Mouse Trap

Please enjoy this wonderful tale from our guest blogger “Matilda”

What you don’t know about mousetraps………..

It is not every day that one enters a conversation about mousetraps, however do not be fooled my friend for this is no ordinary mousetrap I speak of.  At first you may think I am talking about the rather unpleasant solution to city pests that can find their way into your apartment… and for some, Shiloh, this can bring about thoughts of fear and disgust after one such trap tarnished said persons really cute gold flats…

But you are in luck because THAT is not the kind of mousetrap I am talking about.

I am sure you are all familiar with the popular American past time played by young singles; the cat and mouse chase.  Well my mousetrap is the conclusion of this game.  There are many versions of “cat and mouse”.

Some of my personal favorites are:

1.    The guy who leads you on – In this version a guy who has absolutely no intention of entering a relationship with you will string you along giving you just enough attention to sustain the glimmer of hope a relationship could bloom but provides enough opposition that it ensures the chase is still alive and well.
2.    The overeager dater – Now I am not an expert on this version, seeing as how I tend to stick with #1 most of the time.  However, recently I have met a few #2’s, and these are the worst of all!  This is the guy that is WAY more into you than you are into him (i.e. Shiloh:Tom).  Simple strategy here ladies.  No chase.  Move on.
3.    The gay man – Another frequent offender.  This guy is a combination of #1 and #2.  He is really excited to spend time with you and gives you tons of attention; however through no fault of his own, he is leading you on with every move he makes.  Trickier to identify than the previous profile #3 reveals its hidden strategy:  DENIAL.  Many women will waste precious playtime with this man because he is being incorrectly filed into a different number.  Again I say move on!

Up until last summer this is pretty much the make up of every relationship/pseudo-relationship I have ever had.  But then something fantastic happened.  #4 walked into my life.

You guessed it ladies.  #4 is Mr. Right.  Now #4’s don’t really exist in their natural form, they all take on the persona of another number and are coaxed out through a mousetrap.  My #4 played his share of games.  You see he was a #1 originally.  However, after a year of chasing, this cat trapped her mouse.  After a three-month stint of excommunication, my spring was sprung and the trap was set.  My emails were suddenly being returned, dates were being planned, and the glorious music of early morning booty-call text messages was gracing my cell phone yet again.

Now this next part of the story is one that I am not so proud of.  This is the part about how I set my trap.  I should tell you that my mouse has relocated from one of our southern states.  Knowing that the Sox were playing his home team several weekends ago I went to stubhub.com and spent close to a week’s salary on a pair of tickets.  This was a risky choice because I was unsure that he would come, actually I was unsure I would even garner a response from him, but the appeal of Red Sox summer and a little white lie about receiving the tickets (free of charge) from my company was too enticing to pass up!  Game day turned out to be beautiful!  We met at Fenway and ventured out to find our seats.  When I say that they were obstructed I am being polite!  They should not even have seats where we sat they view was so bad.  However, this did lead us into an afternoon of conversation and re-kindle.  I pulled out all the stops however when we parted later that day I was overcome with a feeling of failure.  Although my feelings were still strong for mouse, I felt like he had taken the afternoon to tie up loose strings and get closure from our relationship.

Fearing the worst I told myself to move on.  I promptly joined match.com.  After a few days of being “winked” at by some of the most genetically unfortunate men I have ever seen in my life I was feeling really romantically frustrated.  Then it happened.  My shooting star.  I got a call from my mouse asking to go out for breakfast.

The rest is history friends.  I was engaged the following weekend.  Moral of the story:  Don’t lose hope.  Mice are everywhere.  You just have to set a trap to catch the right one.   And don’t fear if you trap some not-right ones.  Mice have a high tolerance to pain and they need a few pinches here and there to keep them in line.

 

Do You Know This Man??

 

If you answered “No” than you need to tune into Bravo to watch Flipping Out on Tuesday nights. Jeff Lewis is maybe the craziest person (of the normal non-LA population) or funniest actor on television.

I just love watching these actors preform their “reality” improv. These characters show true talents even Larry David would applaud. I love the real estate/design element but I also love pure insanity of Jeff Lewis. My favorite scenes are watching Lewis calmly and strategically harass people. He knows what buttons to press to stir people up but puts pressure one these buttons ever so softly.

Tune in and enjoy.

 

Simple Pleasures.

Hello to all readers.  I am trying to get back in the saddle again on blogging.  Sorry for the lapse in hilarity.

Anyhow, you may not know that only a year ago AppleHubs was a mere graduate student and we were living in some University family housing.  It really was a lovely place to call home–we had two bedrooms, a pretty courtyard to stare at, and the dulcet tones of hundreds of hippie children frolicking.

However, along with cheap subsidized living comes some small injustices in the life of a grownup.  To me the worst was the lack of three key appliances from our home: a dishwasher and a washer/dryer.  Now it was Applehubs that did all the dishes, so he was the one who felt the pain on that.  However, as you can probably tell from this blog, I have a lot of clothes.  So the laundry piles up.  It was definitely not my favorite moment of the week when I would heave all the laundry down to the community laundry room.  One of two things would happen.  All the machines would be full, or you would have a chance to load in.  If the machines are full, you have the choice–do I leave my stuff down here under this scratched table, or heave it back?  I feel like these community laundry rooms are like an untapped psychological experiment waiting to happen.  Watching other people in there, seeing the way they do their laundry, seeing how much laundry, what their clothes are, and lastly their obnoxious/cutthroat/lazy/rude/disrespectful way they treat others laundry and others in the laundry room.  My absolute MOST HATED thing was when people would take my clothes out of my machine and make a pile. DON’T F-ING TOUCH MY STUFF. EW. Your hands probably just tossed your naked hippie child into the air or fed him a cube of cheese.  I do not want that hand on my delicates there buddy.  Once I caught someone taking my stuff out and the look I gave him could have frozen time like the Frozen Monkey Wheel Ben pushed on LOST (that will be another post).

You can imagine my pure delight when we were able to join civilization and grownups everywhere when we moved north to this city and our apartment had a dishwasher AND a laundry closet. Oh the joy.  I swear the sound of that machine filling and spinning, the liberating act of tossing clothes in to be washed ANYTIME I want, oh its one of the simple pleasures in life.  The other day I washed a Longchamp bag on delicate on its OWN just cause I could make it look better.  I mean, the LUXURY of that.  It even makes me want to fold the stuff.  Pure happiness, laundry-in-your-apartment is.

You might think the life of the clothes in my life couldn’t get better, but it does.  No longer do my dry cleaning items have to wait for months until I get my life together to get it to the nearest shady Kleaners location.  No no, not my clothes.  My clothes have Laundry Locker.  In my swanky building, these amazing people will pick up my clothes in a bag, then return them hanging and clean the NEXT day.  This may sound like I am paid by the company but I swear I am not.  Its literally like little laundry elves take my stuff and make it new in 24 hours.  It looks so good!  And huge bonus points for putting the BR weird button cuff links in a ziploc baggie! Dream.

So what have we learned?

Its the simple things that make me happy.
My life has not been that exciting lately.

 

Input on Madewell

Hello all,

Long time no talk.  I will explain my absence in another post–soon.  In the meantime, I wanted to pass along my thought on Madewell.

I have a different perspective on Madewell as I got a chance to visit the brick and mortar store in SoHo over the spring.  I am really fascinated by in-store experiences that retailers build, and Madewell did not disappoint.  Here are some pics:

The store had all the fun makings of a great westcoastapple experience–great pops of color, unique decor, bright and airy feeling, and nice dressing rooms.  I loved the greenhouse walkthrough and how the store made you feel like you were let into the Madewell studio–you were part of the idea, you could see how the mood board had come together, etc.  They wanted customers to be a part of the experience–they had a bulletin board where you could add your own message.

As far as the clothes, I think (as usual) I stick to the basics, but I know their boots are supposed to be amazing and their jeans too. When I was there I fell in love with a linen tailored soldier jacket that I wish I would have bought. Also, I think they will be online soon…woohoo! Try it out.

 

Discuss amongst yourselves: Madewell

Okay, so what are our thoughts on Madewell?

At first I automatically deleted the emails I would get from this company, though I would occasionally stare at the rugby striped shirt or weathered denim in the preview pane and sentimentally recall my days of attending college 15 minutes from the greatest outlet mall to ever host a JCrew or Polo.

And I realized that is just it – it’s too “college” for me. Even the model’s look like JCrew model’s little sisters. The Karen to The Babysitter’s Club’s “Stacy.” The Skipper to Barbie. Okay, enough of that.

Sometimes I am struck by something I like in one of the “looks:”

This yellow top is, at first glance, cute and more structured and tailored than most of the Madewell goods, but it’s the sort of thing I realize I like because it reminds me of something else. I’d like to say maybe this is a good place to buy “basics,” but the prices aren’t really much different than shopping at a JCrew outlet store. And I’d rather get the basics there, where they have more of an attention to detail, versus the worn-in American Eagle type deal.

In fact, I’d rather wear Crewcuts. Seriously, those little girls clothes are CUTE. I think if I was in this demographic of tweenie, urban, Olsonites, maybe I would like it more. But it seems like another shade of gray on the Urban Outfitters/AE/Abercrombie and Fitch/Gap spectrum.

What does everyone else think?

 

it happened!

the infamous giraffe necklace has gone on sale!:

though $99.99 is till ridiculously expensive for this plasticized bauble, I have to say it is (as predicted) growing on me. Mainly because of the pretty, smoky gray beads. That viscous little giraffe I could live without. Maybe at $79.00? Unlikely but stranger things have happened. I did do a complete 180 on Kate Hudson after that adorable InStyle article about her a few years ago. That was before the whole Owen Wilson thing.

 

CELTS v Smogsville

 

Even though the Celtics De – wait for it – ….STROYED the Lakers on Tuesday, Boston fans are still beaming from the win.  The Rolling Rally is creeping through the streets of Boston as we speak and Doc Rivers is certainly tearing up at every father/son duo he sees.

If you are like me, a total bandwagon fan, then you have spent the last few weeks nodding and grinning as people talk to you like you have any clue about the NBA. Gasol, Rondo, Powe, I had no idea what name went with what team. I have never cared about professional basketball, except knowing that I love Larry Bird, so it has been a shock to myself at my EXTREME excitement during the Celtics v. Lakers series. 

I just moved a year ago from Los Angeles (aka the Worst city in America) to Boston (the GREATEST city in America)!! Yay! The rivalry of these two cities being played out on the court of the NBA finals was an outlet for me to finally cheer, out loud, a true competition of coasts, one has been dueling in my head for the last 6 years.  I was for sure the first to hit the streets to buy my Green BEAT LA! Shirt. For a short while people didn’t stare at me like I am mentally challenged when I chanted - BEAT LA. BEAT LA, on every T car. I put a Celtics flags on my car antenna. I taunted my friends in LA endlessly and even (at some points) had them leaning towards the light…the GREEN light that is. This fervor of Celtics pride seems as if it has come out of no where, but that is not true. This insane spirit is just a way I can finally wear my Boston pride on my sleeve and walking around with a sense that I (we) really stuck it to LA. As a citizen of Boston I can’t help but feel that we should get more recognition for having two world championship teams.  Like personal recognition. Maybe Los Angeles city officals could personally call everyone in Boston just to say…”You are the best??” Just an idea.

For me, I will never forget watching the Celtics obliterate the Lakers, and for that I want to thank Peanut.

 

Summer School

OK everyone.  We are now in the doldrums of summer TV nothingness.  I am even tempted to watch that ABC show Wipeout, just to see those people bounce off those red rubber balls.  After seeing the preview about 42736 or 42737 times, AppleHubs believes he even knows how he would tackle said Red Rubber Ball Gauntlet.  He actually talks to the TV: “OK, those people need to bounce across like its a trampoline, like big two footed hops.” Umm, ok AppleHubs I will make sure to pass this along to my closest WipeOut contestant.

But I digress.  In this time without much good TV to watch, its time to catch up with the best shows so that you are ready for the fall season and you contribute to the greater good of facilitating good TV.

A few you must put on your Amazon Cart or Netflix Queue are:

If you don’t watch LOST, you’re just plain crazy.  Its by far the best show on television, as you probably have figured out from my previous blog posts.

Amazing show on AMC, shot beautifully, great characters, and a familiar office plotline. Great TV.

Please help me love this show.  I love Coach, his wife, Riggins, etc etc.  The characters are great, the music is great–and its not really about football.

Start catching up on your work for the summer and hopefully this fall will make the grade!!

 

Summer is Here…

Well, summer here, and for lucky east coasters, full summer preppy chic is in order.

Sadly, here on the west coast, its a dearth of critter capris, a lack of popped collars, a sad few grosgrain belts, and nary a Bonnano sandal. For me the saddest absence is Madras mania. I love a good patchwork plaid capri or skirt. JCrew has a few items each year, but last year in Chatham I found a great brand for pretty Madras patterns cut into great Bermudas, skirts, capris, and pants.

Their recently updated site is at www.capemadras.com, and here are a few of their cute designs:

Here are all the fab patterns! And the best news of all, one of the patterns is named after my and Shiloh’s last name! GLEE!

 

Would you rather…?

Would you rather hang out with Martin and Osa or Mr. J Crew?

I think Martin and Osa seem like a fun crowd. I mean…they are explorers and could recount the stories of climbing the icy tundra.  Hopefully Martin and Osa work as a happy pair to create clothing that reflects the needs of traveling stylish women and men. I have not know this store very long but I feel that instant connection with their soft pallet of colors and ”wear till their threads” basics. M & O makes me smile as I walk in and know I will return at a later date as I walk out.

So…

Am I right that J Crew obviously takes the role of a Mr.? His store is full of bright colors and a pipe dream of a woman who is so naive headbands and pearls are part of the standard model. Season after season a myriad of sun dresses denote every mans dream. We know JC is a “Mr.” Crew is a multiple offender of the impractical and ill-fitting. Only a man would continuously recreate variations on a chino that will never properly fit anyone above a size 2. But still I love Mr. Crew. John, Jack, Jim, Jordy, I could dream of this preppy puppet master all day. We could converse endlessly about polka dots vs. seer sucker, bugs as adorable embroidery and enamel jewelry accents. I Imagine sipping a gin and tonic just off the croquet court chatting with J. Crew and I beem with happiness… I think that answers my question because I just could not turn down a date with J Crew.

Martain and Osa..take a hike. (but continue to make excellent adorable clothes!!)

 

pps. if it does not work out with Mr. Crew I will be sure to send you a roving text message booty call.