I absolutely hate the word “blog”

Okay, so technically they’re called mohop. But The Infinity Sandal is a damn good nickname!  Normally, I consider the blurbs from Seattle Picks to be a tad too recycled and wordy (I know, I know, soooo ironic) for my taste. But this one really looks like a gem.  And in case you haven’t realized, that shoe pictured to the left is ALL THE SAME SHOE.  Just different ribbons strapping it onto the foot!

They come in three different heel heights, as well as different toe shapes, and they come with a set of five different ribbons of your choosing, and you can purchase additional ribbons or just use your own, presumably.  And of course, they have really detailed tying instructions, plus a printable sizing chart, and a gallery of all the ideas other customers have come up with — what a refreshingly complete and helpful website!

I think I’m in love!  Problem is, I tend to destroy wooden-soled shoes like you wouldn’t (woodent?) believe — I scuff them, I crack or chip off bits of them, etc.  And with cheaper shoes that are stained or painted, this means that the exposed chip or crack is a different color.  BUT, since these babies appear to be made of solid maple, cherry and walnut, in theory I wouldn’t have that problem.  And how great is that?  Plus, I bet I could send them back for touching up, or just have my carpenter dad do it for me!  Totally going on my wish list.

Holy crap, has HOBO International failed us this time. I literally did a triple take a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon this display at Nordstrom — trust me, the photo doesn’t do it justice, because these bags will SCAR YOUR RETINAE.

The colors are the same fluorescent neons of my 80s childhood, and are NOT WELCOME BACK IN MY LIFE. I don’t know what dried-up marketing exec came up with this ploy, but curse them!  This brand is known for being sleek, clean and above all else, BASIC and NEUTRAL.  I will cry if neon really is the new black.

To be fair, Jen bought a bright but pale blue wallet from this collection that looks lovely — so not all is lost.  But the pinks, oranges, chartreuse yellows and chartreuse greens can go back in the vault, please.  It’s not retro until it no longer hurts to look at it.

1) The Date: 07-17-10. Its official!

2) The Update: Looks like the U-Village glassybaby got downgraded.

Another year, another bizzarely boring and silly retail idea: glassybaby. While Christmas shopping and running errands at Bellevue Square, I spotted the following store. (Keep in mind that this is during the INSANELY busy season, on a particularly insanely packed evening. And yes, that is one lone customer you see.  I actually peeked in a few more times over the course of the evening and saw no one at all.)

When one of these shops turned up in U-Village months before, I was perplexed and then quickly irritated. I like retail real estate to be filled with cute and /or useful shops that contain a variety of delightful goods, not sparse minimalist spaces displaying a single product that is… a little glass candle jar. Not even the friggin’ candles to put in the jar, mind you: just the jar itself. AND OH MY GOD THEY ARE FORTY DOLLARS APIECE THAT IS BALLS. Read the rest…

So my most recent Costco run yielded a box of chanterelles, of all things.  (I think of Costco as more of a bulk mouthwash and paper towels kinda place, but hey… they were cheap, fresh, wild-harvested, local, and bright orange with gills, so how could I refuse?)

I’d never cooked anything with chanterelles before, so I decided to just sautée them in a bit of butter and chicken broth, and let their natural flavor shine. Ahem, that was LET THEIR NATURAL FLAVOR SHINE.  (They didn’t hear me.)

Turns out chanterelles don’t really *have* much of a natural flavor.  In fact, I had to drizzle a bit of white truffle oil on them just to make them fun enough to eat!

Lesson learned: while the name may sound all French and elegant compared to, say, oyster mushrooms, the latter is actually much tastier.  Now I know!

Grant’s video iPod recently suffered a broken headphone jack, but he was eight full months out of warranty coverage. Still, he took it to the Apple store to see what could be done, and they gave him a new one on the spot. Their reasoning? “It looks fresh out of the box [because you've always kept it in a case so it's not scratched up]“.

Yep, a brand-new iPod, no questions asked. I friggin’ love those guys.

Wow, I’ve been off the blogosphere for a WHILE now!  But I swear, I have a good excuse — I went to my college reunion.  (OK, that was weeks ago, but since then I’ve both gotten sick and started a new job, both of which suck up valuable blogging time.  But it all started with that college reunion.)

Bryn Mawr is a bit odd in that we don’t have an official school mascot.  But our unofficial one is the wise old owl.  (Gives ya some insight as to how we spoiled pretentious nerd-girls view ourselves, I guess.)  I’ve always kinda dug the owl mascot, though — few people who went to BMC did so for the great sports teams or Greek system.  It’s all about the academics, and our friendly little pseudo-mascot backs that up nicely.

And in recent years, the owl motif has become SUPER trendy. They’ve been all over clothing, jewelry and accessories for a while, and they’re popping up on more and more household items now. (I myself have at least two owl shirts, an owl purse, at least one pair of owl shoes, quite a bit of owl jewelry, and a pair of owl bookends.) This aviary surplus has been nice for us Bryn Mawr grads — we all wind up snatching nearly every owl-spangled item we lay eyes on, as a subtle way to pay tribute to our alma mater. (And yes, we all compared owl gear at the reunion.)

But seriously, people. This has got to stop somewhere. My last trip to Ross Dress for Less, in which I sought only sheets, led me to one of the eeriest shelf displays of all time. I mean, there is such a thing as TOO MANY OWLS. And these three aren’t even cute, they’re just vaguely avian and bug-eyed. Please take note, Housewares Department. They were better when they were just on shirts.

Whole Foods officially discontinued their awesomely durable, heavy-duty plastic bags as of Earth Day this year.

So what are they offering instead? Paper. Yep, tree-harvested, not-so-sustainable paper. Sure, I know paper bags biodegrade, but they also disintegrate in the rain and require us to chop down and process trees.*

I kept hoping they’d replace their plastic bags with alternatives like bamboo or corn, which are sustainable and biodegradable, but feel like plastic. These bags are also super-durable and don’t fall apart when wet — a major concern of mine here in Seattle, since I sometimes try to walk to the grocery store instead of driving, and I can’t always plan ahead in order to carry my canvas bags.

But the word from Whole Foods is that those alternatives are too high of a price point for Whole Foods. I could understand this in theory for a smaller organization, but Whole Foods has plenty of money with which to be more responsible. They should a) suck it up and do it anyway, since it’s not like they’re losing money in their business; and/or b) start charging customers for the bags. So friggin’ simple.

And the real kicker? The Whole Foods delis switched from paper containers to plastic shortly after the bag changeover. Yeah, take a minute to let that sink in. Now I not only can’t walk home in the rain with my groceries, but I also can’t microwave my deli dinner in its container. How’s that for green logic?

Read the rest…

Check out this sidewalk chalk I spotted at Target the other day. I tell ya, these kids of ours are getting spoiled.

Not only does it have nicely-pointed, bi-color sticks (with secondary and even tertiary colors, as opposed to the old-school pink, blue and yellow), but they’re apparently 3-D.

Yep, you just put on your special Crayola (TM) goggles, and the whole world shifts and it looks like your damn driveway butterfly is flapping its gossamer wings or something. I don’t know. I sort of half-heartedly tried to test them out in the store, but I probably would’ve been escorted out if I’d been successful.

When I was a kid, sidewalk chalk came in a BUCKET. I’m just sayin’. Next thing you know we’re gonna have sentient Barbies running around freaking out about their outdated hairstyles and whatnot.

I’m such a cheater. I’m a sucker for 2-for-1 deals and free shipping minimums, so I often wind up ordering extra things I don’t really need in order to get a discount. Usually, this winds up being something I’d use up anyway, like shampoo, so it’s no big deal.

But recently, I feel deeply in love with a shirt from delia*s that cost a pretty penny when you calculated the full price plus shipping and handling. But I adore cherry blossom patterns, and grey is my best color, and it’s hard to find T-shirts that are so nice and long for my tall frame, and I just kinda HAD to have it because it was perfect in every way.

Their T-shirts were on a buy two get $10 off deal. And I found a free shipping coupon somewhere online, but it was only valid if I bought both shirts to hit the minimum order amount. So I sucked it up and picked out a second shirt I didn’t really want. The total order was only a little more than my first shirt plus S&H costs, so I rationalized it away, of course, knowing it wouldn’t be cost-effective to pay to return the second one by mail.

But lucky me, the second “filler” shirt got back-ordered. So I got the first shirt, with the two-shirt discount, and the free shipping. And I was able to call and cancel the second shirt, and still keep all my discounts. (And it looks awesome on me.) Aaaaah, I love a legitimate shopping cheat deal!