It's a sing-a-long!

I had a birthday this past week. Okay. Whatever. Fine. Great.
Anyhow, not surprisingly, I will often take advantage of the situation by treating myself to a gift or two (see previous post re: Boots). I went out yesterday in search of a "little something new" to wear to my b-day dinner with our friends last night (we went to Scott Howard - amazing. I had the shortribs with orzo mac and cheese. completely out of control). My little shopping day was proving to be unsuccessful and I headed back to Mini at the Sutter/Stockton garage. On the way, I spotted a little store that I rarely go into on Sutter - The Archive. I knew of this place... it was just in Paper City - something about hosting a launch party for some designer. I had been in before and frankly, the place was a bit too pricy for my wallet. Not sure why, but I decided to walk in. It's a cool store.... all dark wood floors and opaque white display cases. A good collection of high end, pleasingly obscure designers... I wasn't really into the clothes as they were showing fall/winter and it was an ungodly 80 degrees downtown. I just can't shop cooler weather stuff when it's that hot out... anyway, I concentrated on the display cases featuring accessories/shoes/jewelry. This is what I found:

It's a bracelet... a really fabulous bracelet... brown leather and sterling silver... hand made by a german artist. His company is named Werkstatt:Muenchen (http://www.werkstatt-muenchen.com). i couldn't resist. The design was so clever. The smaller leather strap passes through the silver oval and snaps closed
I have pretty small wrists and the thing fit me perfectly

and it was painfully expensive.

Sing along, please:
Happy Birthday you geek
Your own gifts you seek
You bought a new bracelet
and you'll starve all next week.

Boots...

So it's officially Fall and that means Boots. I always do a "boots of the season" shopping binge right around this time every year... I call the purchase a birthday present to myself... anyhow, I'd been eyeballing these John Varvatos Military Flight Boots for about a month...
cute, right? Pretty pricy at a bit under 500 clams. So anyhow, I finally went into Gimme and tried them on and much to my wallets' relief, I wasn't really wild about them. I mean, all the detail is on the leg and who's gonna see it? unless i'm wearing a freakin' mini skirt! Since I no longer have the legs to pull off a mini, I passed. I was chatting with my Gimme-guy and during the conversation, it dawned on me that I should probably go full-on authentic cowboy boot. i wanted something super pointy with a "cuban' or underslung heel. Chocolate brown. here's what I got:

They're by a company out of Spain called "Sendra". Pretty close to exactly what I was looking for. Much detail to be seen below the cuff line and the underslung heel is BRILLIANT! On top of all that, they were about 200 bucks less than the Varvatos. All in all, a good shoe shopping weekend.

Surprise... I went to the new mall

Did you really think that I wouldn't??? I escaped work early on opening day and went to check it out with a co-worker. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but here's what I found:
•It's pretty. Seeing the Emporium Dome again in all it's refurbished glory was nice.
•Like I said, it's a pretty mall. But it's still a mall. Just a bunch of mall stores. feh.
•Okay... so there were a couple of newcomer/standouts; a store out of the UK called Next. On Thursday (the opening) they weren't quite done, but their doors were open. I wandered in, but nothing really jumped out at me. I went back on Saturday and was kinda' pleased... full line of True Religion, and some other high end denim makers.
I really liked another newcomer - Reiss. Don't know where they're from, but they looked good. Like Next, they weren't ready on Thursday (unlike Next, they didn't open their doors that day) but they were open for biz on Saturday. Luxe stuff... moderately high end and really clean lines. The store design is a bit "much" - a little tricky... but at least the assortment is good. I'll definitely be going back.
•Bloomingdales. Now... I loved Bloomies when I lived in New York. It was so quintessentially NYC to me. I remember being kinda' excited when they opened a store out at Stanford Mall. I was HUGELY disappointed with their west coast debut, so I wasn't expecting much. Boy was I wrong. This Bloomies is nothing short of spectacular. full line of John Varvatos (including shoes!!!), MARC-FREAKIN'-JACOBS! Martin Margiella, Hickey, Jack Spade (not a full line, but a decent assortment), Michael Kors, Lambertson Truex, True Religion, Rock and Republic, Paper Denim and Cloth, Juicy for Men, Viktor and Rolf (!!!!!) and more. Really, really incredible.
•Food. I was so happy to see that there are more/better options for eating downtown now. Their food court was impressive. A few steps above your average foodcourt... they also have a Bristol Farms - nice, high end "food emporium". Tom Collichio's Wichcraft is there - I'm really looking forward to checking that out. Beard Papa Sweets Cafe is there - I avoided it like the plague, but I know at one point I'll give in and gorge myself on their Cream Puffs.
SIDE NOTE: I was listening to morning radio today and they were interviewing people at the new mall... so the interviewer asks a woman what she was eating. Her response - "Cheeeeesss Papp". Cheeeeesss Papp?? What the hell?? He continued with the interview, asking her stupid questions... with her next answer I realized that she had a really heavy accent. A really heavy FILIPINO accent. I immediately figured out what she was saying - "Cheese PUFF". hahahahaha
Back to food... We had lunch at Straits Restaurant. All I have to say is, "Don't bother". It's Malasian cuisine... small plates meant to be shared. We ordered 5 items and they were out of 3 of them. We ordered two replacements and were informed that they were out of those as well. Mind you, it was 1:00pm. They had been open for exactly one hour at that point. Absolutely rediculous. The stuff that did manage to make it's way to our table was lacklustre at best. I could get just as good/better on Clement St. for about a third of the price. I bitched about them on Yelp.
so that's all I got right now... I'll be going back this weekend...
oh. Surprisingly enough, I made no purchases at the mall. I DID get a pair of John Varvatos for Converse green leather Snake Skin embossed Chucks from Gimme Shoes. yum.

Heroes

Please tell me you're watching this show. Please.