Consumption

Crate & Barrel MOST FEARSOME DISH TOWELS EVER

Woe betide ye dealing with Crate & Barrel's returns department.  I despaired of repacking my accidentally-Eurotrash limonade glasses in the unnecessarily complicated mechanism they arrived in, so THE DAY AFTER that post, I ran them to my nearest C&B store to rid myself of their tackiness.  I can't even begin to relate what I went through with their cashier despite having several receipts and having purchased these monstrosities less than a week earlier.  In short: 

"Sure, you can return these, no problem!"
[stares at register for forty seconds, unmoving]
"No, I'm sorry, you'll need to mail these."

"But it says right here on my receipt--"

"You'll need to mail these, ma'am."

[Repeat above exchange X4]

[Our Heroine leaves line in a huff, walks to next register, and switches on her thousand-wattest smile]

"Hiiiii, these are for a wedding gift and I'm so afraid they'll break in the mail!  Could you wrap them for me?"

So I leave the store, with a freshly wrapped box, MAIL THESE EFFING GLASSES BACK MY DAMN SELF, and only just today received my exchange prize....which was so worth the wait.  Which, as, you can see, is Saying Something.

I don't even like seafood, but aren't these TERRIFYING?  I almost tagged this post "wearable awesome", such is my love.

NFL Mobile

  Don't laugh. What could be more consumpty than live fantasy football stats sent to your phone via text message?

The West Coast is useful for many things, like eternal sunshine and animatronic dinosaurs, but very, very bad for football fans.  I like to sleep in a little on the weekends, and fall asleep to a late game in the Pacific timezone.  Nothing doing.  Indianapolis is doomed to 1:00 kickoffs on CBS, meaning not only do I only see the national games (thank you, Colts, for playing well enough to rate more than a handful of night games a year), even when they're on TV it conflicts with the farmers' market, brunch, walks of shame, you name it.

Enter NFL Mobile.  It's only available to Sprint customers, but it's absolutely the best feature they offer--and it's free if you already have a data plan (who doesn't?).  There are customizable alerts by conference, by team, and by player, which can be further narrowed down into quarters, scores, and injuries.  I can't see my boys in blue every Sunday, but I can hop on the subway and bop down to Hollywood & Vine without worrying about missing any action--big play replays are also available, although you need a smartphone to get anything out of it.  My favorite feature, the fantasy tracker, also keeps me from needing to shell out for premium stat tracking on Yahoo--you can plug in your entire roster in their surprisingly non-pesky interface, and get alerts for only those players.  A little simple math and I know exactly where I am in the standings without spending a sunny California Sunday in front of the laptop peering at a pirated Slingbox stream from Taipei.

NFL Mobile | Sprint | Free with data plan

Skechers' TEC-9 Mary Janes

That's not the real name of these shoes.  They're called "Bikers", which is ridiculous, as they're completely unsuitable for any sort of two-wheeled activity, but they're f'ing gangbusters for absolutely everything else. 

I bought my first pair in 2006 when I wanted some stage combat shoes that I could flit around in with some support without feeling like my twinkle toes were encased in concrete blocks.  They've been everywhere with me since.  There's sand nestled in that first pair from every beach on the West Coast, Seattle to San Diego.   

I'm firmly convinced that all girls of sufficient badassery should own multiple pairs of these.  At casual glance, they're demure as can be, right up until they kick your ass...sound like anyone you know?  I have to be on about my third pair of these suckers in three years, and that's just counting the black ones.  They don't fall apart, it's just that I wear them all the time. 

My chosen model is a little different from the ones pictured at left--they've got the same sneaker base, but a mesh, fishnet-looking top and two zigzag straps across the middle of each foot.  They're go-anywhere, do-anything kicks. Slip them on with your swingy cocktail dress when you're planning a bender and worried about walking as far as the train station.  Strap in after sliding into your favorite jeans and hit the ballpark.  And yes, they're good for rapier-dagger work, too.

SKECHERS.com | Bikers-Capper | $55

Crate & Barrel BAD IDEA GLASSES

Crate & Barrel sells something called "Dizzy Cocktail glasses".  Somehow, these are not them:

I bought these because they were $4 each, I had broken all six of my last rocks glasses in an unfortunate fire escape incident, and I thought they'd be good for a laugh.  As you can see, the bottoms are rounded, and when placed on a flat surface, they roll around.  This is a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE IDEA.  Perhaps this is why they've been discontinued from C&B's website.  I'm hanging onto them, though, out of a kind of horrified fascination.

Opposite of success story #2:  I also picked up a few of these, thinking from the eensy picture that they kind of had a Mason jar aesthetic to them.  I missed the part where they cleverly have citrus-related words inscribed on them in Italian, so it's really more of a Euro-jackhole vibe.  These were promptly returned. 

LUSH Bath Bombs

We're back to the LUSH well already, but I can't go any longer without talking about their most glorious offering, the Bath Bomb. 

While studying abroad a few years ago, I took a nasty fall and sliced my leg open deep enough to need oodles of stitches--and couldn't get the bandages wet for six weeks.  SIX.  WEEKS.  After some horrifying experiments with plastic wrap and trying to shower with one foot in the awesome claw tub in our flat, I resorted to baths. 

Everything LUSH sells is fantastic, but these little darlings are simply genius.  (Pictured at left:  The Big Blue.)  They're packed full of herbs, dried flowers, extracts, and occasionally glitter (watch out for that--sometimes it's buried in the middle and it's ground very fine and you won't notice your lovely sheen until your bedmate lifts a shimmering gold limb in disgust and stalks from the room to go rinse off). 

Instructions:  Drop one (1) bomb in a full tub of water and observe as it fizzes and shoots around and makes bubbles and smells divine and try very hard not to clap like a seven-year-old.

[Warning:  No matter how much fun it looks like, do not climb into the tub until the fizzing is finished.  Any glee you may feel at the sensation of the bubbles whisking around your toes will be overshadowed by the fear that the ball of bicarbonate will go zooming straight into your nethers.]

They'll run you $5-8ish depending on how big they are and what's in them.  You can get them via the website, but you're better off finding one of their stores and sniffing through the bins yourself.  And blowing your entire paycheck on bath toys for grown-ass women.

The Company Store's Primaloft Comforters

I sleep cold, by choice.  Back home I was ill-rested all summer, every summer, because it was too hot to get under the covers.  In Los Angeles, this involves a year-round  ritual of jacking the AC down to 65 right before bed and burrowing into a nest of pillows and blankets like a very pretty and accomplished desert rodent.  Yet even the sturdiest of air conditioners doesn't have a prayer of matching the chilly snap of a winter we never see this far south. 

Enter Primaloft.

I love love LOVE The Company Store.   Everything's all clean lines and classically pretty, and their stuff lasts forever.  I discovered their Primaloft comforters my last year in Knoxville when I was living in a hundred year old house with no heat or air conditioning and windows that refused to shut.  Primaloft is a down alternative found in camping gear, and is (warning: science) the least gross down alternative in the world, ever.  It doesn't form hard little balls inside the blanket or disintegrate into dust when washed, it won't make you sneeze, and best of all for we warm-weather nesters--it's completely breathable. 

These comforters are huge and soft and fluffy to such a degree that you'll be tempted to just wander around the house all day with it wrapped around you like a toddler with a security blanket.  You can wash them in your own machine (ever try hauling your down blankets to the clearners?).  They have four different weight classes available depending on your warmth needs.  Mine's a medium, and I can rest quite snuggily under it in Southern California, in July, for an entire night without breaking a sweat. 

Summation:  If you're going to buy a comforter, buy it from The Company Store.  And if you're going to buy one from The Company Store, do it now, because their famous Comforter Sale is upon us.  During the sale you can pick one up for $100-200, which is a total steal.  Sleep tight!

Redken/Nexxus, remixed

It's easy to slip into pathological vanity wherever your best feature's concerned.  Mine can be found bouncing atop my noggin. The only person on this planet with better hair than me is Kaitlin, and it's a mark of what a precious critter she is that I don't scalp her out of sheer envy.

I have the thickest mane in recorded human history, and it's usually running wild down to the middle of my back because I've had it cut by the same stylist since 1991 and NO ONE ELSE IS ALLOWED NEAR IT WITH ANY CUTTING IMPLEMENT and getting back to Tennessee and into her capable hands is a twice-yearly prospect at best right now.  It's not dry, coarse, or frizzy, but it's got some natural curl to it that can be tricky to handle when it's as short as it is right now, and there's so f'ing MUCH of it that I stick with intensive moisturizing products to keep the lot of it weighed down.

By the grace of Redken, I'm able to go six months between cuts without looking like a sawgrass patch from the forehead up.  It took lengthy experimentation with three of their product lines before I found a combination that worked for me--look through their fetching rainbow haircare family to find your path to follicular glory.   My stylist usually sticks with their Clear Moisture line, depending on how much damage my hair's sustained in the previous six months, which is fairly lightweight and works perfectly fine when I've got freshly trimmed layers to show off, but those layers grow out fast, and after a couple weeks I start to look like the Jesus-Lion and need something with a little more heft.

Extreme. In looking for a good general regimen, I tried this line first because the bottles are my favorite shade of blue (stay with me here, I promise it gets more science-y).  Listen, I'm the first to snort derisively at anything labeled "extreme", especially with an awkwardly placed accent on a random vowel, but they're not kidding here--I have approximately twenty-three pounds of hair on my head and this left it just drenched in moisture.  I'd go so far as to say it's a little too extreme.  If you've just spent a week at the beach and find your locks have been destroyed by wind and water and stray blobs of sunscreen, maybe stock this for emergencies, but I found using either the shampoo or the conditioner more than once a week to be too much of a good thing.

Smooth Down.  Extreme is designated for use on "damaged" hair, so I turned to the next lightest product, designed to control frizz.  This line has an alluring spicy scent--and is still too heavy for everyday use.  (Which, don't get me wrong, is the best possible problem as far as I'm concerned--any product my hair doesn't immediately soak up with no visible effect is a godsend.)  Together, this line is still a little too much for regular applications, but the shampoo has quickly become my carry-on/time-crunch product of choice--one wash and I'm out the door with no need for a separate conditioner (another first).

All Soft. Time to drop down a weight class, and with the addition of All Soft to my day I was nearly completely satisfied.  This conditioner is a thing of wonder--shiny, bouncy locks abound without going limp at the 8-hour mark.  But the scent is a little too bubblegummy for my liking. My hair hangs in my face all the time and I don't fancy smelling like children's toothpaste.

Solution?

REEEEEEMIXXXXXXX (ix...ix....ix....)

After several months of tweaking, I arrived at a formula that sounds unnecessarily complicated but leaves me with glorious tresses and makes grown heterosexual men sniff the air around my head and excuse their behavior by saying, "I'm sorry, but did you wash your hair four minutes ago, because it smells amazing."*  The solution: Little dabs of All Soft conditioner every day just on the ends, and alternating the Smooth Down shampoo with another national treasure of hair care, Therappe from Nexxus (awkwardly unpronounceable name, delicious coconut aroma).   If I'm fresh from the beach and need some extra moisture, it's the Therappe shampoo (smells like sunscreen!) plus the hardcore Smooth Down conditioner.   I'm fully aware this requires having four bottles of something on hand at all times, but consider your very green lawn--exquisite natural loveliness of this magnitude doesn't just look after itself.  It takes devotion and proper tools, and look! I found them for you!  You're welcome, internet.

[All these are somehow occasionally available at Target, but the selection's hit or miss, and weirdly expensive.  I've been buying it in liter bottles from a hair salon supply store.  They'll run you from $20-$25 each, but each bottle will last several months.]

*True story.

OmniWeb

When the majority of your work day is conducted via the internet, even little frustrations, tweaks you'd like to see made to your browser add up.  I roll with OmniWeb, a speedy, powerful, aesthetically satisfying program brought to you by the Omni Group.

OmniWeb lends itself to multiple workspaces with the greatest of ease (and can autosave them all), and can run a godzillion open tabs without breaking a sweat.  If you're a visual learner/worker bee, you'll love their tab drawer--you have the option to display them in list form or as resizeable thumbnails. 

Check out some other features or throw down your $14.95 right here.  Yes, it costs money.  Yes, it's only for Macs.  Yes, Firefox 3 just came out, but the OS X upgrade makes it look just like Safari, which is why I fled to Firefox in the first place and I can't be the only one, so until they build some fancy skins you ought to give this a spin.

Slice of Life Tableware

I have more dishes in my cabinets than any unmarried 26-year-old can possibly have use for.  And I'm scared to bust out most of them.  There's my grandmother's china in storage, pink and gold and cream and not much use for anything but decorating a tea shop.  There's the hand-blown cobalt glass service for four that I smuggled back from the Mediterranean wrapped in my boyfriend's t-shirts. 

And then there's my Slice of Life set.

Manufactured by PTS America, it's a (sadly) limited line--I've only ever been able to find dinner plates, salad plates, and mugs--of off-white dishes decorated in what looks like pen and ink renderings of the mundane, the iconic, and the truly bizarre.  Ever fantasized about the Roswell landing on a dinner plate?  These suckers are for you. 

Serve your barbecue on the barbecue plate of ASTRONAUTS.

This one I bought two of--one to hang, and one to use.

This one's my favorite, and tragically discontinued.

I got my entire set in a department store china shop, but you can purchase many of these through PTS America, Amazon, or Replacements, Ltd.