I have returned victorious from another mildly harrowing yet extremely fruitful trip to the land that eBay forgot, the charity shops of suburban Sacto.

Amidst the plentiful basics I picked up, and the Night Moves disco instruction record (with detailed pictorial instruction booklet), here is the best of the best:

Alex Colman vintage minidress:


















With built-in modesty:














Okay, and surprise -- I bought more boots a month or so before it is officially summer. So totally my m.o.

I am in love with these vintage Nordica Italian après-ski boots! They are so fabulous, I actually wish it would get cold.


















And of course, I would have to turn in my woman card if I didn't buy a bunch of shoes I don't need. I lucked out on a sweet pair of vintage Salvatore Ferragamo pumps, vintage Perry Ellis green flats, and bright orange heels.


















Just look at the snakeskin detail, and the only way I can wear yellow, on those Ferragamos:


















And check those ugly-chic red/multicolor sandals, yo: huarache-style sandals being all the rage in the fashion rags this year, I had been lamenting how cheapo Payless Shoe Source used to make the best ones when I was a junior high school student in the '80s (back when they still made most of their shoes in leather). Fat chance finding those again, right?

Resigned to buying a new pair at some godawful price, lo and behold, I found a brand spankin' new pair of original Payless Coasters huaraches at Goodwill in Antelope!

Suburban Sacto: like shopping the Bermuda Triangle.

Darlings, I completely forgot to write a little about what I picked up thrifting in oh-so-tweaktastic rural Sacto over the weekend.

In addition to a gorgeous orange pashmina, a vintage Fiestaware plate, and a white bat wing top, among other notable goodies, I picked up 16 records. Pristine! Everything from Led Zeppelin to Erasure to Guns and Roses. So many good things I could've sold that I passed up too -- original Cream and Moody Blues vinyl being the most memorable. Someone got rid of someone's record stash, and it was both sad and glorious. I hope the rest of the lot went to good homes.

And everything, oh so cheap! I remember the days when you could regularly buy quality vintage clothes and kitchenware for next to nothing at the thrift stores, and you didn't have to run all over town hitting all the shops either. Now it's just ridiculous. I just saw a spread on Jennifer Jason Leigh in Elle magazine, and she was wearing a Nirvana shirt (that my husband had in high school) from a high end vintage shop in New York that shall remain nameless. $178. Please. And thanks to eBay, things like Fiestaware are so hard to find anymore; when you do it's an arm and leg. But in Sacto? 49 cents baby.

My two fave finds:

Frye vintage cowboy boots, $10:
























Robbe vintage ski jacket, $3.25. So cute:
























Detail on the sweet accent and lining:















Yes, I'll be back, Sacramento, and soon.

Some things I’m obsessing about...

Tim Noble and Sue Webster's most recent exhibition at the Freud Museum. I am absolutely in love with Black Narcissus.























__

Apparently it has been out for a while, but I just heard that Johnny Depp has bought rights to and at this point will be producing one of my favorite books of late, The People's Act of Love. I also hear he may take a role, along with Russell Crowe. Not what I imagined in my mind, but I have faith Johnny!

Speaking of film, am I the only one in the world who really liked Spiderman 3? I loved it! Seriously worth the ticket price for emo Peter Parker, for real.












Also worth the ticket price -- finding out from the previews that there are actually films I want to see in the coming months, and getting to eat a bucket of popcorn. Yay for Bourne Ultimatum, Harry Potter, and the new Julie Taymor, and yay for movie theater butter.

__

Did you know there is a blog dedicated to cupcakes?

__

This is for my girl T. Look at these sweet things I bought.

























Also see here and here for more "it's been hotter than hell why are you buying boots" madness.

__

I've been thinking a lot about green waste – specifically when I get ice cream at Ici and it's in a compostable corn-based bowl with a compostable corn-based spoon, and on my walk home when I'm throwing the bowl and the spoon into someone's green waste container when I'm finished, instead of into the trash.

Corn-based compostable and biodegradable dishes and utensils. Wow. Sure, there are problems, as with anything. But humans are not going to stop using plastic until it is too late, and that is an insurmountable problem. We need solutions, and waiting around for something perfect is going to destroy us. Corn bioplastic is a great great thing for urban areas with green waste/composting facilities, and it may encourage more cities to introduce green waste management to their garbage portfolio. The answer to getting this going is time -- like when Oakland outlawed styrofoam (BTW, yay Oil Independent Oakland 2020!) -- and government subsidies for communities to get green waste processing facilities and for the plastic manufacturers so they can convert their factories, in order to avoid our delicate capitalist economy crashing down around us.