it's like the eye of a duck

This week 2 things started going bad: my car and my feet.

Car: Part of this has likely been my fault; I went twice over the recommended mileage between oil changes so when I went in they had to do a lot in addition to the oil change: rotate tires, change air filter, replace rear light bulb, etc. all of which went well.

Things started going south when they unwittingly rolled down my "trick" driver's side window - beyond a certain point it always sticks and the only way to roll it back up is to take the inside door panels off and do it manually. Which they dutifully did, but it required a lot of time on both mine and the mechanic's parts.

This morning I wake up to find that something has shorted out the trunk latch as well. It won't stay closed, which means that even if the battery stays charged (increasingly unlikely) I'll likely get pulled over if I drive it.

I'm going to try and take it into the mechanic this week and get it fixed but I'm not too concerned about a long term fix because all of this is a strong indicator that it's time to get a new(er) car. Not how I wanted to spend the next couple of weeks, but this is a long time coming and can't wait anymore.

I'm looking at a hybrid because I like the ethics of extreme fuel efficiency, but much as I like D.'s Prius I don't like the lack of rear visibility when switching lanes so I'm not sure what I'm going to end up with.

On the up side: NEW CAR!

My feet: I do believe I'm developing a bunion on my right foot! I'm no expert but I'm definitely getting a tender bump and my big toe is developing an obvious inward angle. Neither side of my family has a history of bunions and I don't wear heels often so I can only suspect that this is another artifact of fencing. It doesn't hurt too much or look bad...yet. I've booked an appointment with a podiatrist to fix this before either happens: not only do I not want another painful circus like I had a few years ago with plantaar fasciitis, I am too young and too vain to have bony "old lady" feet yet :P (And I love my occasional heel, gorramit!).

At Memoirs of a Skepchick, and not just 'cos I've got the bunny slippers - the FSM tree-topper cracks me up!

Chateau Bizarre - links to all manner of cool clothing things - Gothic Lolita styles for grownups (geekchick, I'm looking at you), gothic everything, really, quirky bags and accessories, toys for kids and adults, customized book covers, and other manner of coolness.

No, not THOSE kind of pleasures! :P

Last night D. and I went out to a local Italian restaurant. Not our usual haunt, which offers tasty food in great abundance, but a place across the street that's been there for years that we didn't go to simply because the location suggested that it was probably a sub and pizza joint :P D. discovered it was actually a modest but very highly regarded county restaurant while reading reviews and it's he I must credit that we finally went.

Oh. My.

There's food for fuel, food that is abundant and tasty but nothing exceptional or unexpected (think Cheesecake Factory or Outback Steakhouse) and then there's surprisingly savory food that you want to eat slowly so as to catch every nuance. This place is definitely the latter :)

( inadequate food description )

Portions were reasonable and I left feeling full but not stuffed. We will definitely be going back - it's practically in our backyard so it will be hard to resist!

Engaged in other sensual pleasures today by making my first trip to G Street Fabrics since.. I don't know when. Last fall sometime, whenever the designer fabric section had the ultrasuede out.

I went with the hopes of finding reasonably priced linen, and though that fell through I did pet a lot of other things - silk chiffons, Tasmanian wool (soft and velvety, not scratchy at all), Aleskine (silk/wool blend), leather (in perfect oxblood red, but not enough for the vest, alas), satin-woven cotton shirting... ahh!!

I admit I'm still nervous about working with or even looking at certain luxury fabrics. I constantly doubt that I have the patience or knowhow to choose a project that would be workable in, say, silk chiffon, and almost feel like my ignorance shows on my face and the salespeople would shoot me before they'd sell me any but - yeah, I know that's stupid. I need to just bite the bullet and realize that after all these years with a sewing machine, I might actually know what I'm doing :P

In the past few weeks I've come across the following sites addressing men's style:

BoldSwaths men's fashion blog. New and not rigorously geared towards the broad shouldered, wasp-waisted set. Fashion heavy but contains some diet/toiletries stuff.

Uncrate.com is more interior decoration/gadget heavy, but they get my "cool" vote simply for linking to the Stewart/Colbert '08 shirt.

Gentleman's Emporium - kickin' it EXTREMELY old-school with "authentic historical clothing and calligraphy supplies"; I don't know how historically accurate they are but they have things like pocket watches, walking sticks, and full Victorian outfits for incredibly good prices. Some women's stuff too, but I've not explored it yet because I'm too busy coveting beautiful tailored frock coats and top hats for myself :P Browncoats note: lots of this would be adaptable for Firefly-themed costumes.

Today I went out to use a $20 off promotional thingie, in search of sports bras.

( shopping musings here )

Finally ordered the CAFT baby tee. I've never ordered from CafePress before, so I'll wait to see the quality (or lack thereof) on one before I order another.

It is worth noting that CafePress has a fencing t-shirt store, with lots of funnies and goodies. It is also worth noting that if you type "serenity firefly" into their search engine you'll come up with 160 pages (!) of (mostly) fan designed merchandise (damn!)

Edit: Just realized that some of the shirts under "fencing" are about fencing the U.S.' borders and have a racist tone - the tragedy of keywords is that such expressions get lumped in with all the swordsmanship tees :(

Besame Cosmetics - very 1940s [filing away for future reference].

I was just talking today about how the internet helps us find those who share our particular, specific interests, and lo: clicking "Vivienne Westwood" on my interests page found me vwestwood. Perhaps even more incredibly, it's active(!)

I am thrilled to tiny pieces to find that at least one nation on this earth (Japan) makes rocking horse shoe knockoffs - even the price is reasonable (that 9800 yen translates to roughly $85 USD). No shopping now, but filing away in my mental banks for the future.

Now if she would just license with a pattern company, my sartorial life would be whole... for awhile...

D. finally figured out the calculator functions for this math section. Not perfect yet, but it's no longer throwing an error. I have to say that when I lose my head, D. always keeps his safely screwed on - ain't nothing like a geek boy (I say to the Mal droolers - he might be fun, but Wash is the one you keep :P) But anyway...

Yes, the homework is still royally kicking my ass. In order not to go completely insane, I took breaks to windowlick (this! I mean, look at the price! And the Lacis books section has some foreign language titles I didn't know about).

Also had a dark chocolate M&M break, but not too much as I'm not sure they're making these anymore, so I'm hoarding. This breaks my little black heart, but at least dark chocolate Kisses are still manufactured.

I'm going to step away from the computer because I'm fighting a headache and have been staring at a screen so long that my eyes are starting to get blurry. Think I'll do a bit of hand sewing while watching "Hex" (yep, it's just another screen, but at least it's across the room).