Mid Century Leather Safari Chairs and Monumental Danish Teak Cabinet/Dresser

Fresh cuts in the store now!
Don't even get me started on how this piece can save your marriage with its sexy storage:




or how much these want to hang out on a sheepskin flanking your fireplace...they do. Really bad.





Anyone being fantastic and glamorous this weekend?

I'm going to the opera and then for late night champagne cocktails and croque monsieur at a French restaurant downtown. No bigs.

Oh don't worry, no men were injured in the planning of this evening. Ladeez nite! Maybe I will meet a 100-year old philanthropist geezer that likes redheads. Fingers crossed! Dreams really do come true.

Change of Plans

I had planned on venting this morning.
People seem particularly mean-spirited and aggressive lately, and it hurts my soft, squishy little heart. So, while I got the laundry going, and while I bagged almonds for school lunches, and while I poured my coffee I didn't even see what I was doing. I was busy, see, mentally rehearsing the many ways in which people and life have been less-than-stellar. Just so I could accurately share the love (hate) with you.

And then something in me turned over at the thought of being that person.

And I thought instead of the blissful hour spent holding my chubby little niece while she mewed and sighed and nuzzled me in her sleep. And how my husband kept opening the office door and looking at me, which was at first so entirely annoying until he finally said I just like to look at you when it's quiet. Reminding me in quite an off-handed way of a favorite Pablo Neruda poem.



Even how my oatmeal and hot blueberries taste just a little bit like dessert.



And that November is back in a nice, moody little splash of rain and I have to watch the Painted Veil because it's way overdue and didn't I pay extra for it, so hadn't I better watch it?



And all the people who said nice things about my hair and made me feel kinda pretty (yes I did it!)




So I'm not going to be that person. I don't have any reason to be.

The heart chooses

It's the silly little things that make you appreciate the guy you're with.
I'm going in for a haircut, so last night I asked the huz what he thinks of this cut (right side).



I was maybe 45% joking. 55% of me (that's a majority vote, guys) really likes having something weird all up in there. But, you know, teacher conferences are coming up and all.

So he takes a good look and says yeah, that might look good on you.

Now mind you, we're not in our 20s anymore. We don't have tattoos. We have kids and dogs and a mortgage. It's been a few years since either of us could honestly lay claim to "being in a band". We take multi-vitamins and eat fiber.

And yet. The dude is willing to let me hang off his arm with a spiky red Tegan and Sara mullet. It's not flowers or champagne or sandy romantic gestures on the beach, but things like this that love is made of. At least in our house.

I might compromise with this:



While the mortgage-paying, fiber-eating lame-o momsy part of me is all, "Why not something nice like this?":




I hate that lady. She's SUCH a buzz kill.

If it's not too mangled, maybe I'll post a picture of the results.
Feel free to vote on your favorite.

Also, what's with girls having chicken wings instead of arms? Ick.

Silencio, por favor

I haven't been saying much lately. Maybe you didn't notice? The thing is, lately I can't stand blogs. Mine or yours (but not hers or hers...they do their own stunts and are always redeeming). The thought of barfing out another useless blog post makes me sad. Sometimes the blogosphere smells like one big sewage recycling plant...barfing out the same barf someone already barfed a million barfs ago. It is SO TIRED sometimes it makes me want to go Pete Townsend on my keyboard.
And what's with all the unpaid product endorsements? "This cream cured my chapped udders" "I'm swooning for this." Really? You swooned? Was your corset too tight? Did you have to be revived by smelling salts? Any particular organic brand you'd like to endorse? Cuz the next time you swoon I'm going to punch myself in the face, and I'm really going to need smelling salts.
I had a mean, grouchy, talented AP English teacher in high school. And when we would write, he'd say "If it's already been said, and you can't say it differently, then please DON'T BOTHER!"
Kind of a good rule, don't you think? Maybe a good way not to be a regurgitator is to be honest. Say something truthful, painful, or surprising. If you're a designer, show us your own work. Put something out there that wasn't there before. And if you got nothin of your own, maybe you should go out and DO things for a while and get yourself something.

So in that vein, here's what's really going on this week.
We're applying for new health insurance and they've asked us, a number of times now, both in writing and on recorded phone calls, to swear on our dead mothers that we've never suffered mental or physical ailments of any kind. Because your mothers are going to be dead if we find out you're lying to us. Insurance companies are such goons. I truly fear them and their power as if they're some Japanese street fighting gang controlling my neighborhood.

The final question was totally bizarro. The lady said, please answer yes or no: "I am not seeking insurance because of an illness. It is only for peace of mind."

Oh, what a psychotic system this is. No, of course I wouldn't expect my health insurance to treat my illnesses! That would be crazy!
Geez people, I just don't wanna die! That's all. I'm not even asking for peace of mind. Just agree to stop the bleeding and reattach the limbs if necessary. Please insure me. Or I'll have to defect to Cuba. I like those cars...

Also, the youngest is going totally bat guano on us lately. On top of that, he suddenly can't sleep and wants all the lights on. Which, according to all the parenting books, is the number one sign he's taking drugs or that something far more sinister is going on. Which is why I don't read parenting books. But thanks, stupid child psychologists, for making parenting an even more paranoid experience.

And finally, Pork Chop here sure is cute but he's been busy coating everything in our house in thick, musky, brown dog pee. Like, the smell does not go away after it's cleaned up with toxic, non-Mrs. Meyers, bleach-based contraband cleaners. Yes, getting him fixed will help. But the husband is feigning ineptitude in locating one of the 90 vets within a mile of us to perform this basic task. I'm about to do it myself with a pizza cutter. Shut up, PETA.

Yeah, not glamorous. No product recommendations or overexposed lying-sack-of-poo photos showing us all perfect and enjoying an end-of-summer tomato salad on the beach. I had In-n-Out and a beer for dinner. You want a picture of that?? Besides, it would take too long to crop out the dog pee, the pizza cutter, me shaking a fist at the husband, the oldest rolling his eyes, and the youngest rolling on the floor being weird. Photoshop just isn't that good. And you know what? Neither are we. Deal, yo.

Summer's End

After the fastest-paced Summer ever, we've been slammed into school mode...hard. Ah, it's only just Opening Day and we're already resurrecting the late night, tearful, "I didn't know my homework would take so long" performance of last year. Bravo! Encore! The tears seem so real! Powerful performance, night after night!

I'm hoping the possibility of a schedule may emerge from the chaos...you (gainfully employed folks) may chafe at your regular work hours and dream about having flexibility and an all-pajama work wardrobe. But me? Lately I find myself dreaming of structured schedules, lunch hours that don't involve a fistful of pretzels and two loads of laundry, colleagues that aren't dogs or children, and downtown offices. Business calls that aren't interrupted by something burning on the stove (and the microwave and outside my office door...). I bet most of you don't have two boys in trunks and towels and snorkel masks standing next to your desk saying, "Are you done yet? Are you done yet?" in tandem, repeatedly, until you give up, shut down the computer, grab a bag of pretzels, and take them to the gosh-dang beach already. Well, maybe that part wasn't so bad.

The point is, I'm ready. Ready for school to start, and not in that "can't wait to get rid of the kids" way, but in that "I'd like to have some control over my time" way. Yes, there IS a difference.

What about y'all? Does the Fall bring changes to your pace and purpose? Even without children, it seems like a bit more of a buckle-down, get-to-work, introspective season. I know...I bragged in the early Summer that I was going to talk about sangria all the way through October, and now I'm rushing the season out the door. Here's some of our Summer color to make it up to you:

You're probably a hipster if.....

photo courtesy of the Sartorialist

I have some adorable hipster friends. And they tolerate me even though I am a little too enthusiastic about EVERYTHING and this makes me very NOT COOL. (I tried to be all "hey" and short texting and stuff, but the enthusiasm always comes bursting out, and I might do sometimes truly unhip like sweat, laugh really loud or, god forbid, TALK too loud at some quiet and hip location like my own living room or a noisy bar and really embarrass them. I can always make up for this by paying the check-that can sometimes buy me weeks of their continued tolerance).

It reminds me of a recent 30 Rock episode, when Jenna was trying to keep herself young so she could keep playing teenage roles. She came into work texting and smacking her gum and said to Liz, "OMG, that's totally tandem!"

Except the word is "random" and that's pretty much how retarded I am at being hip (I pronounced that rapper's name as a fully articulated "Fifty Cents" for a really long time).

So for all of you who are wondering out there (because sometimes it's hard to tell...I mean, sometimes I confuse the homeless with the hipsters because they have that "not trying" thing going for them, too), I'm compiling a list so you can figure out which side of the fence you (or a loved one) fall on. Feel free to submit your own suggestions. By the way, if you ARE wondering then you are definitely NOT a hipster, because wondering is too much like trying, and once you start trying, you are definitely not hip.

You're probably a hipster if...

you consider listening to Cold Play your "guilty pleasure"

you've been to Portland (Oregon), Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, or all of the above (and if you live in these places, you invented hipster and are not reading this. You are in Bosnia opening a bespoke menswear boutique, because Bosnia is the "next big thing" and only you know that)

you touch screens, not keyboards

your bands sound like social networking groups for animals (Cat Power, Grizzly Bear, Band of Horses)

you didn't listen to Journey the first time around, but are now totally into the band b/c of the T.V. show "Glee"

you knit and you're a guy

you've never owned a truly crappy car-you would rather walk than litter the urban landscape with a used Hyundai

you're on the genotype diet, are vegan, or you collect food allergies as a hobby

you have NEVER carried your groceries out of a store in plastic bags...you thought that became illegal the moment Obama was sworn into office

you listen to more NPR than your parents

you never talk about your work, unless it's creative because otherwise it's just temporary until you become a professional craft brewer/goat cheese maker/organic farmer

you're a guy or a girl and you're in love with Maggie Gyllenhaal

you mentioned how much Food, Inc. changed your life more than twice this week

you propose to your girlfriend with a ring made of sustainably harvested materials, packed in a box made from old barns (in this case you are also Pete, and sweet)

you've discovered it, loved it, and gotten over it by the time I know what "it" is (and you give me a small, pitying smile when I try and turn you on to "it")

Stay tuned tomorrow for a thrilling gift-giving guide featuring some real live hipsters and the wedding gifts they will approve and acknowledge with their handmade letterpress thank you notes!