how the fashionable urban professional goes to work...

...when it looks like this outside:


First off, accessories are very important, particularly when they help to keep one sane during the pushing/shoving/noiseridden commute:

Check out the fuschia earphones. And the iPod colour should always coordinate with the winter coat:

Would you believe that this coat is 20 years old? (I shake my head in disbelief that I'm actually admitting to this!!) I bought it on a trip to Toronto (at Simpsons, long gone now) when I was 17 and still living with my parents in Kingston. It cost $175.00. My mother nearly had a heart attack, but I had pinched my pennies and I wanted this cost. If my math is correct, the cost has worked out to $8.75 per year. Not too shabby (although you don't want to see the lining and the insides of the pockets!)

This is the pin that lives on my coat, given to me by a dear friend about 10 years ago.

And now on to some little known secrets about the life of Brouhaha.

It is imperative to start off the day with a healthy breakfast, of course:

And have you ever wondered what top-flight lawyers carry with them in those boxy briefcases?

Well, I'll show you. First, some essential tools of the trade:


These are my implements which I use to stab recalcitrant landlords.

Oops - I just realised that I also managed to bust a Christmas surprise. Sorry, Mom (who will truly be surprised when she finds out that the gift card is only worth $20!!!!).

Also, there are other essential secret things, carried, of course, in a Prada bag:

(Dang - did I leave the Prada at home again?!? Damn and blast!)

And of course, one should always have documentation in the event that one is summoned off to a top-secret international mission:

(Besides, you never know when the Bathurst tram might have to change its route due to construction, and decide it's a good idea to access downtown Toronto via Buffalo!)

Other essentials:
... cash and housekeys...

(How do you like my bright money carriers?! Cute, eh? And of course some evil eyes for luck.)

Best also to have extra supplies of medication on hand...

(A friend bought this for me during my last period. Do you think she was trying to tell me something? But look - it's medicinal. Really.)

I keep telling people, "Chocolate is good for you!". This, I think, proves me right.

Getting down to the bottom of my bag of tricks:

This is something that I was given as a gift this past week. 100 grams of chocolate covered stale bread cubes. Calabrese bread, mind you. (At $5.00 for 100 grams of stale bread, I should think it was flown in directly from Italy. I paid $2.25 for a 650 gram loaf of Calabrese bread on the way home from work last night - and it was even fresh.)

And, finally:

But I haven't even shown you how to dress for success yet!! Sigh.

This is my new top which I made from my Montego Bay scarf. It was a big hit at the staff lunch!

And finally, a very rare insight into the deep intellect of Brouhaha:\



(This is what I do when I'm not allowed to knit at the 5th website meeting this month...deep, eh? I'll tell you a big secret - I actually wrote The Da Vinci Code. Yes, little old yarn-addicted me. Can't you tell by this mystical diagram?)

Happy Wednesday... and a very very happy birthday to Bill Nighy, whom JJ suspects I have a raging crush on. Really I don't. It's just his acting. Really...

just call me Lady Godiva...

(and no, you're not going to get any pictures of me on horseback. My hair is not long enough, yet - and I'll probably be taking the scissors to it any day now.)

I made a sortie to my work LYS, Romni, at the lunch hour yesterday in search of Handmaiden Flaxen. Alas, they do not carry it! In retrospect this is probably a good thing - although the ever-helpful Jonathan said "Why don't you try [another place in the east end - I have blocked the name from memory because I really do not need to know about any more yarn stores in Toronto!!]".

So, instead, I saw this:




Chunky half silk, half wool!

The actual reason for buying this was... well, do you remember this?

Check this out!

Now I can learn Moebius knitting for real! (Although having said that, I will probably manage to mess it up and it will turn out straight. Sigh.)

On the way back to the office, I stopped into a deli called Prague on a co-worker driven quest for cherry cheesecake. I do not myself like cheesecake, but have a look at this:

Czech smarties!!!

Which I had to get because it goes so well with the book purchase I made this morning at the newsagent:
I love these books that talk about the history behind common foods. They jump all over the world with one unifying theme: salt, cod, chocolate. (If you haven't read "Salt" by Mark Kurlanski, it is highly recommended.)

But the festivities did not stop with shopping. After work, a couple of us repaired to an old favourite pub for a couple of cocktails:


But it was closed!!! For good!! One of our favourite spots is no longer.

Perhaps it was "condo-mned?"

The Lady Tenant Advocates then met en masse for a big Indian dinner at Dhaba. Sadly for me, this is another partial casualty of Condoland. What used to be my favourite Indian buffet place has morphed into a high end pretentious indian fusion place, offering such bounty as seafood samosas and venison curry. My favourite dish, chicken vindaloo, was nowhere to be seen. I will say that the chairs were rather cushy. This somewhat softened the blow of the price increases of standard items on the menu - one samosa for $5.00! The food was great in quality as ever, I hasten to say. But I won't be back.

(Hmm... maybe had I stripped off all my clothes and wrapped myself in Grande Godiva I would have had a discount? Or at least a free ride home in a police cruiser instead of a $20 cab).

Well, I'd bet get off my lazy @$$ and get JJ out of bed so that we can head out into the day - a trip to the Yorkdale Mall for necessary holiday shopping. Grrr. The parking lot there of a Saturday in December reminds of the Colesseum in Rome on gladiator day.

In parting, JJ will surely be chuffed to hear that Mary, Queen of Scots was born on this day in 1542. I wonder if he knew her...??