my fuWWy wabbit

of course I had a loyal and loving companion when I was a child. My Wabbit was always there for me. He was sweet and fuwwy, understanding, uncritical. He waited when I was at school, he hid when Others insisted I was too big to carry him around, and when I reached high school, I disguised him as part of the "decor" in my room, which was easy, since before the days of TV-team interventions on the rooms of teenagers, parents just closed their eyes and gritted their teeth. They certainly didn't venture to hunt for Wabbits that they thought had long been outgrown.

A Wabbit doesn't care if you didn't finish your book report, he knows you were just being too polite to say what you really thought about Silas Marner and thinks the teacher ought to be grateful you didn't write about Silas Mariner.

I was thinking of my Wabbit the other day, in the sad gray of the late afternoon. I had some things to convince Anthropologie to take back, belated gift returns, nothing that I could hold on to for another few weeks and pass off as Valentine's Day tributes, so they had to go back. Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if someone knew me well enough to get me a Wabbit? Not a big stuffy thing from FAOSchwarz, not a costly collectible thing from Steiff,  just a nice fuwwy Wabbit that gives you snuggles and cuddles and doesn't have a list of questions that only you can answer immediately, with documentary support.

The very closest Anthropologie to me looks like it was once the ballroom of a small catering operation, there's a "not much" entry, if you go one way you wind up in a small room full of crockery and sale racks, and if you go the other way you confront a curved open staircase, which takes you way way down into the main selling area. There are some little niches along the way, and then I saw them - a whole basket of WABBITS. Lovely fuwwy wabbits. I picked one up, he snuggled up under my chin and into my neck. I couldn't put him down.

I didn't. He came home with me. He will live in a basket in my closet, and remind me that no matter how bleak and dreary the outlook, love can come unexpectedly and joyfully, and joy can come lovingly and hopefully.

And so I wound up buying two Wabbits, so my Wabbit wouldn't be lonely. Since we all know what happens when you have more than one Wabbit, I'm hoping there will be enough Wabbits to share with young visitors when they come to play. Love and Wabbits should be shared. And if you have a moment when you think noone is listening, hold a Wabbit and listen later.

Tell me about the Wabbits in your life.

your parents may have warned you that your degree was impractical...

Here is an example of what a perspicacious and hardworking Art History major can accomplish even if her parents refused to buy a gallery because they'd rather feed and clothe their other children. Oh, go ahead, click that link, you know you want to.

LINK:

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and you think you've got an awful boss

Look at the fun she's having while those of us who believed the hype that a knowledge of many languages would open many doors (maybe if you're a trilingual doorman) are reduced to correcting the spelling on cheesy t-shirts and smarming at  maitre d's....

and those who opted for Medieval Studies are trying to illuminate and gild the bar menus for Ye Olde Goode Times while not  having to wear a wench outfit - yes, I periodically hear from a poetically minded friend who keeps body and soul together by selling her (academic) soul and explaining that the lap dance was unknown before the Renaissance, at just such a place. We might hear more from her later on, she generally gets in touch around Christmas. Plenty of part-time gigs for a qualified medievalist in New York City in the winter....

And Communications does not always lead upwards, unless by upwards we mean Outer Space.
Yes, the Copywriter from Space, with her guaranteed lifetime sinecure on the J.Crew website, has struck again!

The text below describes the Nili Lotan cashmere sweater as a "cropped silhouette" which "hits at hip." I see it "hitting" at what would most likely be "above the hip" on me,  but who am I to fuss about such minor details? After all, if I don't consider my hip situation minor, who will?  What I really don't get is why the word "streamlined" repeatedly crops up with reference to Nili. After the wrinkly caftan which I was told was supposed to look like that, the droopy drawers which are again  with us in an autumn iteration, and the floppy sweaters, I'm losing track of where the streamlining is. Somewhere in production, perhaps? Don't think I'd rely on J.Crew's sources to produce a "special open-stitch weave" that would last more than one wear. Oh, and yarns are spun, not sweaters, which are knitted or crocheted, not woven? A close look (zoom, zoom) shows that this sweater is in fact knitted. And I think it may have been hiked forward for the front view, downward for the back view. Somewhere in-between may be a hip. 

Our women's design team fell in love with the streamlined silhouettes from this much-buzzed-about Israeli-born designer. Like all her creations, this sweater was carefully crafted in the designer's intimate New York atelier. Spun from the most luxurious cashmere, it features a special open-stitch weave and so-right-now cropped silhouette. In a 7-gauge knit. Crewneck

If you are discontented with your days, and have access to a computer, it really is never to late to consider a career change. So it might take 2 or 3 years, or a lot longer, if the project has to includes earning the money for childcare (or food and rent) while you do it. But at the end of that time, you'll be where you want to be, or almost. Whereas if  you don't get started, in 2 or 3 years or whatever, you'll just be that much older.

PLUS WHICH, IF YOU GO BACK TO SCHOOL, YOU GET A STUDENT I.D. CARD, NO MATTER HOW OLD YOU ARE, AND THAT CAN GET YOU STUDENT DISCOUNTS!

Catalog shoot outtakes? or rites of Spring (with a nod to M. Stravinsky)

We were discussing yesterday (the Whining Diner and I) how divesting ourselves of winter wrappings inspires us to spend money on spring-like trimmings, when all of a sudden cold wet semi-frozen stuff fell out of the sky and right down onto us. Obviously there is some minor deity one of our number has failed to propitiate. But be of good cheer, because right after the heavenly ice drips, we were able to view a shoot of what can only be a Certain Beloved Catalog's issue for a Summer Month. I feel privileged to share this with you. Click to watch the video, and be inspired. Stills with close-ups follow.

http://historically-inaccurate.blogspot.com/2010/05/frite-of-spring.html

Don't know about you all, but I'm certainly ready for Spring clothes, and Spring travel. And enough of this silly moderation in eating, I'll believe it serves a rational purpose when I can send the stems of my broccoli to the starving children in the flood plain of East Wherever (some country that had a broccoli shortage, no doubt).

what to look at when you feel bad 'cause someone's told you to get a life

http://thehairpin.com/2011/03/live-blogging-13-hours-of-rabbit-webcam/