The best Op-Shop story EVER.

I love a good Op-Shop. And no, I do not mean a "Vintage Store" in Surry Hills where everything is overpriced and overstyled. I mean a regular good old Op-Shop out in some long forgotten suburb with baskets of random junk, funny hats, home made stonewashed denim, and discarded and highly flammable wedding dresses as far as the eye can see. That's a treasure trove if ever I've heard of one.


Quick, stop the car!

However, over the years I have become lazy when it come to scouring through one of these Op-Shop gems, partly because I start sneezing like crazy, and partly because I look at clothes and shoes for a living all day every day. My sister M is a gun Op-Shopper though, so I always go with her. She can spot a never before worn Ann Demulemeester dress in a pile of junk as high as a Snoop Dogg.

She took me to her 'secret' place in Sydney's Inner West. What a crazy place...piles of stuff everywhere, resembling a cross between a mountain range (in size and height) and a teenager's bedroom (in mess and smell). Still in shock, I realised I was standing next to a massive crate of handbags. I started poking around in there, without much gusto I admit, I didn't want to fall in! Then I spotted something that caught my eye...could it really be something in the EPI leather I love so much from Louis Vuitton?

OK listen....Ever since I worked at a fancy pants Furniture Showroom (about 10 years ago) and my boss had a Saffron Yellow EPI leather "Noe" Bag from Louis Vuitton, I'd always dreamed of getting one. I think I even asked her is I could have hers when she died. So imagine how I felt when I realised that what I had just pulled out of that industrial sized crate of bags was a real genuine black large Epi Noe LV bag. OMG.


My baby.

And the best part? Well, you wont believe me but it's true. It only cost me $3. That's right, I got enough change from a fiver to go get a coffee.

That is my best ever Op-Shop story. I'm pretty sure it doesn't get better than that. If you have a better one, I want to hear it.

What a Croc!

I know I'm not the first person to say I hate Crocs. I think I have made it clearly obvious to everyone on Earth that my love of shoes and the subsequent purchasing decisions are primarily based on their aesthetic...price and comfort are merely afterthoughts and financial complications. So it makes perfect sense that I hate Crocs...they're cheap and comfy but stupendously ugly! Not sold. Definitely not.

And it seems that the entire of the Eastern Suburbs feels the same...or at least the upmarket Westfields Bondi Junction does! WBJ is the only Mall in Sydney's affluent east and is home to slick flagship stores for world luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Bally, Hugo Boss...hell, they even have valet parking and people to carry your shopping for you.

So it's no wonder they have taken a stance against the humble Croc. Well, at least that's how I've interpreted it.

This is the sign on the escalator:



And a close up...just in case you really can't believe your eyes:



What does that mean?! Caution!! Caution what...caution these shoes are hideous the rich and fancy may faint? Caution you'll be thrown out, dont make me tell you twice? Caution we don't like your type around here? Caution, how dare you be comfortable and highly unstylish?

Too funny.

If anyone knows what it really means, please tell me! I can't work out if it's not safe to wear Crocs on the escalator, or if by some freak chance the new universal symbol for shoe is a Croc.

XX

Near death and a sort-of review for The Bounty Hunter

I had a near death experience the other day. Oh yes people, even us city chicks get close to death. Let me paint you a picture.

My friend and I had free movie tickets, and timing wise our only option was the new Rom-Com starring Jennifer Aniston The Bounty Hunter. Now, even though I'm the target market, I've never been that into romantic comedies. Too cliche. Too depressing. Call it what you will, I just don't love them *


The poster says it all really

So we thought "hey its free, we'll get some pick'n'mix and kick back for a couple of hours...if it sucks real bad, we'll ditch". Sounds like a plan.

About 10 min into the movie, I'm happily kicking back, poking fun at the acting (or lack of it thanks to Gerard Butler), and munching away on my bag of pick'n'mix lollies. Suddenly my night changed for the worse...one of the lollies got lodged in my throat.


The Little Bastards

Now, it was not a 'little coughing and sputtering' kind of lodged. But like totally blocked airway, 'somebody please give me the Heimlich Maneuver' kind of lodged. Instead of doing the universal sign for choking to my friend (which could have been misconstrued for "this movie makes me want to spew" anyway), I ran out of the cinema into a completely deserted foyer and started turning blue.

Not a good idea.



Luckily a guy/child working as an usher saw me thrashing around and asked if I was alright. What powers of observation! My blue face must have given me away. I pointed to my back to get him to hit me in between the shoulder blades, and instead he gently patted my back like his mum probably does after nightmares.

With no help from the freaked out kid, and as a last ditch attempt, I launched the top half of myself forward and down and on my way down, out shot whatever had been lodged in my throat. Finally.

Gasping like crazy, I sat on the ground trying to keep it together. The back patting kid went and got me a glass of water (good kid), whilst my left eye produced a billion tears and the shaking and gasping continued.

I sat there thinking about what a crap way to go it would be to die whilst choking on a sugary lolly during a Rom-Com. In the foyer. Alone. The irony is not lost on me. And the repercussions: Usher Kid traumatised for life; everyone I've ever met too afraid to ever eat pick'n'mix ever again; all cinema ushers undergoing training for choking victims; my friend in the cinema wondering where the hell I'd gone.

The moral of the story: lollies are evil. No wait...the moral is if you're choking, don't run away alone. Actually, maybe the moral is that survival makes you find the skills to give yourself a pseudo-heimlich maneuver. Or that Gen-Y are slow to react to a crisis.

Who knows. All I can say is that I won't be eating lollies for a while. And that the movie totally sucked (the way I should have done to that lolly instead of swallowing it whole).

Cat xx

* Exceptions to my dislike of Rom-Coms are: Two Weeks Notice, My Best Friend's Wedding, Four Holidays, the classic Goldie Hawn flicks House Sitter and Overboard and I think that's it.

I heart BEAU COOPS

I know its hot in Sydney this weekend, but I don't care. I am loving myself stupid in my new booties from new Australian designed / Italian made label BEAU COOPS.



So comfortable, and they make me feel way 'cooler' than a pair of sandals would!

No surprises as to where I got them.

Cat xx

Super Sauce Me!!

I love tomato sauce. A lot. Basically for me, hot chips, sausage rolls, meat pies etc. are merely vessels for the sauce...

So I had an idea...why not invent a Sauce-Lover's-Sized-Sauce? A big squeezy, like the size of a sausage roll? One little squeezy capsule is never enough (though whoever invented the squeezy packs is a genius).

I told my idea to the girl at the bakery when I was getting K's morning sausage roll (which incidentally he has without sauce....weirdo!), and she said with look of disdain:

"Yeah I guess. Most people just get two of 'em but"

Touche.



What is wrong with this picture? Sauce is too small!!

Fatty and Skinny

Apparently I hurt someone's feelings on the weekend. Completely unintentionally of course, but I still feel terrible about it.

Because how was I to know I'd done something wrong?

You see, I'm a bit of a fatty. Now, I don't mean I am super obsessed by it or unable to wear decent outfits, but lets just say my struggle with weight continues daily, as do all the body image problems that come with it. And that's normal amongst all types of women, because what are we constantly being told and shown? That we should strive to be skinny. Like unhealthily skinny. Someone once said "you can never be too skinny or too rich", and I swear some people I know live by that mantra (with "or too tanned" stuck in there too). It's what we want right? When you tell someone they are very thin that's a good thing, right?

Well apparently not. I made someone feel very upset for making what i thought were lighthearted comments about their lack of size and weight.

But I guess if someone made "lighthearted" comments about my weight, I would open up a can of whoop-ass. Maybe even throw things.

Just goes to show that guys are spot on when they say they don't "get" us. I don't even "get" us.

Cat x

My-Long-Lost-Friend-Cat

What the hell happened to January? And February for that matter? This time of year is always a blur and I'm secretly convinced the Earth spins a bit faster between 'Happy New Year' and now...It's already March! So it occured to me that its been a long time since my last blog and in fact...its been A WHOLE YEAR!!! Geez people, I'm so sorry. Fo real. I mean...what the hell even happened in that time? Who knows? What can I say...there's no major life events to speak of (like, no serious ones, apparently getting new handbags does not count), and apart from getting a bit fatter and finding a lone white hair (which was duly ripped out immediately) there seems to be no real change.

So I'm stumped...like when you catch up with an old friend you haven't seen in years and at first the conversation is on the verge of stalling, peppered with vacant sentences such as "so ummm...yeah...what else is been happening?", and basically it's weirdly superficial "blah blah's" laden with some crap about work.

But just like in those stalled conversations...eventually the chatty flood gates open, and before you know it, it's midnight, the pub you went to after the restaurant shut is now also kicking you out, and you have your lost long friend back.

And that's me people!

Maybe i should change this blog to My-long-lost-friend-Cat.

I'm back.

And this is me with my newest MJ clutch.


xx