Behold - Our Amazing Machine!

My friends … this is our magic machine. It’s a washer … it’s a dryer … it’s a thing I used to get wrinkles out of clothes so I don’t have to iron … It’s half man, half amazing.

Well actually it’s the LG WM3988HWA but we don’t have to get technical. Let’s just say it’s our washer and dryer combo.

Our history with washing machines has been all over the map. Our first rental in Lincoln Park didn’t have in-unit laundry so we had to take everything down the service elevator to the ground floor laundry room. The only good part was the price - 50 cents to wash and twenty-five to dry. When we bought our condo in Lincoln Square we had a washer dryer hookup so our first major purchase two days after moving in was our stackable unit. On the day we checked out our current home the unit owner had just discovered the stackable he purchased would not work in this place and was going to donate it to charity and buy something else. Well he decided on this crazy machine and I am glad he did.

Why the excitement over a washer dryer? Probably because I do all the laundry so it’s a big deal to me. Other than that, here a few things we have come to love and hate about our futuristic clothes machine …

• It’s nice to put one load of laundry in and call it a day - no need to move wet clothes into the dryer
• Clothes come out much cleaner than a conventional washing machine, at least we notice this with sheets and socks
• If you don’t take clothes out right away they will become damp, and that sucks kids
• It takes a long time to dry a regular load of laundry.
• It’s an HE product and uses less water than a normal unit. It also doesn’t require a ton of laundry detergent or fabric softener
• Goodbye Bounce, hello aforementioned fabric softener
• It just looks cool from the outer appearance to the digital display to the little song it plays when the cycle is complete
• There are a million settings and quite frankly I can never decide what I should use.

Here is the link to the product page at LG if you are curious.

Fashion Observations from a Morning Walk

• Dear Detroit Tigers Lady,

Carter and I saw you this morning while on our walk. You crossed Olympic and stood next to us as we waited for the imposing Don’t Walk signal that no city resident dare challenge.

I don’t know if you are visiting Los Angeles from the Motor City, or if you are a resident here for work/school.

But I do care about your health and how ridiculous you looked today.

When we returned home I did a quick check of the temperature at 9:30 a.m. and it was 78 degrees in our fair city. According to the cool widget on my desktop it will climb to 91 at some point today.

I think it’s great you were wearing a Detroit Tigers baseball hat to protect your head from the sun. Mind you it could have been a fashion statement and you might not have watched a Tiger game since Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker were turning two. None the less, your head was protected from the sun.

Carter and I also took note of the giant sunglasses covering your face. They are so big you may have a funny looking tan consisting of two giant circle across your mug but once again, you are protecting those retinas from the evil UV. You go girl!

Which brings us to your coat. Maybe you thought we were in for a big cold front today; perhaps you watched the Detroit weather instead of Johnny Mountain on the local newscast. Maybe you get chilly from time to time, I certainly understand that it can happen. Perhaps you work in the back room of a meat processing plant. But it was 78 when we saw you on the corner, and the temperature was climbing into the 90s today. So why in the world were you wearing a three-quarter length fitted wool coat, with every single button done up - from top to bottom? I don’t care how fashionable you were trying to be, if in fact that was your goal. You had to be hot. Carter started panting just looking at you!

• Dear Fashionable FIDM Student,

This morning while walking down Olympic we saw you crossing the street in an attempt to get to the corner outside the federal reserve. You were sporting stylish jeans and a nice shirt, a great combination given the weather outlook for the day (apparently you aren’t friends with the Tiger fan above). However, your shoes were enormous - big huge wooden high heel shoes of some kind. The kind of heels that make a lot of noise when you walk. They can’t be comfortable, they really can’t. And they certainly can’t be safe given the header you took while approaching the corner this morning. There you were, shuffling along the crosswalk and with every step just that much closer to being on the corner. When all of a sudden high-end fashion got the better of you and down you went. Carter and I were gald to see you were not hurt since you stumbled around a little and eventually popped up to talk with the woman on your corner. I hope you made it to your final destination without further incident.

What Is Fashionable?

Continuing my theme of things that are different here in L.A. and stuff that just can’t be explained …
I have come to the conclusion there are a lot of people here in California that do thing or wear things because they are fashionable. For example …

• High heeled/big shoes: Everyone wears them here, and apparently they can be worn with anything. This morning Carter and I went on a walk and saw females wearing heels/big shoes and the following: dress pants, skirts, short skirts, shorts, short shorts, jeans, a track suit … My point here is ladies in California love their heels/big shoes, and they can be any kind of heel/big shoe. I’ve also determined that the buying decision comes down to whether or not a woman’s foot is on a 45 degree angle when she is wearing the shoe. I say this because half the people I see wearing the aforementioned footwear either can’t walk in them or you can see the pain on their face as they waddle down the sidewalk. But hey, they look good! If I was smart and had some seed money I would open a store here in L.A. called Big Ass Shoes.
• Smoking: Everything I read or hear says that smoking rates are down in this country. Well if it’s true then the statistics are not spread evenly across the country. I am amazed at how many people smoke here, especially young people. I mean forget all those commercials about lung cancer, death and the ever so sexy smokers cough - it’s all good if you look hot with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth or in your hand.
• Tapered Jeans: Back in the mid-80s I was high school, and the cool thing to do back then was to taper your jeans. Granted, it was also cool to have acid washed jeans and Alf was a hit television show. But here in California the tapered jeans look lives on kids! Black jeans, blue jeans, girls or boys, everyone is wearing their jeans tapered to the point where you wonder how in the world they got them over their ankle. Seriously?

I’m sure there’s more but I need to keep something in my back pocket to talk about later on …

L.A. Fashion: Elf Boots

When we moved from Chicago to California, we crossed a number of lines:

• State lines - By my count we traveled through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California.
• Time zone lines - We went through Central time, Mountain time and finally into Pacific time.
• Fashion lines - Somewhere between those eight states we crossed the fashion line, and we don’t quite understand the other side yet. See below …

I talked about fashion in our new neighborhood here and here. Wool coats, hoods with fur on them and Uggs in 70+ degree weather.

Over the last couple weeks we have noticed another fashion statement popping up in our neighborhood, thanks to our friends at FIDM.

“Elf boots”

I say elf boots because I don’t know what they are really called but they are everywhere! They are ankle high, perhaps a little higher and are mostly flat. They come in all different colors as well, including black, green, grey, blue … you name the color and the elf boots come in it! I went online to a number of different shoe stores but couldn’t come up with a picture. But trust me, they look like elf boots - small and pointy and they don’t seem to stay up. I say that because this morning I stood behind a little elf girl at a corner while walking Carter and she kept using her opposite foot to hike up the top of her little boot.

So if you can enlighten me on the elf boot please do. If not, ummm watch out for little elves all over the south park area of downtown.

And oh yeah, I also have to talk about heels at some point - remind me.

Hidden Gem #2 - New York Tailor Shop

This past weekend H got a great deal on clothes at Macy’s in the Beverly Hills Center - three pairs of dress pants and a pair of jeans for a little less than $80. Of course they needed some tailoring so we were soon on the hunt for someone with a good reputation and decently priced.

H reached out to a colleague in her Chicago office who before moving to the Windy City (you do know why they call it that right?) lived all her life in LA. She recommended the New York Tailor Shop in the fashion district. Apparently she goes as far as to bring any clothes she has purchased in Chicago back home with her to be tailored at this place.

So after work yesterday I meet H at the car and we drive on over, somehow finding a spot on Los Angeles Street at 5:00 p.m. without a problem.

If we didn’t know the address we would have missed the place because they have a tiny little sign outside that you probably wouldn’t notice if you drove by. The shop is on the mezzanine of the building, just a short flight of steps up.

You are greeted by the working room, and I say this because I can’t imagine there is much else to the place. Packed into what I would guess to be 350-400 sq. ft. are a number of sewing machines, three change rooms and plenty of guys working.

I’m afraid I don’t know who helped us but he was very nice and paid attention to detail when pinning and fitting. He wrote up the receipt when we were done and we were surprised to see a bill for $27 for five pairs of pants! That seems like a good deal, no? Three pairs had cuffs and I am guessing they was a little more expensive.

So here’s the best part.

He asks when we want these done, and H replied the sooner the better but in all honesty whenever they can. The guy replied “How about tomorrow afternoon?”. Are you kidding me? Back in Chicago this would have cost $80 and taken a week!

So we are headed back there this afternoon to pick things up and see how they turned out. I have no doubt that the job will be well done, sometimes you can just tell.

For those of you in the LA area …

New York Tailor Shop

824 S. Los Angeles Street, LA, CA 90014

Mezzanine Level #101  (213) 627-5293