Good Bread, Good Meat, Good God, Let's Shop

Just when I thought last weekend presented me with the best eating and shopping day, in came this weekend.

Last Sunday was Blue Hill at Stone Barns with R & S C. We drove up there in Vanilla, stomped around the mud in our fancy shoes, ate lovely greens and beef and fish, then headed home. What happened next really couldn't have without the Cs...we went to Target! Oh joy - I got a $25 Isaac Mizrahi pencil skirt and the Olay eye derma pods (sorry, mother earth).

Fast forward to this morning. EJ and I head out to MUD where we get the usual: two Italian breakfasts and granola/yogurt/fruit to share. Jacked up on their crazy-caffeinated coffee we head over to Zara to "look for" shirts for EJ. Five hours later we've gone into about every store in the area I like to call the Chelsea Mall. Mark it in the history books, people: the man bought considerably more than I did today. At 3 pm we were famished so we popped into the new tapas place on 19th Street, Boqueria. Que autentico! En serio, yo - this place knows what it's doing when it comes to a tortilla, datiles con bacon and its selections of wine and cheeses.

So what do you say, this coming weekend?

Go Go Gadget Shopper

Gadgets - I hate to love them. For the most part, I am intimidated by gadgets because I don't know them; they are not my forte from a shopping perspective. Buying a gadget involves serious research that I'm just not that into - Consumer Reports, CNET, yadda yadda. If you told me to spend a day perusing all the fashion mags to determine what's hot, I would gladly waste away the hours, but to cozy up with the latest issue of PC World, all I have to say is yipes.

It is for this reason that it has taken me this long to actually own a digital camera. Well, the best part about it is that I didn't need to buy it myself -- it was the best birthday gift ever from my man.

Of course now the next stage is to actually learn how to use it, how to keep my hand steady enough to take a good photo, etc. But to christen my new-digital-camera-meets-blog experience, here is a photo for my girl AM. She recently gave me these magnets (shoes!) and as you can see, they are being used most efficiently to hold up a post card of the wonderful City Bakery, where we used to spend a lot of money when our office was directly across the street (Hello, $15 lunch).

Subway Musings

It's true, I used the word "musings" - I must really be a blogger now, boy oh boy. In all seriousness, the NYC subway is where I get most of my inspiration. While riding uptown to work the other day I started thinking about how beautiful women are maybe the only people who can get away with not being the most stylish people. The same does not hold true for beautiful men - men who are extremely good looking can't dress like slobs. I noticed a very beautiful woman the other day but would not have said her coat, pants, shoes and bag worked together. Thoughts?

The other topic I wanted to explore is the converse low-tops that slip on with no laces, but still have loops for laces. Everyone under the age of 30 is wearing these shoes right now. I recently purchase a pair of black low-top cons but the traditional, with-laces style. I prefer the with-laces look, but some people can pull off the no laces version.

What's In a Commercial?

Somehow, our TV is programmed right now to display the words that are being recited when the "mute" function is turned on. I'm not sure if this is called Closed-Captioned or subtitled, but I think you know what I'm referring to.

The point that has me so fascinated is that apparently only certain corporations opt to have their commercials (or "spots" as my husband in the ad industry likes to say) display the words if they're on mute. Please note that I am referring to the television you receive for free here in NYC when you plug your box into the wall, not TiVo or some DVRness - just plain old network television (ah, Network - see that movie, please).

Here are the companies I've noticed tonight that pay extra - I assume - to have you read exactly what they're saying to you, Y-O-U.

McDonald's
Subway (ie: the sanwiches)
Dunkin Donuts
Target.

It's the last one on the list that has me writing this posting ce nuit. As you know, I love me some Target. But I was able to read the "lyrics" to the "song" in the most recent Target commercial and I was taken aback. Forget subliminal, it might as well be saying, "buy, buy, buy now, spend."
Does the Target have some bewitching power over me that I simply do not realize? And here I was thinking I just chose the Target on my own, that the powerful red and the bullseye logo and the recruiting of the designers had nothing to do with it.