Happy Monday gang! How was everyone’s weekend? Mine was filled with home improvement. I just about survived.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret here: manual labor is not my strong suit. This would be fine if I ever once in my entire life actually REMEMBERED manual labor was not my strong suit before I went out and spent $300 at Home Depot but I never, ever do.

It’s always the same: I get an idea (I’m GREAT at ideas) and because I’m good at mechanical-type things, I think to myself  “Self, surely painting the entire walled garden three different colors, plus doing faux finishes on two walls in a Sunday is within your capable grasp, all you need is a friend who is willing to help.”

I think anyone who’s read The Wind in the Willows knows where this is going.

Thank goodness Hot Latin Boy is an excellent Rat to my Mr Toad, and while I was selecting the perfect painting outfit (chocolate leggings, brown and orange cowboy boots, a grey knit shift dress, vintage western shirt complete with embroidered deer heads and one of my beater Hermes scarves to tie my hair back) and playlist (Cafe Tacuba and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs for the major painting, Maria Callas for the detail work) HLB was, you know, actually painting.

In all fairness, I did my share of work, and I did it with as much gusto as I could muster considering my other partner in crime was a treacherous and not at all structurally sound stepladder whose rickety aluminum slats will be the first things I’ll see in hell.

All of that is to say it’s okay to have a niche.

I should never be allowed near a paint roller, as my dog, the tile floors of the patio and my own face will testify, but I can design the color scheme and decorate it like a palace once someone more competent than I has managed to get the color on the walls.

The same goes for small plus size fashion houses.

They’re not going to be All Things for All People, Everywhere. If you want that, go to Harrods (except don’t because the last time I went I couldn’t find grits for love nor money) so while it’s okay to mock bad construction, terrible photoshopping, questionable taste and shoddy design, calling a company out for designing clothes that don’t fit your lifestyle is like saying a restaurant is bad because you don’t like Chinese food.

Case in point:

Eddy & Bri

Yeah, I don’t really get it either, but I’m also not their target audience.

If you’re a young big girl without a lot of expendable income who wants the same sort of clubwear your skinny sisters wear, then Eddy & Bri is perfect for you. I’m not, so it isn’t. No big deal.

Clearly they’re still having growing pains –although I LOVE that model in the pale bronze minidress, girlfriend is throwing some serious shade– and their choice to offer the majority of their clothing in one, maybe two sizes is…unusual, but they’ve identified their market (it would be unkind of me to say their market apparently pays their rent in ones and quick handies at stoplights, so I won’t) and they’re sticking to it.

For the rest of this week I’m going to feature smaller design houses that are generally geared to specific probably-not-us markets along with reasons not to throw the baby out with the niche bathwater.

Wow, so the response to yesterday’s post was…unusual.

Most of you came down on the side of “Decent concept, terribly flawed and shiny execution.” which is about where I landed myself.

Of course there were some brand new commenters, all coincidentally originating from the same IP address, who were as staunch in their support of the clothes as they were in their unwillingness to adhere to the basic rules of grammar (on a COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE, if a website says something less-than-glowing about your product, it’s almost never a good idea to post fake comments in your own support. Site administrators can see that stuff from a mile away and it’s totally embarrassing for everyone involved).

Still, as much as I love to mock, there’s something to be said for process. Very few designers launch a pristine, immaculately produced and edited collection their first time out of the gate, so my only beef is when designers pretend to be something they’re not.

This goes back to one of my very favorite warhorses: “Words Have Meanings”.

I understand language is fluid. It looks like impact has become a verb and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it, other than loudly and not for the first time wish fiery death upon marketing people at all times and everywhere.

But when you say your materials are The Best Available or Ultra Luxe, then your product should not be polyester or rayon. To me, ultra luxe and its equivalents mean exceptionally high quality in materials already known for their intrinsic quality. So not just cashmere, but GOOD cashmere. Long staple cotton, napa or kid–never bonded– leather.

Am I being unreasonable? I don’t think so. There’s nothing wrong intrinsically with a polyester skirt. It’s not inherently cheap or poorly made, but it’s not a luxury material and shouldn’t be touted as such.

Now about what is and is not a martini…

What is UP party people?! Greetings from Villa Plumcake. Last week I bid a fond farewell to Chateau Gateau in Austin and am now a full time resident of Mexico. I would like to say I got my keyboard fixed, but that would be a damnable lie. What actually happened was I purchased a little usb keyboard that plugs right into Lappy 6000′s USB port. That’s great, except I didn’t really think the whole “buying a keyboard in another country” thing through, so I’ve got all sorts of weird symbols and heiroglyphs and nothing is even IN English, which of course made me scream when I plugged it in a second ago and then immediately feel like the Ugly American who, when misunderstood at a foreign restaurant orders in English LOUDER.

The upshot is yours truly will be back to regularly scheduled blogging effective today.

So what did you all do for New Year’s Eve?

For the first time in recorded mammaries, I was dead asleep to the world.

See, I’d been driving a long, LONG while hauling a heavy, HEAVY trailer from Austin to Houston and then to San Diego. I used to think if my life of glamor and intrigue didn’t work out, I’d be a long haul trucker. I like driving. I like beef jerky. I mean what else is there? I have since been disabused of that notion in a big way.

I won’t say it wasn’t ALL drudgery. I got to offroad in West Texas a little, and the 6×12 UHaul trailer did remarkably well. I also got to sleep in the back of my new and unendurably awesome FJ Cruiser, nestled between my dog, a 100 pound carved snail and an enormous stuffed tiger, using my lynx coat as a blanket. I felt like Dr Doolittle and smelled like…well, I’m going to be honest, I’m pretty sure my dog, if not Jesus himself, wept.

By the time I got to San Diego and had all my worldly possessions cubbied away into a little storage cave (“You have a lot of shoes, ma’am.”) and crossed the border I wanted nothing more than to walk through a carwash in my underwear and settle down for a long winter’s nap.

Hot Latin Boy informed me in the morning that he kissed me at midnight but I was in the arms of sweet lady slumber for all of that day, the next and most of yesterday (I did manage to send out my laundry and I’m pretty sure it’s back now. Either that or I just gave one very lucky lady a heck of a new wardrobe).

So that’s where I am. So what about you?

Is this thing on?

If you remember, the Miss Plumcake Writing Center and Shirtless Footballer Emporium (aka my laptop) suffered great and woeful, or at least very damp, indignities at the pincers of a scorpion last week. Sadly, the situation has not improved and Im only able to post now through a painstaking copy-and-paste process that makes me wish I were more Hemingway and less Faulkner in my word rationing tendencies.

Last week I came across a pair of shoes so ridiculous I just had to know in what situation you, my lovely and generally not mentally-incapacitated audience, would deem them appropriate.

I was a little (okay a lot) surprised to discover several of you thought they were the best thing since sliced vodka, and to those folks I would like to invite a bit of an old sit-and-ponder on the difference between Fashion and Costume. Don’t worry though, we’ve ALL been on the wrong side of sartorial history on occasion.

Best of All pump from Irregular Choice:

Truth is, it was more challenging than I expected coming up with just one winner.

I wanted to give it to Rachel for her sound logic:

It’s a trick question. There is literally no time or place, real or fantasy, in which these are acceptable.

or Margo A for the most plauisibly realistic:

A costume party where I’m going as a Bowie groupie from 1974.

or even Melissa

My brother-in-laws funeral – paired with a very. red. dress.

(because lets face it, if I didn’t, I would probably come come home one day to a faceful of acid and a photo of my beloved pooch Dozer tied up holding a copy of today’s newspaper.)

but I had to give it up for our own longtime reader and commenter Daisyj for going above and beyond the call of absolute insanity to offer us this little gem.

Evil supervillain is holding my cat hostage in his hollow-volcano lair, demands that I appear in public in these or he will vaporize the shoe floor at Barneys. I slip them on and stroll through Saint Hippolyta’s home for the completely blind, then burn them and sterilize everything they touched with a 20% bleach solution, just to be sure.

Well played, DaisyJ. I thank you and America thanks you. Now I’m off to see if i can get into Witness Protection. Dozer is beginning to look nervous.

Evil supervillain is holding my cat hostage in his hollow-volcano lair, demands that I appear in public in these or he will vaporize the shoe floor at Barneys. I slip them on and stroll through Saint Hippolyta’s home for the completely blind, then burn them and sterilize everything they touched with a 20% bleach solution, just to be sure.

Okay campers, let’s play a little game.

This is the >Best of All pump from Irregular Choice:

I’m going to need to know what situation YOU would choose in order for these uh, interesting, kicks to be appropriate. Put it in the comments. I’ll select my favorite next week. The winner earns my praise, adulation and the right to NEVER EVER have to wear these lurex assaults on all things good, tasteful and true.

This is what I look like about now. Except I don’t have the nifty grass green polka dot bedding. I’m making those around me suffer with my cold. I’m a ball of snot and just a soupcon of phlegm, my brain is entirely fried, and my fingers feel like I’m trying to type with kielbasas taped to them.

At times like this, I like to build pretty castles of niceness in the air. You know, dream a pipe dream or two that makes me feel kind of wistfully pleasant and forget the hideous, bed-hair monstrosity of my current reality.

So what am I dreaming of right now? My ultimate kitchen. And what does that look like?

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Another Thanksgiving is over and done with. All that’s left is some tasty leftovers, and maybe a few of the dishes to be done. I’m guessing I’ll still be eating leftover turkey and pumpkin pie for the next couple days… and that suits me just fine.

I spent the day in the company of good people who care about me, appreciate my cooking, and are eager to make me smile. I had more than enough good food, a warm place to rest my head when night fell, and warm critters who wanted to snuggle with me as I drifted off to a thoroughly sated sleep.

All in all, I have a great deal to be thankful for today. Here’s a short (and terribly incomplete) list:

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