fitforafemme.com

Apparently, the rest of the country is on fire and the skies are trying to put them out with mediocre success, but I shan’t take up valuable white space with that sort of nonsense.

It was a very brutal Friday at work.

No, it was a very brutal Friday from the moment I woke up until, hm, champs ‘o clock.

It began with delays at my BART station (our metro of sorts), because some moron was walking around on the tracks. 30 minutes late. On the upside, there was perfectly cooked bacon when I arrived. A few harried hours later, I had a noon meeting, with food provided, but I don’t do pre-made sandwiches so lunch was actually half of a somewhat stale pastry chased by a bottle of OJ, eaten one-handed around, oh, 3PM. Of course, there’s nothing like a 3.5 offshore-centered earthquake from a high-rise building to make the afternoon exciting, not that I felt it (I was far too busy running around dealing with far less thrilling aftershocks of another sort).

It is no wonder then, that I made a beeline for Godiva after leaving the office, partly for my own sanity and partly because I’d promised my girls some treats. The smirk below, then, is directly related to A) Friday, at last and B) champagne truffles.

That, and the fact that we’ve got a 1.75L bottle of 10 -year Eagle Rare single-barrel Kentucky bourbon sitting atop the bar.

Plus, this dress is excellent and I’ve figured out that the Fekkai Marine Summer beachy wave hair stuff works much better when my hair is dry.

Dress, Calvin Klein
Scarf, Pier One ($10!)
Boots, Donald J. Pliner
Sunglasses, Kenneth Cole
Denim Jacket, Old Navy
Suede Tote, Banana Republic
Leather Earring, Idyllic4U (Brooklyn Flea)

Here’s what I’m thinking for my own personal inspiration sheet for Fall 2010 (or, like, life):

Weekend plans include, but are not limited to, the following:

What have y’all got going on? Is there anything else I’m missing, besides a massage and a good soak in a hot tub? Here, listen to this song, it’s pretty:

Edited to include this sandwich explanation: Pre-made and packaged sandwiches disgust me. I will also never, ever eat at one of those creepy, psychotic “dining in the dark” places. I must see exactly what you are putting in my probably very sparse sandwich, and I will watch you like a goddamn hawk tracking a sweet little bunny rabbit in an open field on a lovely Spring day if you are making it for me. I cannot believe that people actually consume sandwiches that have been sitting there for fuck only knows how long, with the spread or oils or whatnot soaking all into the bread and the other contents withering inside of suffocating plastic wrap. I also really loathe mayonnaise, and I still can’t quite figure out how I am friends with people who are known to eat it by the spoonful. The same is true for salads, you know, even if all of the ingredients are tidily separated from one another. Salads should be fresh. They are not fresh if they are boxed. I realize that being impossibly fussy makes me somewhat disagreeable, but I’m not quite as obnoxious as vegans or gluten-free types or people who can’t handle dairy without a big to-do, so there.

I already miss the World Cup. Do you?

What a love affair. There’s this great big empty space where the only traditional sport I’ve ever loved lived for 1.5 passionate, glorious weeks. (UFC and bull-riding don’t exactly count as traditional.) We shared eight games together and it just didn’t seem to matter that I knew nothing of and had no interest in soccer before at all, the Uruguay vs. Ghana game sunk its big, sweaty, dramatic teeth into my neck and I was irrevocably hooked.

M was delighted to bear witness to this newly discovered passion. She’s not a sports maniac or anything, and I do occasionally enjoy watching football and baseball (but only ever at actual games, I find the latter dreadfully banal on the television), but it’s rare and we have never been so engaged as this. When we weren’t sneaking away during lunch to watch the games during the work week (or streaming them at our desks), we’d trek to the Stray Bar on the weekend.

Being a mixed-race baby with roots in Germany and Spain, it was very difficult for me to choose a side in semifinals. Who I picked is obvious, and I chose Spain because it’s where M & I had such a dreamy courtship the first year we met. (It leaves an indelible impression on you, that kind of spectacular free-falling someplace unfamiliar.)

It was the right choice. I couldn’t drum up any feeling for Germany’s team, anyway.

The photos above were taken right around the moment when Spain won the World Cup!

I cried. I actually cried with genuine joy. Over a sport. WHAT?! (I also toasted M so heartily that I shattered her champagne flute, which is why it moves from one glass to another up there.) This is so unlike me, and now every four years M will have to make room for my whirlwind love affair with this happy sport. I apologize profusely and in advance to the shocked friends who will likely never understand it and think it the beginning of the end of Skinny, surely.

I threw this outfit together essentially at Target the night before. M & I drove some friends of ours to their local store to get some new home essentials, and I scoured like 5 departments before settling on the shorts, black tank, red button-up from the Converse line, and the contrasting handkerchiefs that M & I chose. You know it’s ardent when I willfully don the ill-advised ketchup + mustard color motif with not a single trace of shame.

She psychically knew that they’d be wearing their blue uniforms.

Thank heavens for the striped H&M socks at home!

VIVA ESPANA!

As promised, here’s the swimsuit special for the cheeky one-piece I managed to snag from the Liberty of London for Target collection. You know what I love best about it, aside from the fact that the print is so rich and deeply Caribbean blue? The hold. I have no idea how they constructed this thing, but the second you slip into it, it hugs you in a way that doesn’t require a second thought at all, the way some swimsuits do. I got the insanely dramatic hat (brand new) from a nearby thrift store for a dollar at most – long before I even saw the LOL for Target collection – but there they are, a match made in heaven.

I do deeply regret not bounding out in heels for this on location photo shoot in Mexico, but it was like 10AM, the pool guy had just barely finished cleaning the pool, and we were still, uh, drunk. Heels could have resulted in a broken jaw or ankle or drowning, but it was decidedly short-sighted of me, dear readers, and I apologize!

I will NOT, however, apologize for my most excellent, uneven scooter sunburn. I earned it fair and square, bitches!

The water in the sea was far warmer than in the pool!

At long last, I’ve acquired two matching wardrobes to bring some order to the femme side of the bedroom. After looking for MONTHS for something wide enough / deep enough / tall enough / compact enough to fit into my car, I settled on a pair of secondhand Ikea Aneboda wardrobes. I know, I know. Fucking hateful Ikea! Even my Target Shabby Chic dresser and vanity set cringe being next to them.

You’ll note the wardrobe on the right is reserved for dresses ONLY, with a handful of long coats. The left is for slacks, blouses, blazers, shorter coats, skirts and the like.

However, they’re $100 apiece brand new and I only paid $70 total for both of them, which is great because I’ll definitely be smashing them and setting them on fire letting them go when we move next year as I AM NEVER MOVING ANYPLACE THAT HASN’T GOT AMPLE CLOSEST SPACE AGAIN, so help me God. You do not even want to know what the “before” looked like (though I know some of you out there have and lived to tell), but the chaos is now controlled on my side, and M has the whole (wee) closet to herself. I even rooted through my things (which have been whittled and whittled down some more since we moved here in July) and set them aside for donating, and cleaned out any makeup I never use, or seemed questionable.

I may or may not have found a pup-o hiding in my clothes.

As an apology of sorts for all these months of hogging up M’s space, encroaching on her side and making her walk through a femme mine field day in and day out, I lined her slacks up all neatly, arranged her dry-cleaned shirts just so and put all of her shoes in an orderly row. I also tidied up her nightstand, which is the least I can do since there were piles of discarded jewelry of mine all over it. (I’ve a very bad habit of nearly falling asleep with my jewelry on, sleepily clawing it off and depositing it all into M’s waiting hand – in the dark! – because I can’t reach my own nightstand.)

It feels good! Not as good as living in Mexico might, and not as good as it did when our walk-in, en suite closet was twice the size of our current bathroom, but as good as it’s going to get in this particular SF flat! I don’t know how the rest of the city does it!

*Note: I am NOT thinking about how all the clothes in two tall rolling baskets of laundry will fit into these babies. I’ll think about that tomorrow.