the libertine scores!

Not in the literal sense, but in sufficient fashion to cheer her, even with gloomy weather and another storm headed toward Chez Melina. Which is particularly depressing news as I've just found out that, before the west wall of Chez Melina is rebricked, I'm going to have to pull the bricks off myself. My builder friend estimated about 2,000 bricks.

Enough about that - on to the score. For no particular reason, I decided to go to the nearby outlet mall at lunch today. The mall's main attraction is that it doesn't sell anything I really want, and isn't crowded, so it's a good place for a midday walk.

Upon exiting, I cut through the Neiman Marcus outlet, stopping to nose through the lingerie section. I spotted a La Perla chemise I liked a lot: lace, satin, black, draughty in the right places without being overly slutty. But the NM tag said Small.

However, upon closer inspection, I realized the tag was wrong. Since La Perla is an Italian brand, the sizes are Italian; this means that lingerie is sized 2,3,4 or 5. When I flipped over the La Perla tag, I discovered that the slip was a 4 - my size.

Best of all, it was marked down from $368 to $60.

The crowning touch was that I paid with my NM credit card, which got me another 5% off.

okay, I'm being mean. Sue me.

Courtesy of my buds who are currently freezing their tails off in Jack County:

another new template

Better? Worse? None of the above?

new, more readable Blogger template

Not sure if I'll keep it though, unless I can figure out how to adjust the margins. It's doing strange things to my Amazon link.

Should I:

1. Keep this one?
2. Revert to the old one?
3. Choose another one?
4. Delete this time-waster?

adventures in Lingerie Land

Although I've been able to get a solid offer on brickwork repair, I'm still holding off on indulging myself with some pricey, draughty lingerie. I haven't been totally well-behaved though; besides the book purchase, I broke down and bought myself some garden roses at Dr. Delphinium last weekend. Garden roses are more traditional, smell better, and are harder to find. They're one of my favorite flowers next to freesias.

However, this doesn't stop me from cyber-window shopping for bustiers, chemises, and the like. Over the past week I've bookmarked some European and UK brands and cyber-boutiques. Last night I found a French retailer with the goofy name of "Daniela in Love" whose Web site had some truly amazing stuff. However, the boutique can't seem to get it together to sell online. Sigh.

My shortlist currently includes brands Valisere, Pleasure State (great name for a lingerie line, you must admit) and Marlies Dekkers. The heartbreaker is that I found this photo of a rather wonderful Valisere bustier last night, only to find that it's from their 2009 line and no longer available.

Sigh...the search goes on.