A Room with a View

The location of the 2006 HGTV Dream Home has been unveiled, along with the view from the house. Maybe there is something better than Manhattan after all...

Be & D Studded Clutch for fall. I think this would be really cute with jeans and a sweater. I love the new fall lines...we have a mix of Dr. Zhivago, military, and Victorian. What a combination!

Highlights

LT and I live in what you might call a "family" neighborhood. This means that, at any given hour where there is semi-daylight, there are children out and about...most of them in the street and often not having a healthy respect for cars. As we were driving last night to pick up take-out, we encountered several of these hordes of children and also a toe-headed boy of about seven on a bike and his sister (presumably...same white-blonde hair and facial features) of about three on foot. As we got closer, the little girl went into the street -- maybe about three feet or so. The boy LEAPT off of his bike, letting it fall to the ground and by mid-fall (of the bicycle) had caught his sister and pulled her out of the road. She was not in any "real" danger, as we were still far back and were going quite slowly, but what a charming act! And particularly given the young age of the boy jumping to save his sister.

On another note, about two and a half weeks ago my neighbor put "highlights" in my hair for a wedding. Yesterday I decided I had to color my hair. Not serious color...just a hint of red (as recommended by LT and my neighbor as the ONLY color that would not wash me out complexion-wise), and I didn't leave it on for probably more than 10 (of the recommended 25) minutes because I do not like ending up with flaming hair, which is what generally happens when I use ANY haircolor. For some reason my hair just wants to be red. Anyway, my light blonde highlights are now a strawberry-blonde and a little too close to my overall color. So I may have to inquire about having him add some of the lighter ones back in. I miss them.

And now for something completely different. I really like this statue, but it is a bit large for indoors. Does anyone know where I might find a smaller (24" or less) version?

Last Season, But Still Cute

LT and I went out yesterday to run errands, including copying his keys so that I can have access to our stuff until mine surface. As it turns out, you should not trust Home Depot to copy your keys. They copied the front door key backwards, and I don't know what they did to my office key, but on NOT WORKING they are two for two. And that means I have to find the receipt, take LT's keys, go back (hopefully not to the same one) to the store, and hope that they get it right the second time around. Did I mention it is going to cost $55 to copy my car key? And I HAVE to do it, because I cannot function without a regular key and a spare. The fun part, I suppose, was picking a new key chain to use until the old one decides we have had enough and presents itself.

Another season of chocolate and pink. At least Reed is starting to get back on track and give us some cute bags!

The new fall line for COACH is FINALLY coming out...

You know you eat at the local Chinese restaurant too much when...

As you know, I have been on a quest to find my lost car keys for what is now going on DAY THREE. No luck. So yesterday I asked LT to help me go through all of our laundry and hang up clothes, which he agreed to in exchange for me sending an e-mail for him (his work computer was not letting him send outgoing mail for some reason) and that I meet him at the Chinese restaurant for dinner. Done. He called me when he was about ten minutes away, and I got in the car to meet him. Apparently he arrived before I did, but I did not see his car (which, as it turned out, was parked beside a huge truck that blocked the view), so I messed around in my car (looking for the keys) and then went to sit at the bench out in front of the restaurant. Thirty seconds later, a woman from inside pokes her head out the door and says "Your husband is inside" and motions for me to follow her. He had not said that I was meeting him, or that he was waiting for someone...she just knew!

My room is now devoid of all laundry, and a box of "stuff" that never got unpacked when we moved in is now gone. And still I have no keys. They have to be somewhere. Everything is somewhere. But I have yet to find them. Ruffian, maybe you can tell me what the procedure is for replacing a car key that has the alarm controls built into it. At least the room is clean now. Oh, and on a strange note, I saw an article on Kenny Chesney (now in all the mags since marrying Renee Zellweger) that featured his house, and he has our Haberdashery Quilt and shams from Pottery Barn. How weird.

Lovely

The new fragrance from Sarah Jessica Parker, now available for pre-order at Nordstrom.com (shipping early July). Let's hope it's as good as Sex and the City.

If You're a Control Freak...

...DON'T LOSE YOUR KEYS!!! I swear, I can lose anything, anywhere, at any time. Somewhere between the car and the bedroom I have lost my car keys, office keys (both home AND work), house keys, and the keys to my garage freezer and mini-fridge. This is not a happy time. I pulled into the garage, and I had several items to carry in: two stacks of papers for work, a bag of bagels, and my purse. The papers went onto a shelf in the bedroom. The bagels went on top of the shelf inside the bedroom door, then later into the kitchen. The purse went to its normal spot. The keys, however, are nowhere to be found. I remember turning off the ignition, and they are not IN the ignition...but after that...NOTHING. LT and I spent about three hours looking for them last night...under the bed, IN the bed, in the couch, in the kitchen, in the laundry, in any boxes, in all of my handbags, behind the shelves. Nada. And Rachel, we checked the fridge at your request...no keys there either. So, if anyone has suggestions as to weird places that keys may get to, please post them. I am running out of ideas.

Yellow Hogan Scout

Okay...NOW I'm happy. And the green Weekend bag arrived today, too. Ahhhhhhh....

My Hogan Scout in biscotti is gone and, in its place, I am awaiting the Hogan Shopper (a.k.a. Weekend) bag in the emerald green. By the end of this week I should have enough bags to satisfy even ME! I have not decided whether I will keep the green bag, so if you have had your eye on one and are interested, feel free to inquire.

The shopping is done, the lawn is mowed...time to relax!

Even Prada has come out with a must-have bag this year...why does no one tell me these things?

sigh

At about 11:35 this morning, as I am lounging around the house, my cell phone rings. My sister was having a baby shower today and I was supposed to attend. But silly me! I thought the shower was this EVENING, and so I had my day all planned out...do my nails, pedicure, fix my hair, stop and pick up a card (I aready had the perfect gift), etc...then arrive and enjoy myself. But NO! Turns out the shower was at 10:30 this morning (who has a baby shower at 10:30 on a Saturday???) and it was another of my sisters calling (an hour after it began) to say she was worried because I had not shown up yet. Uh oh. The problem seems to have arisen because 1) when my mom gave me the date of the shower I wrote it on my calendar, but she did not tell me the time, then 2) when I received the invitation I did not write it on the calendar since it was already there, hence no TIME penciled in, and 3) I confused the time with the time of the WEDDING we attended LAST weekend. Bottom line, I missed my own sister's baby shower and now I feel like shit. But I hope she had a good time and that I can make it up to her next week.

Best of Stila

Well, the Stila show was tolerable. And Rachel, they talked about the fact that the Stila line is very well known because it has won awards for having the BEST eye shadows that don't crease! The host was just goofy and interrupted the Stila rep to the point of rudeness, and inceassantly ran around forcing lipgloss onto all of the models. And the models...oh man...were clearly NOT used to modeling for QVC, as the host kept having to tell them "Okay, now close your eyes and open them really slowly" and one of the models kept moving around so, during her closeups, she looked like she had Parkinson's disease. So, generally annoying but I did get to see the new "favorites" kit (price: $60, valued at: $115) which they went on and on about -- and how it is exclusive to QVC -- and yet is available directly from Stila's website. Hmm. I just hope that this leads to Stila TSVs with great deals down the road!

Attention Stila Girls

Don't forget to tune in to QVC at 10:00 a.m. (CST) Saturday for the television debut of the Stila line...

ROCK'N

Apparently Tom Cruise popped the question to Katie Holmes atop the Eiffel Tower this morning. Well, we all know what the IN TOUCH, etc., headlines will be next week. In other "engaging" news, I had an "almost" celebrity sighting today...seems that Trisha Yearwood (recently engaged to Garth Brooks) was at Albertson's showing off her new ring -- and presumably stocking up on groceries -- shortly before I popped in for my chicken-caesar-salad-and-garbage-magazine fix.

NEW Lancome Juicy Cherie gloss in "Frozen Punch"...more lipgloss seduction (I ordered mine today!!! Did I mention I am a gloss junkie in addition to handbags?)

There are no words...

It Really IS Too Hot Here

Summer has yet to really set in, but apparently things are already beginning to "spontaneously" combust. Cars, for example. I left the house today to run errands and as I entered the highway I spotted a fire truck and police car on the opposite side of the road next to the charred remains of a small SUV-type vehicle. When I say "charred" I mean this car was burned black and crispy, the windows were blown out (or otherwise missing), and I could see (from across the highway, mind you) the visible skeleton of what had once been the driver's seat. YIKES! This is not something you see everyday (or at least I don't), and quite frankly was a little creepy. So imagine my surprise when I am driving home (along the same highway) four hours later and -- not four miles from the charred SUV -- LO! Another toasty car! This time it was a Monte Carlo or some such...one of those "Darth Vader" looking cars that guys drooled over or drag raced in high school (back in the day). My son was with me, and said "no, that's the same car we saw earlier" but I was sure the first car was an SUV and further down the road, but come on...TWO cars burned to a black, ash-y shell on the same road on the same day? And surely the fire department and/or police would have had the thing towed in four hours' time. So we continued down the road and, just as I had predicted, came upon a charred black spot of ground with a sprinkling of broken glass at just the place I thought we had seen the first car. Now I know that sometimes cars catch on fire, but generally there is a collision or some other catalyst involved. Both of these vehicles appeared to be fully intact frame-wise -- i.e., no body damage caused by impact with a stationary object or another vehicle. So why were they on the side of the road burned to a crisp? One is creepy. Two is just...well...weird. Is someone recalling cars for spontaneous combustion? Or is it just really too hot?

Cloning Nicole, or, Who Lindsay Wants to be When She Grows Up

I don't usually blog specifically on celebrities, but sometimes things just get really weird and something has to be said. Lindsay Lohan seems to be having an identity crisis and the rumors are flying. Some say she thinks Jessica Simpson is getting too much attention as an "actress" for The Dukes of Hazzard, or that Lindsay is not getting enough attention as a singer (I didn't even know until this week that she had a CD out...whatever). So apparently she has decided to twin herself with everyone Hollywood. Or ostracize them: i.e., the Simpson sisters (can Jessica and Ashley really be related???), who she apparently ostracized from her party (initiating tabloid roulette and the wrath of Jessica and father Simpson), Hillary Duff, who she is apparently trying to keep out of the press with her own "late" appearances (causing the press to miss their flight to Duff's item), and so on. What else has Lohan done that is weird? Let's see:

1. Lost an exhobitant amount of weight (right alongside Nicole Richie)
2. Rumored to have an eating disorder (as is Nicole Richie)
3. Dyed her hair blonde (like Nicole Richie -- well, and Jessica, and Paris, and...)
4. Attached herself to (or accessorized with?) Nicole Richie
5. Started dressing like...you guessed it! Nicole Richie

Hmm. Does this sound to anyone else like Lindsay wants to BE Nicole Richie? (Aside from straddling the rift between Nicole and Paris to vie for bridesmaid positions.) I mean, even her boobs don't play themselves in her new movie! (And WHY WHY WHY is anyone making another "Herbie" movie??? It was totally uninteresting the first go-round, and doesn't look like it letting go of the lame factor for Theater 2005. Anyone???) The only thing she hasn't managed to do is snag (and keep) a man, but she is apparently chasing everything in pants and the alleged Simpson and Duff rifts seem to stem from "someone else" getting friendly with her exes. Let's see...girl with identity crisis, skeletally thin with (now) no figure, hateful to anyone who doesn't give her her own way, and professing her love for Eminem...I don't see why she would not be prime guy material!

I (Don't Heart) False Advertising

I am officially a handbag addict, and seriously considering turning myself in at the Louis Vuitton Clinic. The new fall lines are SLOWLY trickling into the pages of magazines and e-shopping facilities, and I am eagerly anticipating changing leaves, fuzzy sweaters, woolly boots, and the new Chloe Paddingtons...and it's not even officially summer yet.

I purchased a copy of JANE magazine from a newsstand the other day because the cover read "the tastiest bags and shoes pages and pages of 'em" and -- I believe I have mentioned -- I am a huge bag fan. So imagine my surprise when there are TWO bags in the entire magazine. In fact, once I was halfway through the issue and still had not seen anything substantial other than ads, I was beginning to wonder if they had bothered to include the magazine with the advertising! I have now finished perusing the pages, but the question has not resolved itself. Well, that's one periodical OFF my list of addictions.

The SOLD OUT Hogan Scout in Biscotti. I have one of these available for sale -- if you know anyone who has been looking, please pass the word along. Brand new in sleeper bag.

I don't normally go for the Fendi bags, but this may be the exception! The new Selleria Sporty Bag (at the bargain price of $2,000). Grossly expensive, but wow what a great bag!

This reminds me of a carpet bagger, but if you are needing a bag for a weekend away and want to go Italian leather for a very reasonable price, this may be your bag! (Available in multiple colors...I really like the olive brown.)

Shopping with Fido

They may not carry the latest Louis Vuitton or Bottega Veneta pooch carriers, but you can still find some good stuff for "ruff-ing" it with the pups, or just playing fetch:



Petmate Portable Dog Home

Stila's Back...On the Air?

Call it serendipity, but I have accidentally discovered the secret to Stila's disappearance from the cosmetics counters of Saks. And it is NOT, as I was told, because "it just wasn't doing well." It is because Stila has jumped ship to none other than QVC. After seeing something about Bare Escentuals having a TSV on QVC yesterday, I visited the website to see what they were offering and LO, there on one of the makeup shows was a set of three Stila lip glazes! I am not a huge BE fan, mainly because if something I use is not pressed down into a jar, I will drop it and spill it all over the floor -- and I love my NARS and M.A.C. too much to abandon them for a little mineral seduction -- but Stila was one of my first makeup loves, so I guess I will be tuning in on Saturday, June 18th at 10:00 CST to see them display their wares on the tele (will Jeanine Lobell appear in person to tout the line???). And if it is anything like when Philosophy dumped Saks for QVC (after an ultimatum), we will be seeing a LOT of Stila in the future, and Jeanine Lobell will be seeing a lot of America's disposable income.

Captain Vimes's "Boots" Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness

...Or as I like to call it, Captain Vimes's "Boots" Theory of Economics. I have been threatening... er...promising this for a while. An excerpt from Men At Arms by Terry Pratchett (who is the sum of all logic and wisdom):

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ahkh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

~ Pratchett, Men At Arms

He is amazing. I even quoted from one of his books in a paper on Retributivist Justification (etc.) in law school! I also highly recommend Small Gods, Guards! Guards!, and Jingo.

The new (and already sold out) gold Hogan Scout for
pre-fall/fall...I received this today!

Okay...so apparently the Tod's bag isn't doing it for my fashionista followers (and believe me, I understand), so here is a bag with some real character. Way to go Beyonce!

Tod's "Happy Patina Grande." Beautiful in T-Moro...but maybe a little "old" feeling for me.

What Happened to Britney's Dog?

I admit it, I am addicted to celeb/fashion magazines and am now buying weeklies even to see who is wearing what and -- more particularly -- carrying which bag. As for the celebs themselves, we have Jessica and Nick...will they divorce? Hope not, they are just too adorable for words. Then we have Tom and Katie...what the F&%$??? Let's face it, Tom Cruise has gone off his gourd and his publicist/manager type person is either insane or has totally lost control. We also have Paris and Paris...uh, yeah. Sienna and Jude...well, she's a fashion ingenue all unto herself, but I can't seem to shake the image of Jude Law's character in "Wilde," so he kind of creeps me out. Finally, we come to Britney and Kevin...what can you say except...WHY? She recently bought her out-of-work husband a Ferrari which, according to one radio host, allegedly matches his trailer (of the PARK variety). Britney, if you are reading this, that's MY truth...can you handle it? What I want to know is, after seeing new photos of Britney holding a Chihuahua -- the dog of choice for all blonde starlet wannabes, apparently -- what happened to her other little dog? Didn't she have a Maltese? What did she do with it? Did she pull a Paris and forget she left it with the grandparents and just go buy another dog? Really...if someone knows the answer to this one please update me.

Dumb items of the day:

1. LT and I went to Albertson's today to pick up some groceries. One of the items I picked up was a deli Caesar salad with rotisserie chicken chunks. When we went to the checkout, the girl who was bagging our stuff saw the salad and asked me, quite earnestly, "Do we sell this?" Uh no...I just like to carry it around with me and recurringly pay for it at random places to see if anyone will notice. YEAH, you sell it. Oh man.

2. Automated (or SELF) checkout. Yeah. Let me pay the SAME price for my stuff, still wait in line for ten minutes, but do all of the work of scanning and bagging FOR YOU so that you can rape me on grocery prices and make an additional little profit from not having to hire adequate staff. By the way, one of the automated checkouts at Albertson's said "please use next checkout." WHAT? Even the automated ones close to inconvenience the customer? Was it on vacation?

Just one more reason to love the fall...although I don't wear "real" animal fur, this is amazingly beautiful.

Things You See in a Chinese Restaurant

LT and I went to our local Chinese inferior food establishment (actually THIS one is tolerable as Chinese restaurants go) on Friday after work. We were supposed to meet there, but LT got caught in traffic, so I went in ahead of him to secure a table and order drinks. Since I usually go in WITH him, I guess I don't pay that much attention to all of the weird stuff around me, but this time I had a few minutes to sit and "watch" the people in this place. Of course the place has the requisite "standard issue" HUGE plastic diorama of the Great Wall of China, which is approximately 6' wide by 4' high and backlit. I think you have to have at least one to meet code for a Chinese restaurant, because they ALL seem to have one. And then the calendar advertising something that we, the majority of the consumers, cannot read (but which probably says "you are fools for eating here...enjoy your dog"). But it was the people who really stood out this time around.

The hostess (if you can call her that) was wearing a black dress-sort-of-thing that appeared to have a V-back. Until you looked at it and realized it was a zippered back that was unzipped to form the V. As in, you could zip it all the way up to the chick's head! Weird. I resisted the temptation. Seated at the table opposite me was a trio of middle-aged-to-older people. Not all that unusual, right? There was a man and two women. The man was sporting a pair of graying porkchop sideburns (amusing, but not that odd), but aside from that he seemed fairly normal. However, the woman seated next to him had her head shaved short (like a crew cut) on the sides and a mohawk/flattish sort of top...dyed a whitish blonde. The other woman had almost shoulder length hair in a flat bob-type cut and a horrible shade of blonde that looked very unnatural. And a bandaid plastered across her nose with cotton or something underneath one side which gave the appearance that it was coming off and she just had not noticed. At the table behind them, there were four people who were fairly plain, except that I spotted one woman crossing herself (in the manner of a Catholic) before eating her $7.99 buffet glop. Haven't seen that in a while! The remainder of the meal proceeded in the normal fashion, followed by LT and I popping across the way to pick up some stuff from the shopping center. We took his car. In one of the stores we ran into a couple (who I forgot to mention before) from the Chinese restaurant. They were an average trailer-ish couple with a small child, only the woman was...well...a plus size and well endowed, wearing a tight pink tank top and NO BRA. She was literally hanging out of the sides of this thing in a way that I don't think I needed to see. But moving on...

So LT took me back to the restaurant to pick up my car after our shopping excursion, and an older couple (that we had not seen inside) walks out into the parking lot. I have to wait for them to cross behind me before I back out, and it is windy...and then I notice the woman's almost shoulder-length gray hair go FLYING up, revealing a completely bald head except for the very top. Now, the wind blew it up several times, and I was mesmerized by this happening, so I kept watching to see...was it a wig? Was it the female version of the comb-over? Was it some sort of really long toupee? A wig tends to have a net attachment that surrounds the head, but this stuff was really ON FAST at the top and the rest of the head was completely smooth, so I am guessing it is real hair at the top that has been grown out to cover the sides. Now, maybe she's on some senior swim team and this helps her glide through the water faster. Or maybe I should NOT drink the water in this part of the country...

I just had an almost-brush-free makeup experience! The items pictured arrived yesterday from Prescriptives...cream-to-silk blush, Magic powder, Shadow Tint (in "lunatic"...how appropriate!), pink lip gloss, their FABULOUS mascara, and Super Line Preventor. All I used a brush on was the powder, and my makeup was done in five minutes!

Apparently I'm not the ONLY one in a New York State of Mind...

Plugs for UGGs

No, I don't mean that my UGGs are losing their hair/ fur/ wool and need plugs. But my old faithful chestnut classic shorts got a tear in the top, so I was sad. And they were only about nine months old. So I contacted UGG and they had me ship the boots in for inspection and said it would take about three weeks to "determine" whether mine would be repaired or replaced. But LO, today my new boots arrived...in much less time than I had expected. So kudos to UGG and thanks for the new boots (which, in the grand tradition of all things "fashionista" have had a price increase -- the invoice reads $120.00, although these were gratis)!

And now, a shameless plug for myself: if anyone who happens upon this site has a gently used Hogan Scout bag, a Chloe Paddington (bag OR train case), or other fabulous designer item that they want to sell -- or Vietnam-related DVDs, drop me an e-mail please. I am always looking to enhance my collections. = )

Turns out the "R" goes on the RIGHT side, not the side where you can READ it. Dyslexic radiology techs...

My Gay Foot

Thank you to those of you who diagnosed my x-ray as having a RAINBOW...that was helpful. Apparently the radiologist who read my films said they are normal. However, my doctor said they are NOT. According to him, I have a fever. And the only prescription is...you guessed it! MORE COWBELL! No wait, that was something else. What he REALLY said is that there is something "additional" at the end of my fibula that should not be there, but a CT (read "cat") scan is the only way to be sure. At $1,500...with no insurance. So we will probably wait until I am in pain or have some additional reason to have the scan. In the meantime, he is taking my films somewhere else to get a second opinion. A doctor getting a second opinion. That's funny. If the radiologist to whom he refers is at the place he sent me to have the x-rays taken, however, I would not take his word either...they had the films in my hand within less than five minutes, so he could not have gone over them with any degree of "carefulness" in that time frame.

Down Once More

Well, the old Oklahoma shopping experience took another hit today. I went to Saks to exchange a couple of cosmetic items that I purchased during "free gift" time (and ended up not needing) for some cool new line summer items that are just out and WHAM! No Stila counter. Now I know that Saks likes to play with their customers...move things around so you look all lost and confused when you walk in and are consequently at the mercy of the sales staff to reorient yourself (ironically "ReOrient" is part of the spring Stila collection), so I asked where the Stila counter had been moved to. Answer: Saks got rid of Stila because it "wasn't doing very well." All the Saks stores. No Stila ANYWHERE in Oklahoma. So Saks has now gotten rid of the Philosophy line (because Philosophy went to QVC where, by the way, it has become a household name and made a killing) and now Stila joins it in terms of MIA Oklahoma distribution. I can sort of see how Stila might not excel in Saks, though. It is more of a "youthful" line than, say, Estee Lauder or La Mer (at $150 a jar, you have to be old to afford it!). The clientele of Saks are, shall we say, older. Because young people, for the most part, just can't afford to shop there...I mean, come on...$180 for a white t-shirt is steep if you're working your way up the corporate ladder. To follow this line of thinking, people who shop at Saks are probably 30+ years old (yes, there are exceptions Paris). If Stila is marketing to a 20-something crowd, their target market and their Saks location do not match up. Nevertheless, it is just ONE MORE THING that I cannot get in a brick-and-mortar store in Oklahoma.

For those of you still needing your Stila fix (they took my return by the way, although it took four salespeople and fifteen minutes to figure out HOW or WHETHER they would), you can visit Gloss.com, Stila, or Sephora.

I ♥ Hogan AND New York

The new Hogan Scout bags are (were) out, and they are more popular than ever. Hogan Miami got a handfull in for the new fall line, and they are already sold out...and they are so proud of them that they have jacked the price up, as well. But what can I say? I love 'em. New York and Miami are now the ONLY two places in the U.S. to have a Hogan store. Bergdorf Goodman occassionally gets a few bags in, and -- as I have found out the hard way -- you don't HAVE twenty-four hours to transfer funds. The bags will sell out in a matter of hours if not minutes. It's crazy! Oh, to live somewhere (NEW YORK!) where I could actually walk around and SEE the new items before they are gone: i.e., before they hit the magazines or Jessica/Sienna/Kate's closet. And to be able to walk to Sephora!