Life beyond the screen

Oh look - I'm a real person! With real friends! Bwahaha. Thank goodness for friends. It's one of the big reasons I keep blogging.

I met up with Sue of A Colourful Canvas before Christmas and we had lunch at Vancouver Art Gallery before hitting the streets. We both happened to be dressed in screamingly bright colours. Not really a surprise. I mean, she's not called Sue of A Bland Canvas, is she? I'm wearing my Norwegian onesie. That's the gallery behind us.

After a lot of blah, blah, blahing, laughs, and startled guffaws, we marched down to the fabric store, Dressew, where we drooled all over their fabrics, so much goodness, especially in the faux fur section. Then, we stopped at swanky fashion retailer Holt Renfrew to ogle their merchandise. Sue tried on this adorable beret/hat with a pom pom thingy on top.

I really love Sue's hot pink puffer coat - so refreshing to the eye when most people are wearing dark outerwear.

And I tried on the humongoid hat below. Of course we didn't buy either of these hats but shopping is most of the fun. Holt Renfrew has recently completed a big renovation project so it's much more spacious and deluxe. It's a good thing - Nordstrom a block away is on the offensive. I'll let them duke it out while I do my real shopping in vintage, thrift, and consignment shops, although Sue and I got lots of inspiration here for our own projects.

Our meetup was the perfect way to brace ourselves for the holidays. If it's true that laughter is the best medicine, we were both satisfyingly doped up by the end of the day. Mwah, Sue!

And then I had my first booze of the new year last week when I met up with Sandra of standard.deviations for, uh, booze - a glass of wine during happy hour - accompanied by a pile of fries smothered in too much raw garlic and salt. Slightly pitui, but I forced myself, heh. I tried ordering a shot glass of wine, but they don't sell it in that size.

It was frickin' freezing outside afterwards. This is a picture of me looped and Sandra keeping her cool. The instructions for this photo were: DON'T MOVE YOUR HEAD! [maniacal laughter] My camera was perched on the post box on self-timer for this shot in the dark. But we wildly swung our arms around - just because, hey, wonder what that will look like. Now we know.

We are in Yaletown, Vancouver's warehouse district turned trendy. I remember club-hopping at gay bars here in the early '80s because that's where all the best dancing was. When I returned here after living abroad, everything had changed. Me too, I suppose.

And Sandra again below. Check out her BEAST!! She told me about this coat earlier that week and that's what inspired me to check out the menswear section where I found the traffic cone coat I wore in the previous post. Sandra's coat is probably made of the elusive blue faux mountain mink.

These are just two of the meetups I've had recently. While I was chatting with Sandra on a street corner one morning a while ago, Vancouver Barbara tore by in her sexy little car, beeping wildly, and I flapped a big wave back. I love these chance encounters.

I look forward to more meetups this year. The friendships I've made through blogging are the best thing about it.

I'll end this post with this photo from Yaletown.

In my wine-addled state, at first I thought an alien ship had photo-bombed our shot. But no - using my magic loupe, I realized that this looked creepily like flesh! Ghost hand?! Or had my own hand become so obviously rhino-hided this season I hadn't even noticed? It couldn't be a bicycle seat, right?

Then, using my superior powers of deduction, I realized that my camera on the post box had tipped downward on self-timer for an excellent shot of my leather glove tucked under the lens to prop it up. Brilliant.

Why don't they sell shot-glass sizes of wine? Why?

There are some outfit photos on my Instagram if you're interested. HERE. That's all.
Have a great week all youse guys.

Celebrity style blogger becomes target of fake news!

You've probably heard how fake news is warping people's perceptions of the world with alarming frequency and consequences. As the line between reality and la-la-fantasyland becomes more and more blurred I decided to sacrifice this post to public service by presenting you with several news stories featuring me, international celebrity style blogger, to test your skills at spotting FAKE NEWS.

1. New Book by Mel Breaks the Presses 

The Ritz cracker and Spam canapes at my last party were such a hit that I wrote a cookbook! Here I am meeting one of my adoring fans at a gala book-signing event in New York. Serious business. A relentless workout regimen on the chin-up bar ensured that I had the stamina to keep up with the millions of autograph seekers who lined up for days waiting for a personal audience with me. 

Just between us, my agent has inked a record-breaking Hollywood deal for the cinematic version of my book starring Al Pacino and Anthony Hopkins as PB and J, and Helen Mirren as Bun. Shhhh - you heard it here first!

2. Mel Creates Cosmo Chaos
Another day, another magazine cover. It gets so tedious, cover after cover after cover. This photo is hot, hot, hot off the presses. I barely made the shoot after a night of frolicking with Brad Pitt and George Clooney in Trevi fountain in Italy. Happily exhausted, we took a 3AM time-out for bologna roll sandwiches I had jammed into my purse for emergency refreshment. Look for the recipe in my new book.

Brad kept doing imitations of Rocky and Bullwinkle (old cartoon series) and when the paparazzi showed up I knew it was time to scram. How lucky was it then that Javier Bardem and Robert Downey Jr. happened by on their vintage Vespas. Laughing and laughing at the pickle I was in, they towed me off to the studio on a skateboard just in time. Whew!!

3. Mel Goes Lunie!
This next story is top, top, tippy-top secret!! Prime Minister Trudeau, the supreme leader of Canada, secretly launched a Canadian moon mission earlier this year now that everyone is grabbity-grab-grab for real estate up there. And who headed it? Well, I did! I smuggled this photo out of the science labs after splash-down in the Arctic Ocean.

The discovery of a bathtub and a rubber duckie on the lunar surface is still hush hush and may have deep political implications globally. You may have read my tweet: "A duck on the moon is quackers! It's a disaster, I mean really." Religious leaders are at a summit as I write, discussing the significance of clean aliens. In between my Giant Twirls for Womankind, I staked a claim for my future hotel, Mel Fawlty Tower.

4. Another Story
And in this last photo I am dressed as a traffic cone. I dressed this way after a New Year's Eve spent rolling around my living room floor eating chips and drinking coffee and cutting up old magazines to make collages. I made a big mess.

So, how did you do? Could you spot the fake news? If you guessed that STORY 4 was fake, you were right. Who would wear such an outfit out in public?!

There is an international swat team assembling a task force of expert fake news spotters to protect the world. If you passed this test, you should contact them at 1-800-Everything-Is-Fake-Or-It-Sure-Seems-Like-It!! *To be clear, it is not the intention of this post to impugn the integrity of style bloggers who are exemplars of honesty, sensibleness, niceness, and realness with no photo editing whatsoever.

So it's Year of the Chicken, what did you expect?

I'll link something up with Patti's Visible Monday at Not Dead Yet Style and Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike at Not Dressed as Lamb. There will be a better photo of this fake outfit on my instagram, @bagandaberet.

Edit: I'm also linking up to Catherine's Saturday Share Linkup of January 13, 2017, which seems a natural fit considering her post is called "Why you should never believe what you read in the paper."

Did you come to my holiday party?

If you were at my bloggy holiday party, you probably don't even remember - that's how good it was. But I hope you at least remember what I WORE!! - this divoon vintage, ivory crepe wool gown with a mink collar - a gift from an estate. I think the original owner had it custom-made - it even has pockets. Long black gloves, black tights, and glitter platform booties completed the look.

Of course as Grand Hostess I was worried about carrying the evening off, but within an hour I knew I had nothing to fear: the French-style-loving bloggers had already hopped up onto the bar and begun disrobing and belting out bawdy German songs off key.

The lifestyle/home decor bloggers in attendance kept turning the other music off and on (which really pissed off my mariachi band) for their game of musical chairs/couches/tables while rating my furniture on its design, craftsmanship, durability, and comfort.

Below I am practising my Psycho face for later in the evening.

The food bloggers hung out at the buffet and in the washrooms. They couldn't get over my Ritz cracker and Spam canapes. Like fine wine they would nibble, spit, then quickly swill the dregs of any beverage within reach, yelling, "Oh my god! Oh my god!" I had no idea theses canapes would be so popular - I'm thinking now I should do a food blog.

The fingermouthing trendy set took advantage of the hair-mussing station I had installed with industrial fans and the photo booth, which included a Where's Waldo map on the floor to help prevent gaze fatigue. Below I rehearse my own new fingermouthing pose for the photo booth. Look away if it's too hot. Seriously, soon all +40 women will be doing this - it's a look that says, "Hellz yeah, I'm frickin' hot. Leave me the feck alone. Got any Advil?" The wisdom of aging.

Thankfully, coat check service was not required with the continuing trend of wearing one's winter coat falling off, which was ideal for dusting my floors and mopping up around the buffet.

The vintage and thrift bloggers basically spent the night raiding the closets looking for old stuff. I had to referee a couple of brawls among them, which was the highlight of the party for me, that and joining in a few Marlene Dietrich tunes with the French-style-loving bloggers on the bar. The beauty bloggers were so impressed with our hairstyles after the brawls that they joined in the fun.

In the next photo I am about release a few unruly guests from lockup. Is it coming back to you at all? Hm? Might I suggest a few more canapes to re-volt your memory?

I took most of these photos of my party outfit in the garbage room atelier before the guests started arriving. Because I was using flash photography, the room was pitch black. When I sat on the big styrofoam bag, second photo, I suddenly started to sink as the containers beneath me gave way with an eruption of cracking sounds like a Canadian ice-breaker valiantly cutting a passage across the frozen Arctic. I maintained my composure, however, despite the heels, a general lack of mobility, the gown, not being able to see a thing, and my sinking masthead.

HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A SPECTACULAR HOLIDAY - if this is something you celebrate, of course. XO

I am linking up with Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike on her blog Not Dressed as Lamb.