Weekend of Rain and Stuff

Weekend, yes! And if you checked my blog three minutes before midnight, Central European Time, then that's all you would have read. Well, that's what you get when you can't fix the schedule of your blog PROPERLY. but I won't rant this time around, I have a new-ish haircut and I'm happy, so I won't rant about Blogger.

The week at work ended up quite interesting, with lots and lots of work to do, which is great, because that means more and more stuff to keep myself occupied, and all of them are of the very kind I love the most: analyzing and trying to figure out what's not being said. It's economics CSI! Money Detective work! and have I told you just how much I enjoy that? Very.

I also had a little bit of "fun day" all by my own, though I didn't go to the movies, but instead I went on checking an old excentricity store I discovered some 30 years ago, which was packed with crystals, jewelry made from it at rather accesible prices, and witchcraft stuff. Needless to say, I was drawn to it like flies to honey. However yesterday I realized that the store has become another Chinese artifact store. Chinese amulets, Chinese traditional clothing, Chinese statues... and the only not-so-evidently-Chinese thing was a shelve in a glass counter filled with potions and magical soaps. long gone were the pendulums, the Tarot Decks and all other strange things I loved to stare at. That was a bummer. Now I don't have any witchy store I know of which I could think of and let my imagination run wild conjuring up the lives of the people stopping by. I guess I could still buy the stuff I always bought there, the jewelry and the crystals, but then again, with the store turned into a "chinería" as we call them here, it lost interest for me.

There are other witchcraft stores around, some of which I visited once with an acquintance of mine who back then was neck deep in black magic (and Dragonfly-cr knows her too...), but those stores seem to me a little bit... creepy. It's like the one I loved to go to was also creepy, but a bit more... The Craft shop like, while these others are more The Skeleton Key shop like. One has witches, the other might have a couple of zombies tucked in the closet. And yes, I'm curious, but I honestly prefer places more hippie-vibe like, instead of the "this is how you get rid of the lover your husband is keeping". Who knows, maybe it's the Christian in me saying "Yes, God is in everything, but that's no reason for you to be in everything too, so you get the fuck out of there and just run, run until you run into a cross". I'm a chicken, sometimes. (However, no matter how much some stores scare me, I fully support every religion in the world, even if initially they sound weird, like Jedism and Matrixism.)

After my encounter with China-invaded-Pagan store, I went on around the center of the Capital City - which has changed since I was last around - and went to an old cafe-bar I used o love. There I ordered my cocktail of the week: vodka and Red Bull. It was good, it was nice, it was sweet, and I hope the next time I order it they don't forget the vodka out of it. It was sheer joy to be there, alone, going through some work, while the world buzzed around me. It was also quite fascinating to witness how the girls on the table next to mine, who had been there longer than me, received a rather poor service, while I was attended to perfection. As a matter of fact, they not only complained that they had to wait 30 minutes for their cocktails while mine arrived in 10 minutes, BUT that I've got an order of fried green bananas (patacones), while they had also ordered the same and after 20 minutes were told there were none and had to order something else. By the way, yes, they were right in complaining for not getting the patacones, because they were HEAVENLY!

Today I woke up and was 2 kg heavier. Doesn't matter, the patacones worth it. Took mom to the University - I love driving her to work ^_^ - then worked a little bit on the Scrapbook project I started doing for her, but that's nowhere near to being finished, AND then decided to go do some errands. I was SUPPOSED to take Hyperion to the vet, but the cunning cat took his leave when he suspected that a caged trip was looming dangerously over his head. So instead I went and had other errands done, such as preparing some music CDs for a friend of mine. She had shared with me some of her favorite Jewish or pop-Jewish music, and I told her that, well, all I could share with her was Pagan music, and she said she would be interested, so I prepared her a small compilation. I don't have enough Yoga music to compile a CD for her, nor enough Arabic, and then Pagan music is in English (what I have) and it's quite interesting and not everybody knows about it, so there. :-) This is an errand for me, because I don't have a proper CD burner here at home, so errand it is.

Then I went to ask about a small presentation about turning what's negative into positive, but in the end I didn't attend it. Yeah, the reason being that I went to my hairdresser, and since she's moving from her current location to another shop, several of her customers were there waiting for her. I needed my cut NOW, since this is a Full Moon day (today, actually), and I'd love my hair to get a bit thicker (I'm working on getting rid of my layered style and have a fuller mane), and folklore or not, I wanted my hair done now.

I decided also to change my hairstyle. Still long, but something different, as the European style just wasn't cooperating with me anymore. So after talking it over with my hairdresser, we decided to go for a full mane in the back, work on recovering full lenght with no layer, but do a layering up around my face, much like a 90's style. Then as I was getting out of the shop it started to rain and my hair went up in big curls, as it usually does, so I don't know if it does look like what we wanted from it. If not, in 6 week, when I go again, but this time to the new shop, we will have the frayed layers removed and a long side bang cut in it's place.

Now, I gara go, I'm late for yet another day of fun, meeting with Kate and Carrie with whom it's all good cocktails (except that I'm driving) and loads of White Collar and gaping about other similar eye candy and goodies.

Furniture and Excuses in Religion

One of the things we have to get is a desk for me. Have been checking different places for it, like Office Depot, and smaller furniture stores around downtown, and some bigger ones online. The quest hasn't been easy, as it never is when you are looking for a particular type of furniture, as the desk we are looking for must fit in a small place, so it can't be more than 50 cm (20 inches) deep, not 90 cm (35 inches) wide. Most desks available are computer desks, or ugly compressed cardboard desks with an unsightly little door for a tiny little... box-like... thing. Then, after checking a rather expensive furniture store, I decided I'd love to have a secretaire desk. I imagine this type of desks would be easier to keep clean and organized, but also they are supposed to be actually rather small to beging with as at least half the writing surface gets out of the way when you fold up the lid close.

Without a desk life is quite uncomfortable. No place to put down my bag when  I get home, no place to dump shopping bags, place keys, lay down the mobile phone, put on the laptop or write letters. Would you imagine that desks can be that important?

At one of the furniture stores I visited - where the desks were rather cheap and shabby, and not in the good sense - I found a cousin on mine working. It was weird, because this guy has been having a large and disconnected number of odd jobs. He used to work at a private bank selling credit cards, worked at a greengrocery among a lot of other jobs I can't recall. Finding him on a Saturday morning in a cheaper furniture store was indeed strange. I wanted to keep it concentrated on the tasks - get me the desks - but he started talking - or rather shall I say, explaining his being there - going on about how he had been there for a week and a half, and already felt unhappy with the job. He actually said that "oh well, every new shoe hurts in the begining". Let's not go into how actually at the begining of a new job you are wide eyed and excited and only later on you find out the little bad things - if there are any.

My cousin is one of those people who -  by some strange reason - has had no luck in his life. He changed his career at the university several times (he says now that he has studies in teology and something about composing music), then got married and had two children, for whom he had to start this chain of odd jobs to be able to support them. Then he got divorced and continued his odd life. He's one year older than mine, but his eyes and face are so tired as if he had rolled in at least twenty extra years. His words quickly rolled down towards religion, asking me "what am I now", since he was sure I had stopped being Christian several years ago. I still believe he must have confused me with someone else, so I tried to explain to him that I'm Lutheran, but he insisted, so when he asked me where did I go to church in here, I told him that in Costa Rica on Sundays I go to yoga, and he hooked on that with a line I have heard before by second hand sources, but never thought to be real. He said that he was okay with the exercise part, but wasn't okay with the meditating, because true Christians only meditated on the Bible (he said The Word). Silly me, I tried to explain to him, that I have been researching religions different than Christianity, and that actually there's no evil in them, and there's something to learn of all of them if you are just open to see them for what they are and not for what you imagine about them.

He launched then on a rather extremist speech, pushing the view of the Punishing God and how that was the only right way to live. I remembered the position of my grandpa has on the matter, how they push this idea that God demands you to become His slave in order to please Him, and that only that way can you be truly free. I don't know if it's just me, or if you can seen the contradiction in this: "become a slave (or servant) and live a strict life of virtue and staying within the narrow and dated rules of a religion, and then and only then can you become free".

Thing is that what's offered is a trap. When you give up everything about yourself, about your life, about your decisions, live in fear of a God who though it's supposed to be all love, He seems to love you only when you do only and exactly what He wants, even if that goes against your own nature - the nature He gave you - for other wise He'll hate you and never forgive you. Say what you want, this in itself is also a big contradiction. Anyway, in order to be free in this view of Christianity, you must make this "god" (I believe God to be a God of Love, perfect and consistent, so He would surely waste no time hating people, nor would He give people a given nature only to demand them to change it. I mean, come on! How could MEN fight against what GOD has made?), you must surrender. However, hoy can you be free while in abyect servitud or slavery? You can't. What's offered is to have an excuse to dodge responsabilities. When you give up, and concentrate only on keeping restricting laws (and bitching about those who don't), then you don't need to take responsability on your own life and how things happen because that's all "God's will". There's no need to fight, no need to struggle, no need to actually seek to be happy (nor like there's any actual way your restricting rules allow you to be happy), and all that is on God.

My cousin reminded me of that, and his words didn't fall far from that path. Has plans, plans to make music, create a church, and for that he needs money, and gets it from his odd jobs. His face is smudged thick with disappointment in life, but he claims to follow God, a God that's hardly God, but a Holy book, a Bible, an idea framed by a religion twisted out of its purpose by the wicked arm of a Church that sanctifies itself and raises itself to be god in place of God. Does this makes him happy? No, but it makes him feel less guilty for not taking the control of his own life and making something lasting, something productive out of it.

I wonder why it is that people often seek religion to have something that excuses their life incompetence, their laziness, their procrastination, their lack of will to actually live their lives, be responsible for their own circumstances and face them. Churches build upon the misery of people, and make sure to keep them miserable just to keep them coming. Like crack, or a bad prescription drug scored on the black market, they are an addictive, destructive force that traps people in false hope and dispair, preaching about a god they make unreachable, unpleasable, like a carrot before a donkey. Is this God? No, it isn't, but hopeless people who are not willing to take responsability for their lives and make their lives happen, don't care, as long as there's an excuse for their misery, as long as they can be tricked into believing that all this suffering and misery actually makes them better, and that it "fills them with joy".

I pity my cousin and people like him. It's never late, and though despair can hurt, desperation can bite, all you need to do is to get up again, look at what you want to achieve and make it happen. It can happen, even if you must retry over and over, it can just happen, if you make it happen.

Discovering and Rediscovering

Though we agree that we can make the difference, that our stand does matter, more often than not we forget to act upon this believe. At the same time, where though we do have a stand, it's hard to balance our stand with the choices the world seem to offer. One of those for me is the activism against animal cruelty.

Testing on animals by performing things on them that you wouldn't do to your own kid or your own pet, isn't something I support, neither I support any sort of cruelty towards animals, and that includes the torturing of even the insects and rodents I don't like. Just because we are bigger and meaner, it doesn't give us the right to abuse of those we can subject to our will. However I'm not one to go vegan because I wouldn't have animals killed for my to eat, nor would I give up fur or leather for the same reason. I'd definitivelly avoid products that have been gotten through proved cruelty, but I won't pick a synthetic product over an organic one just because it's from animal origin. From the ecological point of view, I prefer organic products over synthetic ones, but I don't see the point in rejecting all animal origin products in order to avoid killing animals, because who said that the life of animals is more valuable than the life of plants? Just because they don't scream and make puppy eyes? I am a meat eater, but that doesn't make me less aware of animal cruelty, nor is this a contradiction. (I do tend to say that I like the meat of animals that scream when they are killed, but that doesn't mean that I like to eat tortured animals. It's just a way to describe the type of meats I like, but it has nothing to do with how much suffering I want into my tender loin or my baby ribs.)

However as not many see it this way, it was hard for me to approach international organizations or accept them fully because of the often hard line some take.

Recently, however, I've got more aware about cruelty-free products, particularly cosmetics, and since I sadly discovered that many of my beloved brands don't check out as cruelty free (L'Oreal, L'Occitane), I decided to go on cheking for brands that are cruelty free. It's not so easy, and though there are many companies listed at PETA's database, many of those are not available where I live. Then, as I was checking them, I started wondering about how hypoallergenic could they be. If they are not tested on animals, can they be "clinically tested"? How do they make sure it won't kick up my allergies?

Well, there are actually other ways to test products without harming animals in the name of cosmetics. Some of those include testing on volunteers, testing on patients (I'm not comfortable with that. Just because someone is sick or even terminal, it doesn't give others the right to use them as test subjects. Unless they agree, in which case they should be called volunteers. However, at the same time, hunger shouldn't be used to get test subjects and submit them to barbaric treatments. All tests should be human and well informed.), as well as test on human cells. PETA says that these tests are quicker and cheaper than animal testing, which for me doesn't make sense why would nearly all big companies choose then to continue testing on animals.

Though Oriflame hasn't been listed in this year's clear-out list, it hasn't been black listed, and this company is famous for its long commitment to cruelty free testing. Brands like Avon, Revlon, Esteé Lauder, Johnson&Johnson, Unilever, Gucci, Channel and Procter&Gamble are, however, black listed.

So, once again, I rediscoverd Oriflame. :-) But I think I'll have to say good-bye to L'Occitane... until they choose cruelty free testing. :-(

Another discovery of mine today was in an entirely different area. I RE-discovered bikinies! ^_^ I haven't worn a bikini in AGES, and I do mean, like maybe ten years or more. I stopped feeling comfortable in them, specially because of the environment that surrounds you in Costa Rica. Not like women there don't wear bikinies, but I still felt vulnerable in them, so for years I've stuck with my trusty black one piece swimsuit. I love my black swimsuit - don't get me wrong - but since I've gotten a bit more generous in the middle, and my thighs are also quite generous, I decided to go as generic and non-descriptive as possible, taking the safest looking swimsuit I could find. However, as I've been living here and breathing the safety, acceptance, tolerance and freedom present in Europe, I have ventured once again in the world of bikinies.

I decided that there's no point trying to hide my thights - why would I? and anyways, one piece swimsuits don't hide them anyways - so why would I hide my tummy? Or what? Only flat bellies are acceptable? So I walked into a Calzedonia, where I looked at the different tops and bottoms (they are sold separatelly, which makes it awesome for mixing, or getting different sizes that fit you better), starting with the discount section. I found a lot of fun pieces, including skull bikinies :-D. I grabbed up a bunch for trying out - more bottoms than tops - when I saw a new collection piece that basically imitated the American flag. I grabbed it, and in the end I ended up with only that one. I paid full price and I loved it. ^_^ It's reversible, so technically you've get four different ways to wear it.

I might try it out at the baths, when Trish and Phil come to visit, or maybe some other time, but definitivelly in Hungary (or Helsinki?). I'll see how I feel already wearing it, and if I like it, I might take it with me to Costa Rica. Who knows? Maybe my second Bikini-Era starts now, and I'll be able to enjoy all the possibilities bikinies give you with their choice to mix and match between tops and bottoms, giving you a wider arrange of options than what our trusty one-piece suits give us.

Books and Boxes

Boxes give me peace. It might be a strange thought, as in the end, I'll be put in a box and stored away six feet under, but yes, boxes make me feel good. I just love boxes. This is how I ended up with several new boxes - which I didn't intended, and quite happy about it.

The plans of the day included our cleaning lady coming in the afternoon for a major cleaning out, which quite limited my day. My boyfriend had work to do, so I had to be home to receive the cleaning lady and give her instructions of what needs to be done. However, since I haven't gone to IKEA, as I had planned to do, I decided to go in the morning. I decided not to postpone it anymore, or I would never get done with it.

I went there early in the day - early for me anyways - and roamed the showroom looking for bargains due to the coming of the new collection. No such luck. Save for a few compliments (some of which we'd need, like the wire drawers for the closet), everything had the same price it normally has. Then, to my absolute disappointment, the spice bottle I had my hopes on turned out to be inadecuate. The lid isn't secured on the top, but only pushed onto it. It may hold your dry dill, but it's not good for collecting the water of the Danube in it. Bugger. Guess I may have to take the ones we've here and which are pretty much "superated" since my spicerack is working and uses other spice bottles.

However I found BOXES. I've been dealing again with my boyfriend's "all over the place" stuff again, and some of my own, as long as with a long existing "CD storage issue", so no sooner thought than done, I was packing storage boxes in my yellow bag. Our "desk" has changed again, got more cluttered - I must admit - but I LOVE the new boxes. Blue for my boyfriend and burgundy for me. Yes, I know, how predictable, but the available selection was black, white, blue and burgundy. White I had for our CDs, and then used burgundy and blue to mark our desk stuff.

The closest IKEA - or the one I can reach with public transportation - isn't close to our apartment, so as I traveled first by tramway and then by metro, I went on reading a book I picked out yesterday. The book is an old one I've bought maybe years ago, but never got around to read it. It's titled "Kissing Kate", and it's about a girl, Lissa, who kissed her best friend, Kate, on a party. I'm not even half way into it, but it's quite good. It's much about teen drama, and Lissa reminds me a lot of Dean Winchester, from Supernatural. An awkward, insecure, girl Dean. It's worked so far very much on the steps of a coming of age type of story with a very interesting twist: her little sister, Beth, is actually being pressured by her classmates to behave like a much older woman. Beth is ten and her friends already talk about make up, fashion, makeovers and desperately wanting to get boobs. I don't know yet where this is going, but this side story has caught my attention.

Really, how many little girls we see who dress and wear make up like adults? Knee high books, mini skirts, bra-shaped tops, uncovered bellies, make up sold in kid sets... One thing is to sneak into Mom's closet and try out her dresses, her high heels, her jewelry and her make up for pretends, and another is not live like that. Won't they be adult long enough to get bored of that stuff (or am I the only woman in the planet tired of high heels, tight mini skirts, silk stockings and make up?)? Not like our media is helping, bombarding our children with messages about growing old fast because all fun exists between the ages of 20 to 29.

Today there's a Celebration also. In Costa Rica today we celebrate the day when our North Western province, Guanacaste, choose by the free will of their inhabitants, to belong to Costa Rica rather than Nicaragua.

Like each of our seven provinces, Guanacaste has a culture of its own, which has made us that much richer. Their handmade tortillas are famous across country (and are my favorite), as well as many other dishes of their typical cuisine, their music and their traditional dresses.

Though I ought to write more about it, I'll keep this one short this time around.

Guanacaste used to be a province of Nicaragua, but since they were closer to Costa Rica and most of their trade relations and political relations were dealt with the Costa Ricans, at one point they decided to belong to us. As expected, Nicaragua didn't take this well, and up to this day they talk about "Costa Rica stealing away Guanacaste". However, up to this day, all the villages of Nicaragua close to the border with Costa Rica, trade and buy their stuff from Costa Rica, get their health services from Costa Rica and even enrole their children into Costa Rican schools.

There are many sides to this story, but I'd like to highlight the following ones: 

1. Relationships need to be nurtured. You can't pretend that your family, your friends, your significant other, your job, your club, or your hobbies take care of themselves forever while you say "yes, I' with thus and thus, I work at thus and thus and I have thus and thus hobby". Like Nicaragua lost Guanacaste, so you could lose something you "have" because you get it for granted. Imagine your life as a garden. In there are planted all the things you care about and you love. If you don't care after them, weed them, water them, check them, they'll die on you, or someone might pluck them off your garden and take better care of them.

2. Time to change, time to go, time to accept something new. When your situation isn't working, often you can't expect the other side to make decisions for you. Be Guanacaste. Dare to leave the person who isn't treating you well. Dare to leave your family's house and live for your own, put distance if the situation has gotten asphixiating or if you've realized that you are not growing any more as person. Dare to leave your job when it makes you feel bad, or when it becomes a dead point in your career. No, not all jobs are sucky. Yes, maybe you are the problem, maybe the "suck" is in you, but maybe, just maybe!, you've been tripping into all the sucky jobs in town and you need to continue your search for a normal, regular, decent job that makes you happy.

3. Treat others nice. Be Costa Rica. Just because this person isn't part of your group of friends, it doesn't mean you can't be nice to them. Be nice as long as you are not looking for the benefit in it. Give from the heart and realize how awesome it is to be able to give.

We Have Sheers!

Our apartment looks different again, better, if I may say so, and the reason is simple: we hung our sheers from the windows. And Goodness Gracious! The difference it makes! Light isn't harsh in the room, though that has never been a problem, but the windows themselves have smoothed as well. The ugly gas pipes get somewhat better hid from sight, and the unslightly, discolored window frames are also discreetly taken away from the view.

We had bought the sheers perhaps a month ago, but didn't get to hang them, since it demanded time. We have three windows and for each of them there's a pair of sheers that need to be fitted. My boyfriend's job was to get on the ladder and hang the sheers twice - one for measuring them up and once when they were finished. My job was to measure the sheers, calculate the exact lenght with the expected 4% shrinkage (I totally love that IKEA tells you about this!), and then mark the lenght by ironing the part that would be the edge on each of the six sheer panes, then put in the fixing strip (a sort of plastic strip that sticks to the fabric when it's ironed to it, normally used to stiffen the fabric, but also to make a hem without stitching), and cut the excess fabric. It wasn't a short job, but we made it today at last, and I'm pleased with the results.

After visiting my penpal Trish on the weekend, I must admit that I'm quite ashamed of our apartment, as it isn't as taestfully arranged as theirs, but then again maybe I'm just being silly. There's no way, after all, that an economist who has spent most of her life in the tropic, could possibly compete with a consumed, professional interior designer and furniture connoisseur who happens to live in an artistic, tasteful town, where everything is just delightful.

Be it as it may, my boyfriend wants me to take pictures of the apartment, so he can upload them on the Real Estate web, to get a feel of the price our apartment could get. Realtors, you know.

I had plans for today, but none of them got completed. I was supposed to go to the Post Office, since I so brightly forgot to give my postcards to Trish - living with her kind offer - so she would post them for me from Braunau to my penpals. I think it is about time I start thinking about going to the doctor to get some "old people pills" prescribed. My memory is really, REALLY bad (maybe I sould start thinking also about getting a pillbox, so I can keep my medication in order for the future). Then I wanted to go to IKEA on a double mission. For once, the new collection would enter in August, so what better chance than right not to get a feel of what pieces of the old collection are leaving the scene and thus being sold at reduced prices. And we need two desks. Urgently.

The other reason is to search for small bottles. I'd like to take with me a few elements of Hungary that will accompany me wherever I am. Since the traditional elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) are kinda hard to get - due to the air - I was thinking about the five elements of Chinese philosophy (Wu Xing: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water). The idea of it came to me the other day, when I was once again marveling at how different the soil is from that of Costa Rica. I guess I can't get over the pale, sandy type of earth we have here. I've already located the source for all of my elements, decided on each of them BUT I haven't found the bottles. Naturally plastic bottles won't do it, because I kinda want to keep the "organic", old, natural feeling to them, AND I need them also to contain water, so wood boxed wouldn't do it either. Now, the bottle you see in this picture is what I'm thinking about, in a small size, say 7 cm (3 inches) high, or with a 1dl capacity. That's all I need. I don't want to take the whole Danube with me, along with half of the Roman Excavations. But you know what? Getting these small bottles is impossible. I'm not kidding, it is impossible!

Upon this, and having bought in February some spice jars, I thought about making it happen with spice jars.

Well, the trip wasn't made, so we shall see if I can unglue myself from bed in time to go to IKEA and take a quick check around the kitchenware and see where can I hunt down my bottles. It doesn't help my case knowing that Amazon.com has them and sells them. :-( Why!? They wouldn't make it in time! (Not like I won't buy them! I will).

I'm packing - I just finished my first packing try out today - but I still have a lot of stuff to pack and to get. I at least want a mini cauldron (you would too, if you would have eaten that FABULOUS bogrács stuff I had! Wish I could pack a real size one and tons of venison... that would make me happy), and then some replicas of medieval time swords (mini!) and jewelry I saw being sold at one of the museums I visited. I'll still visit my favorite museum, but I doubt there's anything left for me to buy there, as I've bought all the Empress Sissi books and souvenirs I could get my hands on.

Well, tomorrow is a new day, and the cleaning lady is coming, so I'll have little time and plenty to do. ^_^

Counterfeit Products

There are two places where you can find fashionable products: the expensive, designer boutiques and on the streets and certain marketplaces. On boulevards or around regular market places, but often also inside marketplaces, you can find stacks of bags, shoes, electronical devices, toys and whatnots. Either these counterfeit products show brands similar to the authentic goods, or they show the same name. People often buy the counterfeit products because they want to access the status those who buy the authentic product have - but with much less money - and others buy these because they find it pretty or simply can't find anything else to their liking. This segment of the counterfeit-buying market isn't normally considered: indeed the counterfeit products can flood the markets so much that people with limited resources have no other choice but to buy fake stuff.

To prove this point all you have to do is to take a walk to markets and stores known for selling all sorts of things at cheap prices. The products hanging from the cluttered ceiling and walls are mostly fake, but for someone who don't have enough money to buy fashion magazines and pay for cable TV, is likely to buy a counterfeit Gucci bag without having ever heard about Gucci, or get a fake iPad without having ever heard about Apple.

Big companies are hard on the fight againts counterfeit products, and often Governments also take their share in this fight. In certain countries even buying counterfeit products is a crime. Counterfeit products are always taken away upon discovery. Information is shared with the population letting them know that counterfeit products are everywhere - even in medicines, cleaning products and food - and that these can be dangerous for their health, and by buying these products they are not only favoring tax avoiding industries, but are also giving that money to terrorist and organized crime.

I'm not saying this isn't the case, but if you want to end the counterfeit market - be it conscious or unconscious - the first thing you need to kill is the need for the product, and that can be done in a way that no Government and no company will be willing to follow: by reducing the need to follow fashion. 

If you are not bombarded at every step of the way that you need to get a Prada bag unless you are not cool, or that you have to have Swarovski jewelry, then you wouldn't feel bad for not belonging to a big spending group. It would be nice if we could go back to think of our things in a more fuctional way. Yes, you want pretty things, but pretty doesn't need to mean "expensive". Currently our societies give more value to the brand than the functionality of the goods. Thanks to this we can find 500 € scarfs (really, and that's the "duty free" price!) or 2000 € bags.

I admit to have brand-addictions. My love for Benetton and Swatch is already well know among the people who know me. I'll still buy from them when I have the money (I recently bought myself a beautiful orange summerdress and a raw coloured long, Greek-Goddess-like summerdress), but as I started making my own jewelry, I started wondering about why shouldn't I try making more things on my own. This is certainly one way to see things, and if we have the skill, or are willing to practice enough to get skilled, but we don't have to retreat from commerce and make everything for ourselves. We should learn to see things for what they are, learn to recognize our real needs, recognize the extent of our resources and act accordingly. It is a hard decision, and its hard to get through with it - like leaving an addiction or trying to loose weight - but step by step, we might be able to wash the glitter out of our eyes, and learn to see a bag in a bag, and not a desired status that not even a 2000 € piece can give us.

The feat is too big to fit it in a List of 13... or maybe not, but I want to try it. Would anybody else try it out with me?

Tired... Shopping

I've completed another item of my list... and half of another. No, I didn't get the things to get closer to complete those two mysterious items. In the morning there was no jogging because we had an appointment with the vet. Interesting vet, by the way. The office was extremely unkept and dirty - at least to my standards - but the vet himself was nice and quiet. Everything is okay with Cinder, but for the three of us, we've decided to have her sterilized. This will happen on Monday.

Time kinda slipped off our hands, here, and then there was some rain and all, so by the time I left to get going with my program, it was already late. However, I managed to watch the first movie of the week - and the selection went to "The Hunger Games", a bad movie that wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Do not misunderstand me, it was cheesey and very "expectable", but all in all it wasn't so terribly bad. Not another "Twilight", if you ask me, and much better than "Dark Shadows".

Then I went to do what I couldn't do yesterday: buy myself summer fit black clothes. The first store I hit was H&M, where I tried out some 17 clothes (17 is the number of hangers I can still hold in one hand, it seems), and this time around came out with 4 matches. Yay! Then hit C&A... not extected, but out of 3 blouses I ended up with 2, then had to hit a lingerie store because - for the first time in my life - I need a body shaping slip. Yep, I've reached that age, it seems. Then I bought two dresses that looked nice, but would be better with a slip that tucks my belly in, so I've got one.

By the way, slips are a nightmare! I hate clothes you have to fight and subdue first.

Finally I went to MNG, where I had my hopes really high, tried out some 14 pieces... and came out only with one that isn't perfect-perfect, but it's good.

Right now I'm tired, so I'll got to the fridge, open myself a Smirnoff Ice, look for something yummy to much, make the bed and fall into it until tomorrow.

As an after thought, though, I've been thinking about task 13, and it is possible I'll start the horror story I've been talking to a penpal of mine about. ^_~

(Note: I didn't get that dress, but I'd love to!)

Hard to Get Black

The "List of 13" already made my day. It's really awesome to have something like this, like a box  containing 13 adventures to complete before June. I planned to get the first task done - had even checked out some pieces I wanted to try out on the Internet - but it happens that getting black clothes is far harder than you'd imagine. Yes, buying black clothes is a veritable nightmare.

Today I checked out a Marks&Spencer, a Tatuum, an Esprit and an MNG, looked at hundreds of clothes, tried out at least 15 dresses and bought a Grand Total of none. Yes, four stores and 17 dresses later I've bought none. It was already hard to fund Summer-fitting black clothes based on cut and fabric, but then, as I tried the selected ones on, non of them fitted me well or were well cut. For once, I discovered that I'm not a 12 (US sizes) as I thought (or a 14, as I originally thought), but an 8 (which is weird, because I actually gained weight), and yet the clothes didn't fit me. Smaller clothes were too tight on the wrong places, and bigger ones drowned me, while those that were supposed to be good weren't flattering at all, with odd angles, with tight and loose spots at the wrong parts.

In this quest I realized one sad thing: prints and colors are often used to disguise the imperfection of the clothes made. Also, the simplest cuts and shapes can reveal the biggest flaws and shortcomings, and today I seem to have found them all. However not everything was lost, as I managed to complete the second task: get myself (at least) a pair of black jeans. This one was a very happy, very joyful experience. Without thinking I went to a Levi's store, where I simply said to the sales guy that I wanted a black pair of straight cut jeans. Without searching all over the place, he went for the perfect cut, and pegged me for a pair three sizes smaller. The sweetheart, he didn't know I always get a pair one size bigger since I like my pants just a tad big (I hate to wrestle myself into my pants, or even the feel of clothes being snug, and prefer that soft, slight looseness of clothes a bit stretched out. I know jeans normally stretch, so you are supposed to buy a pair that's very tight, but I still prefer them already bigger).

Slipping into the perfect pair, at the perfect size was like a dream. Legs sliding around my legs, waist line somewhat bigger than my waist, but that's nothing a little fitting can't fix, and hips just perfect. Why can't everything be this simple?

To finish the day, I tried to complete my first movie of the week, but I couldn't bring myself to watch either Battleship nor 21 Jump Street, so I went to my favorite café restaurant, and ordered a delicious Raffles Singapore Sling and some washi rolls. Both of them were to die for. So I checked also the cocktail of the week.

I'll give the first task another try tomorrow at a different commercial center, and also try to slide in one of the movies of the week. If things go well, I'll also try and get two things I'll need to prepare for two more of the tasks, but that will be a secret until tomorrow. ^_^

I've been thinking about making this List of 13 something constant in my life, or at least for a while. I've already been thinking about new tasks to add, new little adventures and tasks to include. 13 is a magical number for all the ideas and thoughts it provoke, so that's why I'd like to keep on that the number of tasks and adventures I'll set for myself. I haven't decided to the period I'll give to each List of 13, maybe 4 weeks for each, so that in a year I get 13 lists as well... from Full Moon to Full Moon, or Waxing Moon to Waxing Moon, New Moon to New Moon... who knows. The ideas are good, the projects and lists are fun. I'll decide when I make up my mind about it... and maybe by the time I make my next list.

Hot Spring

It couldn't wait another day, so today I hit the shoestore (Deichmann, if you must know) and bought a couple of shoes. Yes, a couple of shoes. I needed them, really. When I came from Costa Rica in April,. I brought only a couple of shoes with me - basically a pair of black pumps, my black wedge heel crocs (which I use for work constantly, not that I'm working now), my flat purple crocs shoes, and my black boots. There was no more space for any other shoes, though I still have lots and lots of them, bit these were all I could bring. I had another pair of black pumps and black boots here and my red home sleepers. These have proved okay until the warmth broke in, and my ankles and feet started to swell from the heat! My soles felt like burning every single day, and I dreaded going outside because none of my shoes could be used without socks! I do have a pair of pink flip-flops, but I also use them inside, and so we don't really want to bring the dirt from outside into the appartment. However something had to be done.

I must admit that I love seasonal shopping. Stores overflow with products and several good bargains can be found, since some stores try to steal away the customers of others, but also outrageous prices. I'm still not very versed in the shoeshop tricks of Hungary or Europe (as I am in Costa Rican shoe shops), but after some windowshopping and comparing prices (which I also did in Vienna now that we were there), I realized what everybody knows, that by walking just a little you can find pretty much the same shoes in a lower price. It's okay to check for bargains, because even the more expensive shoes can have flaws or defects, that could be reinforced in less expensive ones. For instance, the first thing I check on a shoe is the sole, because I have had problems with soles coming off, and I know how terrible that can be! And sadly, nobody really thinks about carrying a spare par of shoes just in case. The I check the inside of the shoe and the way the sole has been attached to the shoe. It's only after the shoe has passed these paramethers that I try them out.

During my checkings, I found in Deichmann these cherry printed sandals. I'm not big on sandals, but I really needed sandals specifically due to the heat, and somehow I couldn't get the cherry printed ones out of my head.The print resembles a lot the printing on the dress Marilyn Monroe used in one of the scenes of the movie Misfits. Perhaps it's because of that movie and because I like Marilyn Monroe very much, or because I love cherries, but the shoes stayed with me.

It got me thinking also about the way seasons influence even the way people select their clothes. It's not only the type of clothes, but even the printing and the colors. More and more people are out there not only in shorter clothes, but also lighter or wearing bright, Spring-like colors, and the girls in tiny, tight shorts with floral prints, or small mini skirts filled with whimsical little flowers all over are the statement of the fashion. It's like women take it to themselves to bloom along with Mother Nature.

Shoes in brilliant colors and floral prints also show around everywhere. A tiny black mini skirt with opaque black tighs and feet tipped in royal blue, lacquered pumps. Flowy black dress and nude colored pumps. Purple and yellow flats, or denim sandals printed richly with flowers, or linen raw colored wedge sandals with flower patterns formed with beads and rhinestones walk around tipping legs wrapped from the knee up in cargo pants or short jeans (not cutoff! Europeans don't really wear cut off jeans!). The heat is here and we are all whilting, but we all do it in style.

Gift Pack from L'Occitane

What a wonderful day I had today! I finished a letter for a friend in Malaysia, I received a letter from a friend in Germany - a very thick letter! - had delicious cottage cheese sweet balls for lunch, and then went to post my Malaysian friend's letter. Dear, I hope she gets my letter this time! Just in case I scanned the letter to make sure she gets it either physically or digitally.

In February (or maybe March?) during one of my regular purchases at L'Occitane the salesgirls offered me the L'Occitane Club Card (yes, another frequent buyer card. What a surprise). As part of the benefits of the membership there are discounts, premiums, access to special products, but also in the begining you get a set of "L'Occitane's Best". To get it you have to do a purchase after you receive an e-mail and before the period indicated in the e-mail ends. Well, you don't have to ask me twice, specially when here the products of L'Occitane are much more affordable than in Costa Rica, so I went to buy my beloved handcream, footcream, cuticule cream (all these of Shea Butter) and a daycream of olive oil to better attend my face. (Though the shea butter cream is the best for moisturizing - I can testify! - the olive oil cream helps to keep the needed water in the skin, even in oily skin, without making it oily.) It happens that there was also a promotion to introduce the almond products - most of them slimming, since summer and bikini season is comming! - if you bought products for a given amount. If you weren't a club member, you could buy a the promotional package at a very low price, but if you were a club member, then you've got it for free. Well, what would you think, with my purchase I actually got my "L'Occitane's Best" and my promotional "Almond" gift for the same purchase!

It's amazong, but I feel so set! ^_^ I've a lot of awesome products, and got them for a really unique price -  you gara admit that I did catch a very, very good promotion! - then treated myself with a nice dinner at my favorite restaurant, started working on a really awesome blog-post topic (probably for tomorrow) and went to see a very interesting movie, "Gone", with Amanda Seyfried.

Today's day was... amazing! It's amazing how something simple or how a good handcream and a great deal can make us feel like a million bucks. ^_^

A Thought On Parfumes

In preparation for Easter, and as part of our agreement, today I went out to check on parfumes and potential "Easter Spraying Parfumes". As any woman would do it, I went online and asked my friends - my girlfriends! - for their advise in the matter, and I quickly got a smashing load of suggestions. Halloween ranked quite high, and I must admit that I'm an addict for Halloween (though also have a very soft spot for Pure Poison!), but I also checked on excelent suggestions, such as Nina Ricci - I actually liked Nina more than Nina L'Elixir - and Cool Water, by Davidoff. I was surprised with Ange ou Démon, which captured that I wanted reflected in it: the equinox. Found also a couple of samples of Naf Naf parfumes, particulary liking Naf Naf Too. Wasn't much taken for Jean Paul Gauthier, possibly because I'm not that strong and adventurous, and I rather have my scents to reflect a softer, more feminine side of me.

I checked a couple of places and stroded around the aisled holding a bouquet of paper strips properly marked with the name of the parfume and the price, fetching for the coffee beans every so often to clean my nose of the gathered scents. Tomorrow I plan to go on another trip down to other parfumeries, to keep on trying. Do I have favorites? Well, I'm a Halloween type, so yes, I love Halloween Fever, but Naf Naf Too is wonderful, Cool Water is fresh and both Nina and Ange ou Démon took me by surprise.

According to the agreement, the final decision will be made by my boyfriend, so we won't know until Easter Monday.

Another Hectic Sunday

Something must be definitively out of order whrn you wake up on a Sunday at 6:45 am all by yourself. No alarm, no plans, no trip to the beach only a disjunctive: join my usual yoga class at 10:30 am or join my friends for breakfast at this awesome location some miles away driving, with the opportunity to meet new people, update on information and plunge into the most recent topics of conversation hot on the cyberuniverse - which I may or may not know of. This was a Twitter Breakfast, a uniquete kind of meeting where you can synch with the rest of the community, or at least be updated on the latest trends without having to sacrifice your own usual search. (For instance, I'm quite disconnected of the local gossip and national actuality, as I'm more stuck in telecommunications, Amazon.com, books and American Politics.)

As I was starting my Sunday as any other Sunday, I realized that I still had to wash Sookie. But not only that. Kari and I had decided to take my older nephew for shopping to get him scubba diving equipment (he's birthday is close and his aunt - me - thinks that a T-shirt and a Chinese Chess game ins't nearly enough). Then I realized that I had to get going with Lau's scrapbook project, so either I worked on it now or I would never be ready. As result Sookie got washed and waxed, but neither the yoga class not the Twitter Breakfast were doable under my current situation.

It's kinda sad that two things that are important to me, that could be among the last one I can attend in my life, are moved for something one could say I can do any other time. Well, no. Yes, say, but I had to cancel on both for the reason that though I could do scrapbooking any other time  - pictures are not going anywere - scrapbooking is a very time consuming thing and either you get doing it on schedule, or you end up with no margins of time left, holding into any available, free minute to work on them.

It reminded me of studying and even working. Sure, you can think you can study any time, you can work anytime, but exactly that sort of thinking is what pushes you later to be unable to do it anytime, because either you do it now or you'll never get done with it, and you'll fail or lose what you where aiming for with the project. I didn't plan my time well with this project and I ended up running out of time, and as result now I have to give up things I would love to do, in order to catch up on the project and get it by the last available time possible for me.

From this I leave you a question: Are you looking forward for Hectic Sundays? Is your schedule really as flexible as you pretend it is, or are you working yourself a whole lot of rushing and trouble? Pressure isn't fun and it can end up being really expensive.

Organize your time well. Plan your activities.

Scrapbooking!

Today is my brother's birthday. ^_^ Watching him get older each day - and the years he's counting! - makes me remember that I'm not that young anymore. (He's two years my junior.) It's not like I'm delusional, thinking I'm still some snot nosed kid, but my actual age doesn't down on me as much as on the day of my little brother's birthday. Getting him a present is quite hard too - as it usually is for a woman to get a present for a man, because we can't relay on the easy things there are to give to women: jewelry, make up, body creams, splashes, purses... - but in the end we picked up a sort of organizer with many transparent drawers, where you can store screws and nails and tiny things like that. He'll probably use it to store his spare LEGO pieces. Another year solved, 364 days to go for the next one. Oh, sorry, 365 days as 2012 is a ... how do you say in English? Leaping year?

Aside from my brother's birthday, today is Saturday, which is usually a good "errand day" for me. In this particular Errand Day, I've got my first scrapbook album. ^_^ Well, not mine, as the project is going to be for my Mom and my sister-in-law and I are going to asseble it together. (I think I've explained this before, but it goes like this: Lau was making scrapbooks for herself, we decided to make one for Rose, then I decided to make one for Lau, and Mom saw it and she said she would like one for herself too. Then I decided to make it along with Yul, so the scrapbook contains the things of Mom's both kids ^_^.) The idea is to pick 100 pictures (50 mine and 50 Yul's), so I calculated how many sheets we would need to set the 100 pictures, and worked around a ballpark amount for the project. Then, thanks to my trusty datebook, I planned the benchmarking of supplies (album, extra sleeves, pages), and  I decided to make it today the day I would go pick up the supplies we required for it.

Close to my old highschool, there's this tiny house that keeps odd open hours, which is filled with all sorts of scrapbooking supplies that range from the expected to the stranges and most unexpected things I wouldn't even know how to hold on the right side. I though I was going to last a couple of minutes in there as I already had a list of what I needed, but the salesgirl was soon instructing me on the techniques and arts related to scrapbooking. And here I thought it was about pasting the pictures and putting some decoration on it. Oh no.

She explained that two pages one next to the other should always match somehow. Didn't need to be alike, but a certain theme should always carry on. The sheets, which for me were just the base to paste the pictures, are supposed to be layered, often treated with special drawing chalk for an aged effect and nothing that wasn't acid free should go on the pictures. (Holy fucking shit! I must have been assembling Laura's the wrong way! Nothing of my supplies are acid free! They sure as as acid as lemons!)

She took the chance to show me her own "multi-topic" scrapbook album - many with pages I honestly considered down right of poor taste (not offensive, just terribly designed and envisioned) - and was quick talking to me about how wonderful the owner was, and how great her style and vision for arranging pages - and indeed the pages she told me the owner had helped her with were honestly beautiful! - managing the layering of different pages, and how a double sided paper (like all I bought...) were used only as accent as the back was usually plain, one color and build on that with the design.

... My boyfriend was, meanwhile in the car - BLACK CAR! - under the noon sun cooking himself extra crispy.

My eyes fell then on the stamps and I'm crazy for stamps!!! 'Letter decoration' I thought at once - fuck scrapbooks, I need something to eventually grace up my letters, and stop being the only penpal with plain paper... filled to the margings with words. Most of them where phrases and those with pictures were mostly about babies. There was one "October 31st" and what sort of witch (figurative or real-life... depends on how you see it, either as I'm a fun, crazy person, or because I'm observing ancient celebrations - now called Pagan celebration - or because you think I'm a monster who lives only to destroy the poorly done job of others and rip at their throats instead of being benign and let them be in their incompetence) would I be if I didn't jump at the opportunity of having THAT? ^_^

Seeing that I would soon be left with no boyfriend, but a big gooey mess of melted boyfriend in my car, I did my best to make my way out, however I must admit I was caught. I left the store wishing to know more, holding my purchase and a business card with their phone number, promising myself to recruit Lau and Yul to come with me to the shop again for a class. Is this the beginging of yet another, serious hobby?

A Question of Bra

If you watch those shows about taking some woman who has a poor dressing style and "teaching" her how to dress fashionably and in style, often the most important remark is "choose the underwear that's right for you". This "underwear question" is often directed to the bra, and not as much to the knickers, probably because there's more form fitting in bras than in culottes (or maybe because boobs tend to sag more than buttocks... or Hyne knows...), and either way, with today's tiny thongs what support and molding would it do?

Now the bra question in itself isn't as simple as you would think. It's not like a pair of knickers where you can wear anything size ... M, just to give you an example, but first of all you have to know your size. In theory to do this you must take two measurements:

1. First you measure yourself right under the line of the breast and around your back. (Around where the bra would go.) I'll assume we all use the inch measurement for bras here. (So conversion need to be done in Europe and anywhere where bras don't start at 31, but at 70.) So, you take that measurement and if the number is even you add 4 to it, and if it's odd you add 5. For instance, you are 28 inches around and under the breast. 28+4=32. Also, if you are 31 inches around, you are 31+5=36.

2. Then you measure again around, but this time there where your breast if the fullest. This is usually at the height of the nipples.  Here you take the difference between the first number (with the 4 or the 5 already added!) - known as bra band number - and this number, and so you get your cup size. One inch difference makes you an A, two a B, three a C, four a D and so on.

(More on measurements here.)

However if you've been bra hunting, you know that all that's nice and good, but the world doesn't work like that. Oh no, it doesn't. You can know by measurements that you ARE a 32C, and when you get to the store there's not one freaking 32 C willing to fit you, and instead you end up walking home with a 36B or a 31D or any other oddity. The style, the stitching, the fitting and even the advise from some salesgirls who actually urge you to just "fit them into the cup" isn't much of the help you need either. Not much people tell you either that the cup should hold the WHOLE breast, and that means that the cup should reach quite close to the armpit, otherwise it's uncomfortable, it can look bad (like you have more than two breasts, or like you are fatty, which you are not), not to mention the pain and other unpleasant things that it can  do for you. (I've heard it can provoke all sorts of lumps in your breasts, but I've not hard evidence on this.) So that "grab them and fit them into it" isn't really a smart thing to do.

Bras should go when they are stretched out, have lost their shape or are no longer the right size for you. If you are a flat chested chick like me, you can manage to use sport bras or little fitting tops or even go around comando, but if you are a bit more "generous" neither of these is really an option. (Many flat chested women are already used to this fact and don't mind it, so a sport's bra that usually flattens you even more isn't much of a problem.) Either case, the time might come when you need a more "dressing bra", something a bit more structured, that not only keeps your breasts in place and safe from unpleasant jiggling, but also something that gives you a better shape and allows you to fill your blouses and dresses in a more flattering way. This day is when The Hunt starts.

Unlike with the easy tops and sports bras you can get at your local drugstore or supermarket - often using a simple measure system as S-M-L - the shopping for a real bra undertakes a whole quest that starts at specialized stores, lingerie stores and similars. Here, from the wide arrange of options that go from half cup, full cup, sexy, support oriented and Hyne knows what other options (mainly you go there and see those that go from whore-like sexy to nun-like orthopedic), you must or should have an idea of what you want to get. It's important for all girls and women to remember that the bra is for you, so either you pick the whore or the nun bra, that shouldn't be influenced by your marital status, but only by what you want to wear and what are you comfortable with. Recently I was bra hunting and one of the bras I tried on was a "push-up and show" kind that basically grabbed my small boobies and smashed them together in front of my chest and pulled them up. I bet it's sexy for many and I looked like I had HUGE boobs, but I wasn't comfortable with it. They were unnaturally pulled to the center pointing forward like Aphrodite from Mazinger Z. Probably a dozen women would kill for a bra like that, but I'm not one of them. Some like their breasts to touch and form a line between them, others don't. Some want something pretty to show off with blouses and dresses with clivage, and others want something that fits well a shirt and gives structure to a costume. And so you must put on your comfortable shoes, wear pants or skirt and a comfy blouse or shirt easy to take off and put on, and get lots and lots of patience.

Unless you have a favorite, secret little store that always get you what you desire, The Hunt implies visiting an endless number of stores, trying an even bigger amount of bras in order to find the one or the few ones that are going to fit your needs. Trying on several bras and walk out of the store with none of them is not unheard of, but also it may happen that you visit store after store and you simply don't see a thing that would appeal to you. Or there's also the case when you find something that looks pretty, you would really love it and when you try it out it stands weird on you. This can be one of the worse cases, particularly if you've been already hunting for a good bra for weeks. (This is also why guys have to be so tremendously careful when buying us underwear. It might look like something you would looooove to see on us - only to take it off later, of course - but then it happens that we would like to wear it and the pretty little sexy thing fits us oddly. So, you can buy us underwear, just make sure you can return it and change it in case of need.)

As noted earlier, recently I was on a bra hunt, and to add to all the difficulties proper of this task, I found yet another one: many stores don't work all sizes. And I'm not talking here of the bigger sizes (over D) or smaller sizes (under B), I'm talking about many regular sizes. In this recent hunt I found out that many stores have huge stocks of B cup sized bras with lots of band sizes. Now, you can be a 32C, that the salesgirls will try to talk you into a 34B or 36B. Sure, a B will make you look bigger because your breast won't fit into a smaller cup, so it will swell up all over the place, from the top, from the sides and you'll look like you've overgrown your bra, but in my eyes that doesn't make you look bigger, it makes you look deformed. Smaller cups actually flatten even more your bra and give you that unsightly multi-breasted look you really don't want to have. Or, you'll look fat and flat chested. (Bras supported with wires have the tendency to mark your breast making it look like your breast is only what fits the cup, and the rest is fat.) So, in addition to everything you've already gone through you've also have to start by FINDING your size at the store, and then hopefully find it in the type of bra you want to wear.

Yes, a good bra can make the difference. It can actually make you look slimmer, more proportionated, mark better your waist or even make it look smaller, it can make your clothes look like they were tailored specifically for you, it can make you look groomed and perfect... or it can make you look fat, deformed and tacky. It can make you look like one of the boys or like a goddess, so yes, when the time is right and you feel like it's time to get that bra, and commit to the hunt, you will eventually get That Bra (and you know what I'm talking about. It's the Perfect Bra, the Sexy Bra, the Woman Bra, the Hmmmm Bra), but aside from that, aside from making you look the way you want, it gets more meaning for you, because of - yes - the hunt and the dedication you've put into finding it.