buck to me by telling me to research what kinds are best for the environment, etc. I passed it back to her by saying I didn't have a preference as to what type or brand we get. "Whatever you choose is fine," I wrote.

Honestly, we're not all good friends enough to simply share unprotected toilet seats. Yes, there are a few people there with whom I would not mind sharing a meal, a car ride, or a movie with, but that doesn't mean a toothbrush, our saliva, OR A TOILET SEAT! It's just so barbaric... I hate it...and she should get the damned toilet seat covers, since she's the busybody, preachy annoying Health and Safety nutcase and head of the Health and Safety Committee!

Letterpress Cookie Cards

I found this really cool card at Park Life in San Francisco. Park Life is a great little store and art gallery; I love it! It, along with the Burmese-fusion restaurant B Star is my current favorite inner Richmond district destination. The card is letterpressed, and it's on nice, thick nubbly paper. They had ice cream sandwiches, ice cream bars, and these cookies.

by Motormouth Press