Thrift Score Wednesdays: Beggars Can’t Be Choosers

I have been bitten by the notorious travel bug. Again. Funnily enough, this always seems to happen right at the start of the Harbour season, aka right when we should be psyching ourselves up to spend six full months working long hours on the waterfront. Oops! The sun starts peeking out from the winter clouds here on the (gorgeous and scenic) west coast of Canada, and I instantly begin to daydream about exotic locales and faraway destinations: Morocco! Mongolia! Portugal! Croatia! India! Bali! Heck, I’ll even go to North Dakota– I just want to travel!

The Dancing Building, Prague

Clearly, now is not the time for jet-setting. Now is the time for hunkering down and earning a good chunk of this year’s income! I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. If we were smart and proactive, we would squirrel away enough funds during the summer to head off for 3 or 4 months each winter, but we haven’t developed our intelligence quite that much so far… We’re still trying like neanderthals to survive in regular ol’ Victoria all year round. (Until this winter, perhaps. Maybe this winter will finally be the time for jet-setting again. Fingers crossed?)

Anyway. Today’s edition of Thrift Scores shows off my easy, breezy, traveling-in-the-Czech-Republic secondhand ensemble:

Please, suh-- can I have some mo'?

When we visited the Czech Republic for 3 months back in 2006 (five whole years ago– can you believe it??), we brought a whole assortment of items with us over from Canada. (As you already know, we have a bit of a problem with packing light. You should see our emergency kit here in our apartment– good luck ever lifting that thing up without significant body building experience! Rawr!!) We packed hiking clothes (and hiking gear), cycling clothes (and cycling gear), summer clothes, autumn clothes, sunny weather clothes, rainy weather clothes, and some “nicer” city clothes in which to bum around fashionable Prague. We considered strapping our kitchen sink to our expedition packs as well (you know, just to be prepared and to round things off), but luckily, our home base suite just outside of Prague had a decent bathtub in which to wash our vegetables and dishes. Thank goodness for running water, at least.

Marty prepping our dinner in the boiler/bathtub/laundry room.

Ratty tank tops and short shorts weren’t going to cut it on days when we were taking in the city’s churches and museums, and we also weren’t about to hike on the country’s straight-up, straight-down hiking trails in a skirt… especially not me. (Marty? Maybe. The man looks delicious in a sarong.) So in addition to my quick-dry hiking pants and shorts, I also packed one sort-of-nice outfit: a cotton skirt and a pastel blouse– see above. Both of these items were picked up for less than $5 at two different thrift stores in Calgary. They served me very well every time we headed into a city or town and needed to look somewhat presentable. I could pass as a respectable member of the tourist society… at least when I wasn’t lounging on the cobblestones looking up like a little beggar girl.

(Just so you know, the people of the Czech Republic– as well as the people in most Eastern European countries, though everyone will vehemently deny it– still harbour a lot of prejudice against the Roma people. This can pose a particular problem for people like me, who have darker complexions by default and occasionally sit on the cobblestones to rest, which can look a bit like begging to the average passerby… As the summer heatwave went on in CZ and my skin got darker and darker, I started to feel the disparaging eyes of some locals on me. There was no open hostility towards me– possibly because I was on the arm of a blond-haired, Czech-speaking man– but things might have been worse if I was on my own. Just so you know.)

What are your travel outfit essentials? Any items that you won’t leave home without?

My "Tombraider" look... if Angelina Jolie ever sported a GIGANTIC fanny pack whilst kicking ass! (I'm trying to hide the monstrosity behind a jaunty hand-on-hip pose.)

Thrift Score Wednesdays: Gone But Not Forgotten

What’s that old saying again? “There are only two certainties in life: Death and taxes”. Yes, that’s it. What a cheerful way to start this post!

Death, taxes… and change. Change is inevitable. Everybody changes. We change our hair styles and our clothes. We change our diets and our routines and our preferences. Some of us switch partners (hey– no judging!); and most of us change where we live and/or where we work at least once or twice in a lifetime. We are all human.

Obviously, I am no stranger to change– at least until my superhuman Immunity From Change powers decide to kick in. (I’m still waiting.) (Impatiently.) Anyway, my evolution as an individual is blatantly apparent when you take into consideration any photo of me from 8-12ish years ago. I do mean any of them– take your pick! I was still a Thrift Store Champ back then, but the items I gravitated to at the time were, um, a tad different from what I would choose first today. Let’s just say that I was an Undercover Badass With A Home Haircut And Something To Prove back then. I was different. I was alternative. I was sticking it to the Man, whomever that was. Yep. I think that pretty much sums up everything about me from 1997 to 2003.

In this week’s edition of Thrift Scores, I’ve dug up some “vintage” photos of my more memorable new-to-me purchases. All of these items have since been donated back to various secondhand shops in the spirit of paying the glamour forward (thank goodness)– but I would kill to see the all-lavender ensemble on somebody else today. Kill, I tell you.

Back in the day, I would head into a thrift store and make an immediate beeline for the T-shirt racks. I loved finding shirts with random slogans and images on them– “Super Dad” was one of my personal faves– and my friend and I would have competitions with each other to see who could spot the best “so bad, it’s good” top the fastest. At the time, my work attire was very casual and could accommodate my ironic Thrift Scores without ruffling any corporate feathers, and I couldn’t go wrong getting an outfit for a buck on my student budget. I loved my Union 76 t-shirt in particular:

 

Judging from my toothy grin, I REALLY loved this shirt

I also enjoyed sporting deliberately tacky monochrome ensembles for reasons that cannot be articulated now (not because they were sinister and/or inappropriate reasons, but because the rationale behind an all-pastel purple outfit escapes my much-matured mind now). Way to stick it to The Man…. I guess?? So when I found three matching lavender pieces (on three separate thrifting excursions, no less), I knew it was meant to be:

This rockin’ outfit even matched my glasses!!

This was me playing hostess to 15 of my closest university friends one winter evening in 2002. Every year, a group of us threw a Christmas potluck and enjoyed festive company, food, and occasionally festive songs together (if anybody remembered to toss a Boney M. Xmas CD into their bag.) On this particular occasion, my friends were also treated to an all-lilac pant suit (and a matching lilac bangle!) I was the Hostest With The Mostest– truly, an Undercover Badass With a Home Haircut And Something To Prove. The white sweat socks really tied everything together, no? (And proved that white sweat socks truly have no place on this green earth.)

The final ensemble in today’s post is one third of a Destiny’s Child trio of matching polyester outfits. (Remember Destiny’s Child? Oh, such fond memories of sassy, coordinated girl group outfits!) My youngest sister and I spotted these all-red (and plaid!) pantsuits in our local Goodwill when we were shopping for classy outfits to sport to a Wearable Art Gala. (My middle sister had produced some actual wearable art pieces for the runway show; Caroline and I were just spectators donning red polyester coordinates on the sidelines. Ahem. I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly…)

One of the outfits (mine) had a short-sleeved button-up top with matching pants, and the other outfit (my sister’s) had a sleeveless button-up tank instead. Marty, by some strange twist of thrift store fate, managed to find men’s pants in the exact same shade of poppy red and gamely wore them with a poofy-sleeved white top to complete our trio. (We had only been dating for a few months at that point, but when he emerged from his changeroom donning a matching, ridiculously ironic polyester outfit, I knew for sure that he was a keeper! What a trooper! So Bootylicious!) Unfortunately, I can’t post the photo of the three of us together, because both Marty and I had been brutally sick for a week before the show and had matching, irritated red noses to prove it. Pure class…

Looking at this photo now, these outfits look like nothing more than horrible Christmas-themed flannel pyjamas. Trust me when I say, though, that these pantsuits were 100% pure polyester and they were sold in the Business Coordinates/Pantsuits section of the thrift store. I think we even had to cough up 8 or 9 bucks apiece for these suits! For real!

PS: One of these weeks, I promise to show you some secondhand outfits that are actually stylish and/or acceptable to wear into an office environment. My problem seems to be one part lack of time, another part camera and/or tripod shyness, and a final part kind of embarrassed to ask Marty to snap photos of me for my blog. Let’s cross our fingers that I can resolve some or all of these issues, OK? Otherwise, it will be more lilac or plaid polyester for you.

Thrift Score Wednesdays: Shine a Light

My mom has this thing: she cannot stand certain types of lighting in a room. She is easily frustrated when the lights are too dim in a room. She compares this travesty– with an exasperated I give up! wave of her hands– to a radio being on but just a leetel bit too quiet to hear or decipher properly. On the flip side, I’m pretty sure my mom also believes that fluorescent lights are the modern portals to hell. After all, no other lighting can make a person look quite as evil and awful (and green!) as unforgiving fluorescence can…

My mom’s long-term solution to the Eternal Problem of Achieving Perfect Luminescence was to invest in lamps. Lots of lamps. It’s quite genius, really, because you can turn on little lights, one at a time, until the perfect ambiance and photon saturation has been attained in your room. That way, there’s no need to rely on the too-bright glare of an overhead light, and those awful fluorescent tubes can stay the way god intended them to be: off. (I don’t recall any mention of fluorescent lights being used in Noah’s Ark, for example.)

At my ma's place-- perfect lighting and gorgeous lamps

I have inherited only a fraction of my mother’s Pressing Lighting Issues, but I am genetically encoded with her Love of Lamps. (Unlike my dear mother, I just like the look of different lamps a whole lot, but I don’t care quite as much how they contribute to the overall lighting within a room. Can I still see (at all or too much) in any given room? Then the light is a success in my books!) So yes: I love lamps. Left to my own devices, I could probably buy a new-to-me lamp every week. Seriously. I’m like the Angelina Jolie of lamp adoptions– my herd just keeps growing and growing.

A gorgeous red lamp gifted to me from my mom.

There are a ton of beautiful lamps in thrift stores– antique, retro, soft, bold, beaded, shaded, floor, table, reading, overhead– and all of them are cheap cheap cheap. Unfortunately, there are only so many lights you can stuff into a 700-square foot ghetto apartment*. (Believe me, I have tried.) As a result, some of my beautiful lamps are currently in storage, a precious few have managed to stick around in our everyday living quarters, and the rest of them (still waiting longingly to be purchased at the thrift stores) have been banned from our place forever. Sorry. They will just have to wait for another celebrity lamp adopter to come take them home.

 

Anyway. First, there are our nightstand lights:

Marty and I have matching, hand-me-down (and not to mention ugly) dressers that flank our bed. Matching tables and matching thrift store lamps! (Aww… couples in love!!) My side table is topped with one of Marty’s icons and the first of our two, gloriously orange nightlights. Marty’s table hosts our essential oils, our year-round mini Christmas tree, and the other orange nightlight in the pair. Perfect lighting for bedtime– not too harsh, not too dim.

Then we have our living room lamp, which I fondly like to call the Velvet Elvis Light:

This lamp, although it rests on a table, is actually quite tall and menacing regal-looking. With its faux, dangling jewels and its rich, mustard-toned lampshade (1970s much?), this lamp gives off a warm, golden glow, which makes me think of far-off spice markets and possibly even a camel caravan or two. Marty likes to write in his journal under the comforting light of this lamp, and I like curling up on our ugly couch to read a captivating novel in the company of Velvet Elvis.

Finally, we have my all-time favourite lamp, which was given to me as a gift and not technically thrifted. Still. This beauty is a floor-to-ceiling lamp of the retro variety, with two out of the original three plastic shades still in tact: Robin’s Egg Blue and Florida Orange. (The third shade was apparently a sunny yellow colour but never made it to me. MIA, people. I keep hoping I’ll uncover this missing link at some random secondhand shop, though, so keep your eyes peeled on my behalf!)

Just don't stick your fingers in that empty socket!

I love this lamp for many reasons, but especially because it has 3 different settings: just-orange, just-blue, or YOWZA! BOTH ORANGE AND BLUE!! It can cast cool light, warm light, or a sunny combination of the two, depending on the circumstances or our moods. Yes, it is a bit of a bastard to move around (or haul from apartment to apartment), but now that we have it securely anchored in its special corner spot, everything about this lamp makes me happy.

And now it’s your turn: any favourite lamps or lights?

Any fluorescent horror-stories (and not those of the 1980s/early 1990s clothing variety)?

Is there something you find particularly difficult to resist buying, even if you already have eleventy hundred of them at home? Lamps are my personal weakness. Yours? Go!

*PS: While we were making our annual home office calculations for tax time, we came to the depressing realization that our new, 3-bedroom apartment is only 65 square feet larger than our other, 1-bedroom apartment in Oak Bay. Even worse, it may be 65 measly square feet larger, but it is also approximately $450 more in rent per month. Those are some expensive square feet, no?

Thrift Score Wednesdays: Celebrity Sighting!

Victoria might be a smallish city of 350,000 people on an isolated Canadian island, but it actually plays host to a steady stream of celebrities. Sure, we don’t get *giant* concerts like Madonna or my beloved Depeche Mode on the island, but we do have an “arena” where well-known musical acts perform, and we also get an influx of celebrities from the cruise ships that dock in our ports en route to Alaska. When you live in Victoria like I do, sooner or later there’s bound to be a celebrity sighting. It’s simple math, people: the laws of probability.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited to have my first celebrity encounter today at the Harbour: a woman I did not know or even bribe came up to our booth out of the blue and told me that she reads my blog all the time! Yes, I was the celebrity in this particular sighting!!

I have an awkward history of making real-life friends through people’s blogs. I have actually e-mailed bloggers in Victoria and asked them if they wanted to hang out. On more than one occasion. (<– This sounds a lot creepier than it is. When I first came to Victoria and yearned for my knitting buddies from Calgary, I contacted a local knit-blogger and asked if she wanted to knit with me. Lo and behold, she did! Instant friend! I also met Jabba and Mary through similar circumstances. What can I say? I’m a total nerd and quasi-internet stalker. <– Also less creepy than it sounds.) Anyway, despite this clumsy history of introducing myself to bloggers in real life, I have never been on the receiving end of a Blog Recognition Moment. Until now! Look at me, so famous…

(Aside: I knew I shouldn’t have let my guard down with my Top Secret Disguise. As soon as my Hannibal Lecter mask came off, I was spotted! New nose, new collagen-injected lips, and all!)

Anyway, I was super excited to have Monica come up and introduce herself today (as only a true geek could be). I know that encounters like that hold extreme potential for awkwardness, so that made me appreciate her friendliness and candidness even more! No autographs were signed– now that would have been awkward– but it made my day to meet her and hear that somebody who is not related to me, not a long-lost friend of mine, and not even paid by me reads my blog. Rock on, Monica!

It was mighty chilly* (*read: 8 or 9 degrees Celsius? 45-ish degrees F?) at the Harbour today, so I was bundled up in about 14 layers of clothing, including two jackets, a scarf, and gloves. Give me a break– it was cloudy outside!! What Monica couldn’t see (and what I wisely decided not to show her– that would have been supremely strange and creepy of me) was that I was wearing one of my all-time favourite Thrift Scores ever. Buried underneath my eleventeen sweaters was a garish pink shirt that my awesome sister transformed from Frumpy into Fabulous!

My Ché Guevara shirt started out as a size XXXL top in an awfully bright shade of magenta. (Too bad I don’t have any Before shots– it was GIGANTIC.) It was big, it was boxy, and much like the sun, it was best not to look at the shirt directly, lest your retinas scorch from the intensity of that pink.

Oh, the pain! The suffering! MY RETINAS!!

It needed a lot of work– cutting, ripping seams, sewing, embellishing– but I lived in Calgary at the time and could “borrow” my sister’s superb sewing skillz to do all the work for me help me out with making this into a wearable top.

Wednesday did not disappoint. She ripped out the too-tight collar, leaving an open neckline that flattered my favourite body part on myself: my clavicle. Then she wisely decided to turn the shirt inside-out– permanently– rendering that god-awful Ché portrait on the front, um, not quite as god-awful. She cut off inches and inches of fabric from each side, narrowing the silhouette of the top and even cinching it in with some beautiful green ribbons (which have since been taken out– I wore those ribbons to their ratty deaths.)

The long and narrow silhouette-- pictured here "inside out". I wear it with the intense black image facing in.

Wednesday finished everything off with a “Made for You With Love” patch on the back, as well as some meandering embellishment stitches for added effect.

I love this shirt.

I have had this shirt for about… 10 years now? It is starting to pill a bit, and yes– the ribbons that embellished it for the first 5 or 8 years of its glamorous existence have since been yanked out– but I refuse to give this shirt up. Ever. I love how Wednesday turned what was possibly the World’s Ugliest Ché Guevara Shirt (and believe me, there are a lot of those around) into a wearable work of art. I love how much time, effort and (hopefully!) love she put into this shirt for me, and every time I wear it, it’s like getting a revolutionary snuggle from my absentee sister. That said, I guess it’s only fitting that I was spotted as a quasi-celebrity today, because I was wearing an outfit designed by my *personal stylist*. Oh, fame– how I love thee!