Retail Roundup

And now for a mostly non-ironic news item. A Costa Mesa woman named

Suzy Stevens recently won the “Southern California Best Italian Dish

Contest” sponsored by Maggiano’s Little Italy restaurant.

Stevens’ winning dish was crab and wild mushroom-stuffed orange

roughy, which sounds pretty good as long as orange roughy is what we

think it is (Fish, right?).

The contest helped raise $1,000 for the Orange County Affiliate of the

Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and we think that’s great.

TIE US UP, TIE US DOWN

OK, enough of the serious stuff. Let’s get on to the trivial heart of

things.

We were quite pleased to get a package in the mail from the Neckwear

Assn. of America, a group that can always be counted on for some profound

observations on things tie-related.

This time around, the shiniest pearl of wisdom the association

delivered had to do with finding a fine tie.

“Check for quality details,” the association noted, “like properly

aligned tipping, nicely rolled edges, and slip-stitched interlinings.”

Hmmm, yes. Quite right.

Unfortunately, we know even less about properly aligned tipping than

we do about stuffed Roughy. So we’ll just have to keep sporting our Van

Heusen neckwear, because we’re pretty sure it looks chic.

NEWS FLASH

A shocking announcement was faxed to us from the “financial advisors”

(i.e. copywriters) at American Express.

“According to a recent American Express Retail Index survey,” the

company solemnly noted, “people are already admitting they will spend

more than they have budgeted.”

Goodness gracious! And this probably means people will have to use

their credit cards!

At Retail Roundup, we are way past thinking that we “will spend” more

money than our budget specifies. Our finances are very much past tense:

we “have spent” more money than we budgeted, and we “have spent” money in

this way for years and years. We also “will be spending” the rest of this

decade trying to pay off the accumulated debt from our various credit

cards.

But we don’t mind, really. That’s just the price of being fabulous.

Happy shopping, one and all.