I’ll be the first to admit that I know nothing about fancy hotels – the places I tend to stay offer vibrating beds, mirrors on the ceiling, and charge by the hour – but even so, I was amazed by the penthouse suite at the OPUS Hotel in Yaletown.

Yesterday morning an intriguing email appeared in my inbox from Miss 604 herself. It seems there was an event at the OPUS to launch the Porter Shoe by John Fluevog that Rebecca couldn’t attend, and knowing that I was a fan, would I like to go in her place? I almost tripped over myself in my haste to reply that I would be delighted to go, and thus I found myself at 5pm dressed up in my least-indecent finery, rubbing elbows with people who probably don’t store their iPhones in their cleavage for safe keeping. Miss 604 graciously RSVP’d my name to the event organizer +1, meaning I was allowed to bring my favourite safety net: Miranda. Armed with high heels, a deep admiration of Fluevog shoes, and a healthy dose utter terror, I was off to be fancy!

OPUS Hotels partnered with Fluevog Shoes to create the Porter Shoe exclusively for the hotel properties. The shoe is a gorgeous combination of shiny black leather and a custom-mixed shade of pink, and stands out by delivering a peek of awesome with each step. It’s part of the uniform for Opus Hotel valets and agents (worn along with a snazzy argyle sweater and, sadly, pants), and it looks incredible. It’s both a great way to add a dash of colour to an outfit AND an excellent conversation starter – I know I would fall head over heels in admiration with anyone I spotted wearing these things, because they are seriously cool.

forgive the phone picture - click to see the shoes in action

The shoes will be available in limited numbers in all ten North American Fluevog stores, or – and this is the best part – from the hotels themselves. You can order a pair right out of your mini bar! What better way to remember your trip to Vancouver? I LOVE this idea, and if I had man feet I would have caved there and then. Mini bar Fluevogs! So much fancy!

not pictured: toblerone and pringles

The event was held on the top floor of the Opus Hotel in a gorgeous penthouse suite that made me regret buying space over location – I suddenly desperately wanted to live in Yaletown and embrace everything the lifestyle has to offer. I could have happily lived in the bathroom of the suite alone. There was a wrap-around balcony that offered views of the city like this:

taken from the 7th floor - rainbow not always included

It was a very cozy place to hold an event and would be an ideal place for a glamorous “staycation”, if you’re into that sort of thing. If not, there’s also an OPUS in Montreal. Someone should send me there – I will blog all about it. No, really. I wouldn’t even charge for the multi-syllable words.

Miranda enjoyed wine and pink cocktails while I indulged in citrus-scented water and cupcakes. We had a lengthy conversation with John Fluevog himself, in which I found myself trying to convince him that he needs a scooter to get around Vancouver on – it is the only way to go, and coincidentally is hot as hell when paired with his shoes, something I know from experience. Miranda discovered a wacky connection with the man – they live in the same building – and, when scrambling for something intelligent to say, I remembered that the Museum of Vancouver is opening a Fluevog exhibit next month and managed to get myself invited to the media event. That, plus the fact that I didn’t fall over or out of my dress once during the whole evening, made last night a complete success for me. I am getting better at this “talking to strangers” thing!

High on excitement and parking tickets, we drove back to the Loft to collect ourselves and whatever people we could find in the area and ended up at Incendio for dinner. On the way, we – or more specifically, our shoes – were catcalled from a passing car by a Fluevog fan. It was a great end to an outlandishly awesome evening, and thanks are in order to Miss 604 for remembering that I love Fluevog Shoes and inviting me to attend, OPUS Hotels for the very fancy affair, Miranda for all the talking up of my skills she did (if you believed a word she said, I am apparently a very popular and influential local blogger), and John Fluevog himself for a) designing works of art for your feet, and b) indulging in excellent conversation with Miranda and my ridiculous, tongue-tied self.

I could absolutely get used to doing this sort of thing.

so pretty.

Oh, Murphy – you and your law are so hilarious!

I am very good at not following through on my own bets with myself (unless made when I was 12 years old – see scooters and Autobot tattoo for reference). It was very noble of me to attempt to wear a dress for five days straight, but I woke up late this morning and had to pry myself out of bed with a crowbar and a full bladder so I made a beeline for my jeans when I stepped out of the shower and called it good.

Naturally, I’ve just been invited to attend an event immediately after work for which I am drastically underdressed. I’m not just underdressed, even – I’m kind of a sloppy wreck. I need to change. I did some fast talking with my boss, so I’ll be leaving here at 3pm to do a quick tour of the North Shore to get cat food before going home for a whirlwind costume and vehicle change then to Yaletown for 5. Phew!

I don’t know if I’m to keep things on the DL just yet, so you’ll have to forgive my vagueness for a while longer. I promise to post a full recap tomorrow – things will be tying together around the city in a most delicious way, and I will share the fun as best I can!

My Upcoming Fun calendar to the right is woefully out of date. I’m not at the point of “having too much fun to write about it” just yet – I don’t know that I’d ever get there; such is my commitment to words – but it seems like awesome things happen on an almost daily basis, and I can’t keep the calendar up to speed. If that’s the only thing that drops in accuracy due to my hilarious and awesome social life, I will consider myself a very fortunate duck indeed.

Last night Miranda hosted a get together for Vancouver’s small business wimmenz, and it was awesome. Ladies who do all sorts of lovely creative things (and me) drinking wine (and Diet Coke) and eating delicious things, meeting each other and making connections (and hiding in the corner talking about video games). I wasn’t planning on staying the whole evening due to my headache, but I didn’t leave until after 10:30 because I was having so much fun talking with Kim, Miranda, Monica and Catherine. I know, I know – I was supposed to network and meet new people, but a) not very many people have a need for smut and words, which is all I peddle; b) my peeps are frickin’ awesome and I love talking to them, and c) my social anxiety means I’m terrified of people I don’t know, even if they’re in a place I spend almost as much time in as my own home. Still, it was good fun and other people really loved it – almost every person who came up to Miranda when leaving asked if she could do it again because it was so great. Miranda also had a friggin’ ingenious idea to share everyone’s contact information, the end result of which will be online soon. Whee!

Reilly was the only man in the entire joint last night, except for the hour when Chris stopped by. He dropped off some police tape I need for Saturday’s photo shoot, and there was much talking and planning for future events. I’m officially on the planning committee for a top secret invite only showing at the VPM, which I cannot WAIT for. Also, the Sins of the City walking tours start up again next month and I’m thinking about arranging one for my birthday. We shall see, but it looks like the Year of Awesome is not slowing down in any way – if anything, it’s picking up speed and that is just delicious.

I admit it – I’m cheating today. I AM wearing a dress – slutty dress #1 – but the pants I wore for scooter-riding purposes underneath haven’t come off yet. I’m rocking the dress-over-pants look from 1998, and I am okay with that. I woke up with a terrible headache that threatened to blossom into a migraine (still is, although I don’t want to throw up anymore), and I’m hanging onto that as a valid reason for not wanting to take off my pants today. The pants stay – I have a headache!

I wonder if my coworkers are sick of my boobs yet. I’ve had shocking amounts of cleavage for the last three days, and I’m probably kidding myself if I think my pathetic attempts at modesty (a knotted scarf; an undone jacket) are covering my shame in any way. I can’t help it, okay – clothing is not kind to people of my shape. I’m aware that I usually look ridiculous, but what’s the alternative? Turtlenecks and paper bags? Do not want.

I really wish this headache would go away. I Have Plans for the evening, and don’t have time to hide in a dark room until the throbbing stops.

This is a late, uninteresting Wednesday post. Read the last post instead – it’s much more entertaining than this one, I swear.

All couples argue from time to time, and Ed and I are no exception. Earlier this evening, we got into a fight about porn star Mark Davis: is he cut or not? Based on the magazine I was chopping up for Smuttons, he looked cut to me – but Ed pointed out the wrinkly skin in the picture, saying “that’s a foreskin. trust me, I know dick.” I argued – it looked cut to me, and I too know dick. We could not come to an agreement on the foreskin issue, so I did the only logical thing: I went online to check.

First stop: Wikipedia. It’s where I usually start, because it has a lot of good information about the things I am interested in – ie: things that have no bearing on real life whatsoever, and it’s always the non-important issues that have the most accurate information. It made perfect sense to me, but Ed thought this was absolutely hysterical. He laughed at me, a lot – “you went to Wikipedia to see if a porn star has a foreskin or not? What kind of internet do you USE where information like that is readily available, especially on Wikipedia?!” – and just about peed himself with the hilarity of my ridiculousness and all. Silly Kimli!

…

suck it, ed. please?

I WIN.

I mean, I was wrong – yep, that was a foreskin – but the information WAS on Wikipedia, and that is worth all the foreskins in the world.

HAH!

Day Two of Operation: No Pants is going strong, although this morning was a struggle. It looked cold outside, and I really wanted to cave in and wear some pants – but I resisted the urge for warmth over cuteness, and instead am wearing one of the slutty new dresses I purchased this past weekend. It was pretty entertaining to hear Miranda and I trying things on – many, many perfectly serviceable items of clothing were discarded on account of being “too modest”. Heh – boobs are awesome.

It’s a Zombie Tuesday ’round these parts – everyone at the office is stumbling around and looking like they’d like to eat some brains, myself included. I’ve already asked a coworker to come see me at my desk so I could “pick [your] brains .. with a fork”. I got more sleep than I did on Sunday night, but my dreams were totally fucked up on account of my spending the evening making some really, really raunchy Smuttons and playing Pokemon at the same time. Multitasking allows me to achieve both my goals at the same time, which are a) to catch them all, and b) see cum-guzzling sluts take it in both holes.

What?

Driven by her desire for new clothes and my need to restock my supply of chocolate-covered peanut-butter-filled pretzel bites, Miranda and I took advantage of the strong Canadian dollar to do some cross-border shopping yesterday afternoon. We left the house just after 9am and took a gamble on the Abbotsford crossing, making it to our destination in record time. It was a great day to be out and about – a gorgeous day with light traffic and scented breezes. We found ourselves in Bellingham by 10:30, and started our day of shameless consumerism at Target (oh man we love Target) before moving on to the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Ross. Exhausted from repeatedly getting naked and being coughed on by disgusting people, we went for lunch at the best Mexican restaurant in the universe before making a quick stop at Trader Joe’s before we left for home. It was a very fruitful trip, even after being (mostly) truthful when crossing back into Canada – we declared everything we bought, and were let through without needing to pay duty. Hooray!

I apologize for anyone who may be trying to buy a new dress in American this week, though – I bought every dress the United States had to offer. All of them. There are none left for anyone else. I came home with a record SIX dresses – three slutty, two classy (but still slutty), and one absolutely fucking ridiculous one that is too hilarious to be slutty. I’d been meaning to refresh my summer wardrobe and replace some of my worn out items that I still wear because I hate pants, and now I sort of have to because I bought all the dresses in the US.

In order to justify my spree, I have decided that I will wear a dress to work every day this week. Today I am decked out in black with white polka dots, and I am cute (if slutty). Hooray for new things at crazy good prices! Hooray for no pants!

I threw up* in a parking lot on Friday night after the craft night, and I am very pleased with myself. I did not do a lot of binge drinking during my formative years, and therefore missed out on a lot of the rites of passage into adulthood such as having someone hold my hair over a toilet, or date rape.  This past Friday I quite literally tossed my cookies after a night of binge drinking crafting, and am confident that it will count towards my merit badge for Grown Up given that I am allergic to alcohol.

(*: I hadn’t eaten more than Diet Coke and half a Snickers in 12 hours, and I was violently car sick on the way home with gross consequences)

this is why i need a handler when I go shopping - I bought both of these things.

I had an awesome time at the Museum of Vancouver last night. The event wasn’t as busy as the first one – we blame the gorgeous Friday night – but it was fun and full of merriment. Shan, Miranda and I hung out at our table and crafted, sold Smuttons, and chatted with great people all night long, especially Kim who is our new favourite and we totally want to adopt her (seriously, I’m not only willing to share my initial with her; I don’t even care we share a NAME*). I feel bad for her poor husband, because every time they tried to leave something hilarious would happen and would lead to stories and uncontrollable laughing and education. I laughed until I cried more than once last night – neither Miranda nor I could remember the last time there was so much hysterical amusement in one evening.

Everything culminated at the end of the night, when Ed came to pick us up. He was cradling a carton of apple juice in his left arm, which was strange. “What’s up with the apple juice, yo?” He furrowed his brow, hesitated, then said haltingly “.. this was outside our door when I got home.” He handed me the juice box, and told me to look closely at it:

i always envisioned delicious juice to be orange, but apple works too

:toot:

click to see the rest of the pictures

Someone left me personalized juice outside my condo door. I don’t know the person in the email address – I’VE BEEN FOUND.

I don’t know whether to laugh or be very, very scared. I’ll probably go with laugh – it’s not every day I get actual Stalker Juice – but it freaked Ed right out, which I am sorry I missed. I have a stalker! She brings me JUICE!

It is hilarious and a little bit frightening to be me!

Every time someone says something good on Twitter about Calgary, I am fairly quick to jump in with a disparaging fact or statement about the city and/or gloating about ways in which Vancouver is better. Even *I* think it’s getting to be a little obnoxious, and I feel I should explain why I hate Calgary so much:

Truth is, I really don’t. The city itself is fine, if not my cup of tea – I can’t imagine living anywhere that doesn’t have the ocean at my front door and mountains in my backyard (which coincidentally makes the list places I could stand living in very small indeed). I lived in Calgary for seven years (and two weeks, and three days, and 4 hours), and I would be hard-pressed to say that I hated every minute of it – there were some things I definitely liked about the city.

When I bitch about Calgary and all the things I hate about it, I’m really thinking about how bad things were for me in that period of my life. I was cataclysmically depressed for most of the time I spent in Alberta, and even thinking about going back gives me an actual panic attack; it was so bad. I don’t ever want to feel like I did that day in those seven years ever again – suicidally depressed, manic, without friends, unemployed, miserable, fighting with Ed a lot – it was bad. Really, really bad. When I think about Calgary, I think about all the times I very nearly threw myself under a bus just to end all the bad things. I know that’s dumb, but I can’t help it – even the words “moving to Calgary” make me almost want to vomit with terror, and I try to deflect that by repeatedly bringing up things like the snow and cold and lack of spring.

My resentment towards Edmonton, however, is entirely different.

So, sorry Calgary. I know I’m doing you a disservice every time I bitch about you on Twitter. I think it’s best for the both of us if I just stay here in Vancouver where I belong; don’t you agree?

Ali is a month or two away from popping out her second child, and has been bemoaning the task of writing her birth plan. I don’t know what that is, but I assume it’s like having to write up your goals or self-evaluation package at work. Everyone hates those things – for some reason putting “fewer murderous black-out rages at the office” is not a valid goal to have – but I’m always up for a challenge, so I thought I would help Ali out. After all, I’m a technical writer and I saw someone giving birth once on the internet so this should be easy.

With that in mind, I present to you the Delicious Juice Dot Birth Plan:

click to embiggen and see entire flow chart

Good luck with the baby, Ali! Let me know if my birth plan worked for you!

Tonight I will be at the Museum of Vancouver, selling Smuttons with Miranda and Andrea and other crafty people. Won’t you join us? It will be a Good Time!