Gossip Guy

Hey Faux Hillary's,
Gossip Guy here. Looks like Faux Hillary is on a much needed vacay down in New York City. But maybe our intrepid Village rat is a little bit out of his league? Spotted outside of the Frick - K. and FH slogging through the slush.

Perhaps FH doesn't yet understand the rules of the UES. How can you spot a Park Ave. neophyte? Its all about footwear. Word to the wise FH - on The Upper East Side - even the dogs wear Uggs.

You know you love me,

xoxo

Gossip Guy

Bardly There

A Faux Hill Conversation - in Haiku Form:

"Some bitch stole my uggs."
"How do you know?" She asked me.
"They all look the same."

Confessions of an Applicant

"There comes a time in everyone's life - when you truly have to ask yourself: do you want to go to law/business/med school?"
- Thanks Nada Surf, for allowing me to rip off your mid nineties ironic hit, Popular.

January and February are grad school application months. Your average Faux Hillary is busy tracking down their favourite university professor to ask for a letter of recommendation for their application to the London School of Economics, or busy booking their interview circuit at various medical schools. To quote El Huerd - re. medical school interviews at U of T, where they give you only two weeks notice, "the entire interview system is biased to help your classic fourth year psych major at Western, its not like she has a job that she has to miss to come into Toronto for her interview! Besides - she probably comes home to Toronto every weekend anyway."

In times like these my collective class is lying awake at night thinking of potential answers to the "tough questions" they're going to have to answer on their application or in the interview.

Although the words change per application the basic query is as follows: "Why do you want to be a lawyer/ doctor/ ruthless business person?" And just as the question is basically the same for every application, so are the answers. Only in these situations, we all spend our days fluffing up our answers with feel good stories. Take Bold Sharon who is currently reading application essays herself (as part of her ability to be both a mom and successful career woman). Do you know how many stories she's read along the following lines: "meeting "johnny" who was dying of cancer, precipitated my life-long love of pediatrics, and its why I'm applying to medical school today - so I can make a difference in kids like johnny's life." 50% of medical school applicants contain a variant of that story.

So instead of fluffing up our reasons for further education, why not simple and brutal honesty?

Take for example, my NYU application, which asks the following:

Think about the decisions you have made in your life. Answer the following (750 word maximum):
(a) What choices have you made that led you to your current position?
(b) Why pursue an MBA at this point in your life?
(c) What is your career goal upon graduation from NYU Stern? What is your long term goal?

Don't think I didn't slap something together about public service and working in a not for profit and becoming a leader in the community, because I did.

But what if I actually wrote what was really on my mind, something along the lines of this:

"Dear NYU Stern School of Business:
Having dated my way through most gays in the Faux Hill and RosedAle - I feel like it is high time that i move to New York City so I can meet a proper Upper East Sider with a trust fund. And if all else fails completing an MBA will allow me to maintain the lifestyle I'm currently accustomed to.

Best,
Jonathan

p.s. do I get points for being under the word limit?"

What is it? The truth will set us free?

Finally Faux!

I sauntered down Yonge Street yesterday in a bid to get a present for someone - (my boss wanted a faux Louis wallet, long story, just go with it) - and seeing as I can charm the pants off retail employees, Terroni waiters and straight women, my purchase of said tacky wallet, the store clerk threw in a change purse for the low low price of free. WWSD my friends. WWSD.

And so - I am now the proud owner of a faux Louis Vuitton change purse - next time you see someone (ie me) buying a latte at Starbucks and counting their pennies out of what appears to be real Louis - look closely - that shit is Faux.

Living my faux life in Luon (the Lululemon fabric) I found myself with Maglet at the Opera last night. I fancy myself a future patron of the Ahhhhhhhhhhhhts... I told Maglet not to "salt my game". Standing in Jack Diamond's "City Room" I couldn't help but look at the assembelled crowd of whitey's thinking - surely I must know someone. And not to sound racist, but I mean, doesn't every white person sorta look the same? Especially mid-to-late twenty wannabe yuppies:

She: Blond Hair. Check. Skinny Jeans. Check. Oversized Bag. Check.
He: Awkward expensive denim bought for by girlfriend. Check. Banana Republic Black Wool/Cashmere Blend Coat. Check.

But I'm digressing from the Opera, wherein I ran into a cornucopia of people from my past, perhaps exemplified by my run in with the Whiterocks Great Aunt Peggy. You may remember the Whiterock family from previous dinner parties (Mrs. Whiterock told me that the St Clair streetcar shouldn't run through Faux Hill, as your average Faux Hillary wouldn't be caught dead on the TTC). Aunt Peggy - properly British, is well known for her exacting table manners.

For example Christmas Dinner, Whiterock Household, circa 2002. Desert was served, Sim Sim Sima was caught nibbling on some grapes, to which Aunt Peggy replied:

Sima, my dear, why don't you use the grape shears? Picking grapes off the vine is like picking flesh from the bone.

And that really is, at the end of the day, class distinction at work. Similarly - don't think I wasn't sitting in the cheap seats at the Opera clutching that faux Louis Vouis change purse for all it was worth.

Sigh...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh - and to answer the all important question as posed by N (who was spotted outside of the JCC, where she could found doing a little less schmoozing and a little more schvitzing): Dickensian is a word. I don't make stuff up.

Great Expectations - The Bird Lady

Like any great Dickensian novel this blog is semi-autobiographical (comparison to great literary figure in first sentence is a new record for my own self narcisism). Veiled allusions to real people and real events ensure that I still have friends when I walk down the Forested streets of the Village... the big gossip remains deep in my soul and I'm not spilling the good stuff, unless someone offers me a book deal, then I'll whore myself out like a cheap Amsterdam street worker.

I got yelled at last weekend by a good friend for placing too many expectations on people; bit if a best friend can't give you Dr Phil tough love then who can, right? So, in an effort to understand why I have such Great Expectations I found myself curled up on my couch late Friday night reading the Sparks Notes of Great Expectations (like I have time to read a Dickensian novel on a Friday night) and by reading, I mean Googling the Sparks Notes.

Miss Havisham, Chuck Dickens', great literary trope holds a heart to many a Friend of Dorothy (FOD). Why? She just may be the ultimate fag hag. Mascara - check. Scorned by a man - check. A little bit of the crazy - check. Don't you just wanna hang out at Satis House, eat chocolate, drink red wine and talk about how much men suck? I know I do. "And then this one time... that bastard Compeyson totally stood me up..." Tell it like it is Shammy. Sing it sister...

Today's query then: is this literary archetype - Wealthy Girls Gone Wild (holla holla to my boy Joe Francis) - a commonality round the Faux Hill? Well - in my limited experience it does ring true... more money, more problems.

While perusing the Real Estate section of the Globe on Friday, which I like to do for sadomasochistic reasons; its more effective then cutting my arm and less messy... I noticed that $1.8 million now buys you a three bedroom house at Lawrence and Avenue (the poor cousin of the Faux). How the fuck am I ever going to afford that? As friend KKK (not her real initials, but amusing nonetheless) once told me over coffee, "Why do think I'm applying to Law School? I may as well just be brutally honest with UofT admissions board: 'Dear UofT Law admissions - having been reaised in an upper middle class neighbourhood I'm pretty sure that if I don't become a Bay Street corporate lawyer I may not be able to ever afford to move back there.'" Thankfully we edited the truth to a more palatable "law school is an avenue to complete my career growth and continue to work for the betterment of Canadian society..." Who wants the truth anyway; falsities are so much more pleasant?

However, my weekly read of the Real Estate section let me know about a lovely RosedAle woman who had inherited her parents house and maintained her residence there until her death, save for a brief respite to Faux Hill. The house was built in 1912 and is basically in its original condition (on offer for the low low price of $6 million). Such a story couldn't help but make me think of the Faux... where we have our own Miss Havisham in the likes of the Bird Lady. The Bird Lady, an esoterically eccentric woman, lives down the street from the Two-Fer in a house that was originally owned by her parents.

Now instead of time having stopped at twenty of nine (the time Havisham learns of her fiance's deceit) the Bird Lady's house is stuck in a time capsule to the year her parents died. Think nineteen fifties Eisenhower chic. The Bird Lady's childhood bedroom has never been remodelled; its still decorated with pink wallpaper and filled with original Nancy Drew novels (which I used to borrow and read during grade school, prompting some kid to look at me and say: "only girls read Nancy Drew novels." Girls and fags read Nancy Drew... Why do you think Ned Nickerson never got near Nancy's pants - Ned was a closet 'Mo).

The Bird Lady HAS however maintained the family house in conjunction with her parents input long after their death. How? Well when deciding to repaint a couple of years ago - the Bird Lady hosted a seance where she asked the rents what shade of grey would work best with the exterior stucco. Good to know that you get the Benjamin Moore Colour Wheel in heaven eh? I hope there's internet porn up there too.

So why is the Bird Lady called the Bird Lady? Well... the Bird Lady has turned an entire room of her house into an aviary. Approximately twenty budgies have free reign of the front room because - the Bird Lady doesn't believe in cages [to quote Bold: Isn't the room just a giant cage anyway? Sing is sister. Update from Bold: she's in Mexico, Feliz Something]. I once had the opportunity to care for the Bird Lady's animals. Instructions were scrawled on a piece of paper: "Miss Josephina Pussy Willow Cohen [the cat] - likes her food strewn about the house. Don't use a dish - just throw a handful of food wherever you want. She'll find it." Crazy thine name is...

There is something quite charming in these eccentricities. The Bird Lady is a complete and utter rebellion from the manicured lifestyle of your typical Villager. There ain't no Uggs to be found in her front hall, par example and in fact her front lawn is so overgrown that Canada Post threatened to stop delivering her mail. During the great blackout of 2004 the Bird Lady was the only house on the block that actually had power (thanks to her solar powered roof). Who was laughing then?

Not sure of the moral for today's story, expectations lead to hurt, while living without expectations lead to being a crazy bird lady? I'm sure the answer is some shade of grey (preferably picked out by your dead parents) but in the meantime - perhaps this will be a choose your own ending _________________________________.

Happy February.

~FH

A Pact with God

Finding a partner is a relatively hard thing to do. Finding a mate in the Village is even harder, considering the average Faux Hillary probably gave hand jobs to a couple of potential partners at sleep away camp or copped a feel in the park outside Forest Hill Village Elementary during high school to a few others. No one wants to go back marked territory, ya know?

So HOW does one find a mate these days? Damned if I know, I'm gay - and it's a totally different world (for reasons I don't really comprehend)... but for the straights there are three primary options:

1) The Set-Up
- a friend says: "hey have you ever met my friend Benji - he's a lawyer at McMillan Binch, went to Associated Hebrew Day School, he's two years older then you, just bought a condo, parents belong to Beth Shalom... I think you'd really get along."

2) A Jew-Do
- picture 500 people who vaguely know each other from camp packed into a bar at Yonge and Eglinton. Can you cut the sexual tension with a Challah knife or is it just me?

3) J-Date
- internet dating, you post your profile and as in the Beach Boy tome Surf City - there are two girls for every boy (if I was straight - man oh man - I'd be married right now, sexually unfulfilled but...), you meet and realize you have 35 common friends on Facebook. The internet has expidated the process... Mazel tov all around!

So what to do if you still can't find a life-partner? You turn to God.

Take my friend - the Village's Favourite Oyster -and her best friend Naomi. Naomi realized that at 23 she'd never had a proper boyfriend and decided it was high time for something beyond a casual relationship. So... eschewing the ever popular J-Date Naomi turned to religion. And by religion I don't mean ditching designer denim for long skirts and the latest edition of Vogue for a Siddur... I mean she lay in her bed, closed her eyes and went directly to the source - God.

"Dear God - if you send me a nice Jewish boy... I promise to keep kosher and I'll join the Sisterhood at Beth Shalom synagogue." [The Sisterhood is the female volunteer chapter... they organize stuff...]

Not a week later did Naomi run into a suitable mentsch and four dates into their courtship things are going so well that the Sisterhood at Beth Shalom is infused with a new volunteer spirit, a volunteer who is still, thankfully, rocking her Rock and Republics.

Let me know if it works out in the long run Naomi, because hey - I'll join the Brotherhood at Beth Shalom if Hashem sends someone my way. On second thought - maybe I should join the Brotherhood regardless?

The Post

Look... someone actually paid me for this shit.

http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=265151

My Two Villages = Village Mentalities...

Confessions of a Montrealer

It's a bit hard to mock your neighbourhood and faux friends when you're staying in a three star hotel overlooking the worlds ugliest depressed highway, the Decarie Expressway, in a distant corner of Montreal. So my apologies for the lack of Faux Hill lifestyle updates of the rich and famous (oh my god that Faux Hillary's shameles...). Besides - with Gossip Girl now taking over the TV, perhaps, my raison d'etre is sorta... no more. "Spotted outside of David's by Day..."

The Two-Fer has faced a challenging week, as our patriarch and my grandfather passed away last Tuesday, and with the exception of a couple of emails I sent to friends telling them that my Pops has died (and by Pops I meant my grandfather NOT Papa Len) this really has been no laughing matter.

When you eulogize someone who you know for 25 years but whom you didn't really know (ie... you never once called them crying about the state of your life) an odd dichotomy emerges. On one hand my grandfather was someone who had consistently been there for his grandchildren (to quote Bold: "you couldn't have asked for a better grandfather") but on the other hand friends and boyfriends whom I've known for only a year or two probably know more about me then Pops. Especially boyfriends... once you've fingered someone's ass I'd say your bound to them for life.

On the plane back from Montreal, realizing that I had run into an ex about two hours before take-off, I realized that relationships subsequently seem to come and go, oscillate through time, forever impermanent; while the ties of family are forever binding in a world where permanency is hard to purchase.

So what else is pretty permanent? Moishe's. Moishe's is the grand damn of Jewish Montreal steakhouses, a restaurant that has matured over the years in conjunction with its Jewish Montreal clientelle so much so that a filet mignon is now in the fifty dollar range. Moishe's opened in 1938 on the Main (St Laurent Blvd) at a time when Montreal's Jewish Community was struggling to define itself as a minority group in Canada's then pre-eminent city. Read a Mordechai Richler book if you want to truly understand what life in Jewish "village" around St Urban Street, in Montreal, was like in the thirties and forties.

As did the Jewish population grow in numbers and prominence so did Moishe's. Just as Duddy Kravitz moved further and further up the Westmount Hill... so did the prices of a Moishe's shrimp cocktail. As Papa Len said jockingly - when we were growing up in Montreal, we always wanted to meet a Westmount girl. Papa Len grew up, of course, on Park Ave, deep in the heart of Richler's St Urbain street melieue and yet - today - Montreal's Jewish community are only too happy to call Hampstead and Westmount home... Westmount FYI has out Fauxed the Village with its own Ugg store.

Last Friday night found the Faux Hillary family around a table at Moishe's eating steak and telling stories about our beloved patriarch. There was something quite telling about the whole situation almost as if our ability to spend hundreds of dollars on a meal was in thanks to my grandfather's struggle. Pops, like many Jewish immigrants, worked in a Montreal garment factory, putting in enough hours so his son could become the first in the family to go to university and law school.

It was that sacrifice which made Pop's death so hard for the family, as you realize, upon burial, just how important one person can be to your morals, values and sense of self. And as the family left Moishe's I decided that we are, however, Peter's greatest legacy and as we move on - we cannot help but carry a little bit of him with us, not to forget our past, nor live in it - but to carry it forward.

Funnier news to follow.

This is How It's Done in Faux Hill...

I am a fairly obnoxious person. I have no student debt, I lived with my parents for two years after McGill and should I ever truly run out of money I could hop on the subway for one stop and borrow some cash money bling from my parents. Fuck... sometimes I still borrow wine from my dads wine cellar. I'm pretty sure the only thing that gets me by in life are my eyelashes which someone once referred to as "disarming"; certainly its not my looks as a lovely man at a gay bar pointed out to me the other week - "you're not going to be pretty forever, I can already see fat on your face" (don't worry - I purged as soon as I got home).

For the Canadian norm I am a spoiled brat in a pair of $200 jeans and a cashmere v-neck. Fair enough right?

But... in my own defense and much to Sim Sim Sima's surpise at 25 I'm pretty much self sufficient, save for the Tropicana Orange Juice I sometimes steal from the two-fer. And certainly while I finally do pay for my entire lifestyle cutbacks have certainly been made. For example - over Christmas break, as most of my brethren spent a week down Mexico way - I spent a week on an air mattress entertaining houseguests. The only tan this JAP has is from self-tanning (not that I do self-tan, but if I did have a tan you can bet your last sheckle it would be fake as I spend too much money at the Rebel House, Le Paradis and the Bloor Street Diner to afford vacation...) So while life at my above average Canadian wage is doable I have had to cut out some of the perks of a Faux Hill lifestyle.

Not so for some of your favourite Village rat's, because why cut your expenses - when your parents are still willing to foot your bills?

Meet Daniella (or Dr. Daniella as the case may be). The good doctor is a first year resident and making a first year residents salary. She has no medical school debt, because her top of the line lawyer father paid for medical school and her housing costs are minimal at best because her parents bought her the condo she shares with her lawyer husband. Unfortunately Daniella is used to the Pusateri's side of life and as a first year resident she doesn't yet make enough to keep her in the lifestyle to which she's been accustomed. I know what most of you are yelling at your computer: STOP SHOPPING AT PUSI'S DANIELLA, or DO YOU NEED ANOTHER COACH PURSE, DANIELLA? But... just as you yelled at Drew Barrymore in Scream - DO NOT GO OUTSIDE, such insight has more to do with objectivity then anything else... and clearly you nor I have not been spending enough time in the Village (where friends like S. have noticed that long-time Village stalwart Davids by Day has closed up shop, don't worry - I'm sure whatever opens in its place will offer a mesculin mix salad).

So what does a good Doctor of the Village do who is living beyond her means? She asks for an allowance, of course. Silly reader, self sufficiency is for chumps.

Bard of the Village - I'm not a Bard, not yet a Laureate

For awhile the poetry went out of my life, then a celebrity stylist tried to hump me on a dance floor at Alibi as Rhianna sang, Please Don't Stop the Music, and I thought... maybe its time to bring back some music? And maybe if I found music - I'd rediscover poetry. So in 2008 Haiku Friday's return!

What Makes Bubbie Kvell with Naches?

Did you hear about
my grandson the doctah? His
girlfriend, the Lawyah?

Village People

Shana Tova.

I am sick. I know dearest readers - especially the 15 year-old girl from Branksome whom I have angered - (although part of me thinks she is perhaps a ruse that a friend is playing on me to ensure that my self-aggrandization is complete) - are quite worried about this latest turn. Don't worry - I think I'll be ok. Actually according to Bold, I'm totally fine.

I have received some hate-mail in recent weeks and for a time I was worried that the JAP population of the Lower Village had declared Fatwah on me, and that one day I'd be found dead, hung by a Gucci purse at Starbucks. KB gets my cashmere collection.

But on to a 2007 year-in review.

Postings: 49
Hate Mail: 3 (can anyone send me some Hot Male instead?)
Outings: 1.5
Heart Broken: 1
Restraining Orders: 0

So far more successful then my fourth year of university.

And now to 2008 - where we run into a visitor from Beantown: Mona, which coincidentally rhymes with Simona - the lyric from that awful James Blunt song I had on repeat for most of the summer as I sat in my apartment drinking red wine wondering my no one loved me. Then I moved on to Hilary Duff instead, since boyfriends are really... "So Yesterday".

I once argued with my friend Kitty Kat as we pranced through RosedAle, [before she left me for that awful place people call - Calgary] that not everyone if given the choice would reside in the lovely hood we like to call Faux Hill. And I wasn't talking explicitly about my future husband's family who clearly has set-up roots on Douglas Drive in the Ale.

"Nonsense," she argued. Who wouldn't want to live in the Village? Kitty Kat insinuated that EVERYONE, if financially able too would choose to buy a mock Tudor on one of Faux Hill's many Wooded named streets (Elderwood, Silverwood, Robinwood)...

I vehemently disagree. I know people who have loads of money but who wouldn't be caught dead at the corner of Spadina and Lonsdale. Or people who probably make as much as my parents do, yet choose to live in the West End or in the Beaches, most likely because they don't really see themselves as Village People. And what are Village People?

Village People run the gamut of being exceptionally wealthy to those who are simply scrapping by; scrapping by of course in designer clothes. Village People subscribe to a lifestyle. A lifestyle of granite counter-tops in the kitchen, and a late-model German sportscar in the driveway. Because of course even the most over-extended shprintzah can afford the above, the Faux often is Faux.

So on to Mona. Mona lives in a Boston equivalent of the Faux. Her neighborhoud is a 1920's garden suburb filled with Mock Tudors, Georgian Revival's, big Oak Trees, and this being America - there's a Whole Foods down the block (and flags, flags as far as the eye can see). God bless America.

Mona came to visit Sim Sim Sima and My Other Mom (Mom) for a couple of days over the Christmas Break. She arrived in quite the spirits, as she had been at a bridge game the night before. Mona plays bridge with a group of neighbourhood ladies, whom I have nicknamed the Brigade. The Brigade is a group of exceptionally, stupidly wealthy socialites who are Mona's neighbours. The Brigade plays a weekly bridge game that depending on the week, Mona may or may not be invited to. See Mona is a stand-in for the group. Whenever one of the ladies calls in sick, or has to attend some sort of event - she gets bumped up from the minor leagues to play with the big girls. Mona, although a neighbourhood gal, is clearly of a different social class then her over the top friends and so spends most of her time biting her nails hearing all about the lavish trips and parties her friends are planning. The Brigade has never had to work, while Mona secretly supplements her husbands income with teaching. her friends consider her a noble soldier, as she instill Yidishe values in the next generation of wealth, but hey - a paycheck's a paycheck. And so Mona arrived to be with her friends who were just like her and yet the whole time she seemed impressed with what her other friends were doing with their lives. "The Brigade is planning this trip in the summer..." Mona lamented her tenuous inclusion with the group desperately wanting inclusion. The problem of course is that she's not really one the Brigade. She's their poorer cousin, suitable for temporary fun, but never to be considered one of the girls.

And really - therein lies the problem, or one of the problems, of life in the Village. There's always someone who has more money then you and in the Village chances are there are a lot of people who have a lot more money then you do. Sure you can fake it, but you know you're still Faux; and sadly if you live your life like Mona, always at the edges of the inner circle, you'll go crazy. Trust.

So my news years resolution for those who care - Be Happy With What I Got. (And as I write this - Sublime popped onto my itunes - Love is What I got). Fate! Huzzah!

Coming up this season:
- I introduce readers to: The Bird Lady
- Haiku Friday's Return

~Faux Hillary

The Clinton Factor

I know... I promised I wouldn't post unitl 2008... but its a slow day at my not for profit. Since November I sold out to the man (the man being Google) and have placed a Google ad on top of this blog. Why? Because I need stuff and I live so way beyond my means I'm this close to declaring Chapter 11. Save me... Google Ads will eventually make me some shekels by peddling my sorry social commentary, which I already do, so in WWSD mode - why give away for free what you can earn money off of.

I have a bet going with my friend Katherine re. the Google ads - if I make a hundred bucks by April 1st, I'll be buying us dinner at Le Paradis, if not - dinner is on her. So far - I've made $8.38 in just under two months, so people start clicking those ads: Katherine needs a sandwich.

Anyway - Google Ads work by scanning the verbage on your website and finding an appropriate match. Yesterday the Google ad was advertising a singles website (great, why don't you rub it in Google, who are you? Sima? "So - you aren't seeing anyone?" "No." "Really, no one?" "Nope." "Why not?" "I don't know."), which I would imagine would be connected to my increasingly depressing and public singledom. (Also another friend got engaged on Saturday so like... happy happy joy joy).

Today - however, takes the cake. The ad is for the New York Times special section on the Hilary Clinton Democratic Nomaination Campaign. How cool is that? It's almost like I'm connected to the Clinton's, maybe I'll get invited to the White House for Chrismukkah 2009! Me thinkey...

Anyway - click on the ad - Katherine wants moules... and I want a boyfriend.

Hiatus?

Int - Faux Hill Starbucks


A young, twenty-something, female - JENNIFER, enters the Forest Hill Village Starbucks. She is wearing UGGs and a puffy coat. As soon as she enters the shop - her friend, JESSICA turns to greet her.

JENNIFER
Jessica - you're back from Dalhousie.
(beat)
You look amazing!

JESSICA
Thanks. Oh Jenn... My stats exam was awful. I think I failed.

The camera pans across the bustling coffee shop, focusing on:

STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE
Great - now the university kids will be back for Holidays.
(mimicking)
"Brenda - how was your semester?"

* * *

Good times obviously in Starbucks today but - it looks like this blog is on hiatus until 2008. The Rama (Yes - that Rama) is coming in for a visit avec girlfriend, and I'm throwing a Chrismukkah party. Plus let's face it - Faux Hill empties out over the next two weeks and decamps to Puerto Vallarta or Florida. So unless a major gossip outbreak occurs you'll have to wait until 2008 for class tales about twenty something upper middle malaise (and besides - this isn't a WASP blog - so I can't talk about waking up in Rosedale on Christmas eve and getting drunk while opening presents and being disappointed. "You got me an IPOD NANO? I asked for a real one, mother. Way to ruin Christmas and pass the champagne - I'm off to the Toronto Lawn").

2007 was quite the year, though... perhaps I'll do a year in review at some point if I get really bored at work.

Oh and more importantly thanks for reading. And to anyone I've offended - my apologies.

To quote the Rama: Toodles.

Doesn't Everyone Deserve a Little Bit of Cashmere?

Canada's most innovative not for profit - Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children (WSPTOTC) is pleased to announce its newest initiative. This winter will see the launch of "Doesn't Everyone Deserve a Little Bit of Cashmere?" a retail/agricultural social enterprise hybrid that will further our ability to help aimless upper middle class twenty something Canadians find meaning in their lives while also spreading Faux Hill's favourite fabric - cashmere - to those who need it most, migrant Argentinian child labourers.

Doesn't Everyone Deserve a Little Bit of Cashmere? [DEDALBOC] is the world's first social enterprise devoted almost entirely to the cultivation and marketing of cashmere. As a unique enterprise within WSPTOTC, DEDALBOC is at the forefront of the burgeoning social enterprise movement. A social enterprise is a certain type of not for profit that delivers on a triple bottom line: financial profit, social profit and environmental sustainability.

DODALBOC's two-pronged business model, emphasizes our mission statement: Through the cultivation of cashmere, we provide project management and international business experience for the underclass of Canadian youth and through employing local migrant workers we allow people who wouldn't normally be offered the opportunity to share the glory of cashmere.

The integrated manufacturing model works as follows:
1) The cashmere farm - Hacienda Cashmerio Los Potreros - to be developed in Argentinas, famed cattle ranching heartland, only an hour away from the colonial city of Cordoba, will be run by Canadian youths who are affiliated with WSPTOTC. An internship at our cashmere farm will provide the Canadian underclass with practical management and business experience.

The cashmere itself will be harvested and loomed by the children of a nearby village. Their small hands have the perfect mix of agility and nubileness to shorn and subsequently loom cashmere. Because of our reliance on youth labour, costs will also be significantly lower then traditional cashmere farms. The characteristics of Aregentian cashmere will also create a higher quality Cashmere product. Because of our integrated manufacturing model we can offer a higher quality, lower cost product that will be available at our very own retail store: Cashmere 4 You.

2) Come March we will be opening a Cashmere Retail Store - Cashmere 4 You - at Spadina and Lonsdale. The store, will feature our entire cashmere lifestyle line-up of products, including classic v-neck sweaters, cardigans and turtlenecks. Because of our close ties to Argentina we will also be featuring some innovative and unique cashmere products you won't be able to find elsewhere.

Including:
a) Favella blanket - Our favella blanket is modeled after the popular blanket that is used to keep migrant workers warm in their shanty towns. Modified for the Faux hill lifestyle and available in a variety of fashion colours - why not get the Favella Blanket for your loved one? Our favella blanket keeps you extra warm on those cold winter nights!

b) Guacho Cardigan - the gaucho cardigan is modeled after the traditional outfit of an Argentianian cattle rancher. Available in a wide variety of colours the Gaucho look is a post-modern take on the north American cardigan mixed with a traditional South American pauncho.

Furthermore whenever a purchase is made at Cashmere 4 You - you are also buying cashmere for the child workers. A full 10% of revenue is re-invested into the community's cashmere pool. This pool of money allows the community to then purchase cashmere sweaters, at cost, for themselves from the Cashmere Farm. Because of your support and the hard work of Canadian youths, the children of the region will be sleeping warm under cashmere lined blankets!

So come spring, why not buy something that makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the outside AND warm on fuzzy on the inside. After all, Doesn't Everyone Deserve a Little Bit of Cashmere?

Village Love

I have something a bit meatier to talk about - but that shit has got to wait for me to edit and alas I do have a job that sometimes requires me to work (odd - I know for those people who think I sit in my cubicle and stalk people on Facebook, which I do occassionally - especially if I've slept with you - then I probably obsessively look at your profile, even if we last had sex like two years ago, then I chuckle at potentially how fat you've gotten, or about how you started to dig chicks after we slept together nd then I wonder if I'm like toxic or something...) and so a little something more light-hearted for this aft.

But anyway - back to my mother, whom I love dearly, even if, our relationship is quite the Faux Hill mother/son stereotype.

"Why are you so neurotic?" A WASPY boyfriend, whose mother was so removed and cold I retrospectically liked her more then I liked her son, once asked me. "You've met my mother haven't you?" Was my reply.

In her sidetime, when she isn't working or cleaning out our basement in preparation for her move to Mexico (circa 2012), Sim Sim Sima does a fair bit of neighbourhood Faux Hillary schmoozing. Of our neighbours her favourite family is probably the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty does something that makes them a lot of money and live in a large house down the street from us. Sim Sim Sima doesn't realize that they are quite famous Toronto celebrity types - she just thinks their house is really nice and she knows they have a lot of money, which impresses her. "They have Frette linen tablecloths!" More importantly, they have a daughter. A younge, pretty, daughter who will inhereit the Ming Dynasty.

"I was over at Becca's house last night." Becca being the daugther. "Such a lovely girl. So well raised. So well mannered."
"Yes mom..."
"She's always asking how you're doing. I think she has a little crush on you."
"Tell her I like penis."
"Still not interested, not a bit? She's really beautiful."
"Nope."
"You wouldn't have to work."
"I wouldn't be happy."
"But you're single now anyway... Why don't you just try?"

And so it continues and I wonder why Sim Sim Sima doesn't spend more time at Upper Canada trying to find me a nice little gaygetz who wants to go to law or medical school? Will fuck for food. I also make a mean spaghetti sauce, and give a pretty solid BJ. All solid selling points. But whatever... I'm digressing.

To wit - my friend Laura wants me to marry our mutual friend whom I'll call Frizzle. Frizzle is a lesbian. She's also Jewish. We're both Gews, gay jews... so its perfect, right?
"She grew up in Cederville, you grew up in Forest Hill. It's perfect. Love across Bathurst."
"But we're both gay."
"You'll please your parents though..."
"What are we going to do - express our vows over a rainbow coloured scruntchie?"
"Please. Hair scruntchie's - what is this 1996?"

So the question is this - to what extent are boys of the Village willing to go to please their mothers? Or perhaps is the question moot; as I told mom how I did on my GMAT's, she voiced: "maybe you should re-write it - you can probably do better." But really... that's how I know she loves me :)

A Holiday Greeting from the Prime Minister

Dear Village Resident!

Friends, or should I say Chavarim!

Take me to your leader! Oh wait - that's me!

Happy Hanukkah. As part of my party's multi-cultural outreach policy as devised by Secrety of State (Minister of Multi-Culturalism) Jason Kenney (or as his homies call him: Yusaf Abdul Cohen), the MP from the very multi-cultural riding of Calgary South-East, I have targeted your house and your neighbourhood (Faux Hill) as potentially voter rich with "ethnic" swing support. I know what you're thinking - ethnic? me? "But Steve- I'm about as white as you can get." In fact the only ethnic person you probably know is your nanny, but she's of no use to me until you free her from the bonds of indentured servitude (who cares about landed immigrants - not me!). But back to you - because this really is all about you: the residents of Forest Hill. It has been brought to my attention that the Jewish people and their support of the Conservative Part of Canada and our pro-Israeli policy is very important to my political future; and by proxy, subsequently the future of Canada.

Kenney (who isn't gay, FYI so, let's stop the rumours - he's from Calgary - there aren't any gay people in Calgary) has let me know that today is Hanukkah, or Chanukkah. And boy do you guys confuse me with your multiple word spellings... I wasn't quite sure what Hanukkah was so I decided to watch a couple of episodes of the OC with Laureen and the kids (what a precipitous decline after Season 1, eh?). That scrawny yid tried to explain this festival as something about a miracle involving some Macabees and oil... not sure what the miracle is about oil - guess the Macabees had never heard about all that oil due East of Jerusalem? I do, however, understand the plight of the Macabees - too much oil increased commodity exports from Temple Mount which then raised the value of the Shekel on the international market, crippling Tel Aviv's burgeoning manufacturing economy. History, shall we say, continues to repeat itself. Matitiyahu - I empathize...

But let me tell you about the real meaning of Hanukkah... which, as I explained to Heather Reisman last night as we lit the first candle and then played dreidel on the floor of her "Dreidel Spinning Room" as Gerry sang along to Peter Paul and Mary's 'Light one Candle' (he is quite the barritone, I'll have you know, but also don't bet against Heather, lost me many a shekel last night) - the real miracle of Hanukkah is that my government - Canada's New Government (we're still New until the decree comes from my office to change that) - has lasted as long as it has. Be it ineffective opposition leadership from Celine, economically dubious tax cuts and inefficient policies from yours truly - seems like nobody can hold us down. Certainly not Antiochus and certainly not that asshole and my former mentor, the Chin who Shall not be Named (cough cough Brian Mulroney cough cough - Laureen! I think I'm choking on a piece of Hanukkah gelt).

But I am digressing from the point of this letter, and I know, I know, you're all busy eating potato pancakes, or latke's (see how down a white kid from Etobicoke is? I'm so down with the current residents of Etobicoke that they call me Harp-izzle), so let's get to the kosher meat of the matter. As we head into the New Year some of you may once again be thinking of voting Liberal in the on again, off again Spring election. With certain threats of corruption and mismanagement being leveled at my government, all of my hard work at convincing you. I'd like to leave you with one final thought on why you should continue to support me and by proxy the Conservative Party of Canada.

Vote for Steve! He understands your needs!

Oh and I'm just saying, perhaps, we shouldn't listen to Karl Schreiber - threatened with extradition back to the Reich - yes, that would be Germany... Hope my point is as clear as the water in the Dead Sea...

With that - I wish you a very Happy Hanukkah. Looks like Laureen is making me latke's for dinner, yummers!

Heil Harper

Fit Gone Bad

A boyfriend once, after we broke up, had the pleasure of telling me: "listen - its not like I cheated on you." I suppose one has to commend someone for their brutal honesty in the situation, ie, if we stayed together - I WOULD have cheated on you...

I spent Monday night at the Avenue Bar at the Four Seasons with a couple of friends and a wealthy financier... again I work for a not for profit and to quote the pretty, but less intelligent man who sometimes shares my bed: if you work for a not for profit - how do they pay you? [sigh... ]

But back to the Four Seasons, where really... every Faux Hillary likes to play, or at least have their Bat Mitzvah. And so as I sat on a couch eating free cashews and cheese doodles, wondering if my visa was going to be declined upon paying for a Tanqueray Ten martini, I ended up thinking about Fit.

Remember Fit? How your average Faux Hillary likes to find a mentsh or maidel who "fits" the bill. I looked at Fit as an inherent positive... part of the building block that creates a strong relationship. Fit = values, shared friends, background and when planning a life together - Fit makes sense.

So the negative aspect of Fit? Proceed with caution - the following are tales of Fit gone bad.

As I pranced through the Avenue bar the other day - telling Forest Whitaker that I thought his portrayal in the Last King of Scotland was tear worthy - I ended up passing by a table wherein sat an old Friend of Bold (FOB). This Friend of Bold, recently engaged to her high-falutin husband, was sitting, or to quote the gossip rags, canoodling with a very attractive thing in a darkened corner of the bar. I stopped for pleasantries, natch, and introductions. Faux Hillary meet Steven. Steven meet Faux. As the Friend of Bold turned to order another round for her and the dude I innocently struck up a conversation prodding for a bit of information.
"Where'd you meet FOB?"
"Oh around." [That'a lie, everyone knows where they meet people].
"Interesting, do you know her fiance?"
"Of course. We play golf together."
"That's nice. And you work in?"
"Real estate equity. I actually live out in Oakville with my wife and two kids, but often work late, so I have a condo right at Bay and Bloor."
"I love real estate equity!" FOB had ordered by now and after catching up quickly with her on the wedding plans [purple brides maid dresses?! Love it!] I left to relieve myself in the bathroom. Where you may ask is FOB's fiance? Mr. FOB is a globe-trotting executive and Faux Hill success story who is very often in New York City or Washington, leaving FOB to decorate the uptown mansion and play with her burgeoning career in event planning. All things being said though - Fob and Mr. FOB work quite well together - friends from university, they have many mutual friends and in fact they grew up two blocks apart. FOB's mother in law knew FOB's mother from high school. With the exception of FOB spending an evening at Real Estate Equity's condo - not to jump to conclusions, but come on! - it appears as if they Fit the bill. I guess, a question, for FOB - if you were really happy with your fiance -would you spend an average Monday evening canoodling at the Avenue Bar?

Which leads us to cautionary Faux Hill tale of Fit numero duo. Meet Jessica and David. David is the son of a very very well known Faux Hill family. David is one of the loveliest people I know. Literally. David has been groomed to take over his father's business and is dating his beloved high school girlfriend Jessica. David, you might argue is living the Faux Hill dream.

Yet.. everyone hates Jessica. Why? Funny you should ask... its probably because, while in law school at Western, Jessica was known to fuck every and anything that moved. So why keep the boyfriend and spread your legs for everyone this side of Richmond Ave? It appears as if for Jessica the status of dating the finest dauphin in the Faux is too much to give up, and for David, albeit lovely, likes the idealized image of his relationship.

It all boils down to Fit darling... only this time - Fit's gone bad.

Tales from Papa Len

My favourite part about the Village - is its sense of entitlement. People actually walk the place like they own the world. They don't. They own a slice of land that's over-valued and ripe for the current real-estate bubble to burst. Sadly with that bubble goes my inheritance. So to my dearest readers in Dubai - please continue to buy condo's in Toronto and drive up real estate prices thus ensuring that the Faux Hillary's paper worth continues to rise exponentially, merci...

Over at wespawnedboldsharon.blogspot.com Papa Len has recently argued the same thesis. Papa Len, who I'll have you all know, does most of the shopping at Two-Fer found himself over the weekend at our local Loblaws - or as its officially called, "The Village Market". In times of strife Villagers like to support their own [we're like the mob] and currently Faux Hillary's are rallying around Galen Weston Jr. (or G2) who is having quite the time turning around his families storied Loblaws Supermarket chain, which is facing severe competition from Wal Mart (tasteless nouveu riche southerners). While some may argue that the job is not quite fair for young G2 (best known for starting Toronto's snobbish Spoke Club). In comparison his sister Alannah got given a cushy job at Selfridges (in London) while G2 got stuck shilling organic apples. Wonder what G2 did to piss of Hils?

But back to Papa Len - and his weekend foray down to the Village market. As he deftly manouvered his way around the various beauties of the Village and their bugaboo stroller's, he couldn't help but notice the Village's sense of entitlement in action. Hark! In the distance - your typical Faux Hill Mummy and her child. Mother looks a tad frantic - as she thinks to herself: "I can't believe the nanny quit - I am so out of my league. We are NOT at the Yoga studio anymore..." Mother continues to look ashen as contemplates which groceries to buy, while her daugther begins to cry. Apparently the kid is hungry.

So what does your typical Village mummy do? Ever resourceful our Faux Hillary grabs a clementine from a box, peels it and gives it to her daugther. Problem solved... too bad she didn't buy the rest of the box. Why pay for something when you get it for free?

Village Faygeleh's

Faygelleh - Yiddish for bird. Also Yiddish for homo's.

~

I was at a party recently when someone asked me, "So why'd you wait so long to come out?"

Publically I didn't come out until my fourth year of university... I decided, after I spent the summer fooling around with the stock boy at the Gap, that I was indeed a proud member of the population that is 10% more fabulous then the rest of you. Truthfully I had probably known I was gay a couple of years earlier when I discovered the internet and gay porn... meh. I'm sure this came as no shock to anyone who knew me, so the whole ordeal was the big snoozer of the 2004 gossip circuit. Miriam Abromowitz's new bangs got more coverage at David's by Day then my Coming Out party did, swear.

Sometimes I think I have no clue why I waited "for so long" to come to terms my faggotry; especially when I probably could have come out in high school and found myself a nice Uptown WASP [I went to a whitey public high school] to take to the formal instead of my then girlfriend, who was christened with the awful nickname, Fuckily Screwberg. Fuckily subsequently went a bit crazy after high school and decamped to Vancouver (not that I think her crazyness had ANYTHING to do with me. No seriously).

And on top of my progressive high school education Sim Sim Sima and Papa Len are loving, amazing and supportive parents. Papa Len - like the good father that he is - drove me to the airport the morning after I spilled tears on the granite kitchen island telling my folks I was a big homo, handed me my school bag, gave me a hug and said, "Nothings changed son, nothings changed." Then he asked if I needed any money and slipped me $40.00 bucks while my mother was pre-occupied sending emails on her Blackberry (WWSD, always)...

So with supportive parents, a supportive, albeit BOLD sister (you're playing safe, right?), and the best friends money could never buy, why'd I wait? The answer - I'd argue has nothing to do sexuality and has everything to do with the inadvertent pressures my generation and class have placed on ourselves to become idealized version of successful citizenry.

Like many kids of the Village, both gay and straight, I had imbued myself with an incredible vision of what I needed to accomplish in order to be successful. And truthfully being gay didn't fit into the equation - the same way that being a teacher doesn't fit into this pre-conceived nature of success either. My next door neighbour once pulled me aside at a dinner party and as we discussed my future life path [nothing like a fifty your old swilling red wine in the corner of your living room telling you that you should fuck everything you can], where she admitted, "ya know what? You don't have to live like this..." (And by like this she meant centre-hall mansion, mortgage and European car in the driveway.) True - but what if I did want to live like that?

This same sense of hyper competitiveness is what brought about a teary phone call from my Jess last week. Jess is a smart, pretty and successful 26 year-old (if anyone is looking for a nice Jewish girl... I can hook it up); girl has a MBA for example, so certainly she's not going to be living in a van down by the river, ya know? However Jess called me wondering why she felt like such a loser. Because at 26 - she wasn't married, like her mom was at 23, nor did she own a house. Sure these may seem unreasonable goals to most, but in the social circle of Village kids, Jess' version of her life, while an unreasonable goal to many - was a holy grail to her. In fact she'd made herself sick over being a 26 year-old single girl with a MBA.

Only in the Village is this life a disaster... and yet I totally understood her plight. So I ask you if this apparent inferiority complex is the plight of your average Faux Hillary - what happens to one who happens to like penis when he shouldn't?

Someone once called me a class traitor - and today - that line perhaps holds true - as I trade out both a member of my own class and sexual orientation, with a full scale blind item. But I mean what's a gossip column without a blind item?

I happened to run into one of the Village's finest, Ben, over the weekend. Ben comes from a lovely old-school Village family. Father does something that makes a lot of money (doctor, lawyer, or maybe an accountant) and the mother is well known for selling fake Louis Vuitton's out of her basement. Sure she doesn't make much - but now that the kids are grown up and the nanny's paying off her RRSP contributions with continued employment - girl has to do something, right?

But back to Ben. Oh Ben... Ben is a very attractive metrosexual with a loving girlfriend who he's been dating throughout his tenure at university. I hadn't seen him for years until I ran into him last year when we were both on winter vacation with our parents. As we stood in a Mexican bar, awkwardly, Ben just looked at me and said, "I wonder what my girlfriend is doing now?" It was he was making a Tom Cruise esque point - Ben is a virile heterosexual man with a girlfriend he cares about.

The problem with this lovely portrait (and I know people are already picturing a nice, tatsteful wedding at Beth Tzedic, Mazel Tov to the parents etc...) - Ben used to fuck my good friend. Oh and did I mentioned that the friend Ben fucked was a guy? And I'm pretty sure it wasn't one of those, "I'm just experimenting" phases. It was prolonged... and continued, to the point that every school break Ben and my friend could be caught necking in a parked Mercedes at the Bathurst Jewish Community Centre parking lot (can you get any more wrong then that?).

So why the blind item, I mean who I am to judge Ben?

That's a tenuous one isn't it... on one hand I can completely commiserate with hating the concept of being gay. Lord knows it took me years to come to terms with own sexuality and I still see myself struggle on certain days with accepting aspects of my 'other' culture. And it still forms a large part of my relationships with potential mates - being gay is always an odd elephant in the room. Admitting your sexuality even with supportive parents and friends is a bitch at best. Admitting your sexuality when you've grown up in a heteronormative culture where you've pressured YOURSELF to become a successful and virile contributor to the Zionist cause is that much harder.

But back to dear Jess - who called me back feeling a lot better. I felt that it was time to bring up the Gatsby clause of life.
"The Gatsby clause?" she asked.
"Don't waste your life chasing the American dream," I said, "as I fished out my dog-eared copy of the Great Gatsby, to quote: 'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further . . . And one fine morning- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.'"

But the real truth for people like Ben, myself and Jess (straight, gay or bisexual)? The truth that you have to remind yourself before you go crazy - Success, be it in the Village or elsewhere, gay or straight - is yours to define. So define it well and define it so it makes you happy - don't chase the green light. Gatsby got shot remember and Ben's probably engaged to be married...

Perhaps its time to organize a Faux Hill Village Pride Parade? Sim Sim Sima would make a great Grand Marshall don't ya think? I'm just not sure if she can find a rainbow coloured sweater set at Talbots. Shucks!

Retail Queens

Dateline - Yorkville

After a lovely lunch on Saturday with a suitably caustic friend of mine - we found ourselves walking around my Third Village (the Faux and Gay being the two more predominant ones). As we sauntered round the Hugo Boss store - we couldn't help but laugh at the "street team" which had been hired to breakdance in front of The Boss's Yorkville boutique. I mean nothing says: "come on in and buy a suit" like a team of breakdancers right?

"You realize," my friend observed, "the dancers have upped the racial diversity of Yorkville by like 400%."
"Ah yes - Yorkville - where the only black people are employees."
"Maybe these are the 'exotic' kids who will be accepted to Upper Canada on scholarship?"
"One can only hope."

After much amusement we went on to the Cashmere Shop, where I contemplated whether or not I needed a new hat. The answer: undoubtedly yes, but WWSD? What Would Sima Do - she wouldn't buy herself a cashmere hat, in fact at our last garage sale she admonished a family friend who selling cashmere scarves for $1.00...

As I was about to leave the shopkeeper stopped me: "You look familiar."
"McGill?" I asked.
"Yes - you were in my class."
"I was your teacher." No - I wasn't, but I do like to re-use jokes from those infamous late eighties Oil of Olay commercials whenever I can. All of us had a good chuckle at Bugsy Brown's expense.

"So what are you up to now?" I asked in a very Faux Hill manner. In Toronto, or at least in certain parts of this city, asking a distant acquaintance what they're doing is the default question, judgmental undertones be damned.

Why is this? Well... in certain circles in Toronto [white, upper middle class] you are what you do.

"I actually own this place."
"Oh." Secretly I had been hoping that my newfound nemesis with her McGill Sociology degree would be working retail while figuring "herself out". Was not expecting this curveball. SHE OWNS A STORE?!! I don't even own a house and my Seven for all Mankind Jeans are looking worse for wear and on top of that I'm pretty sure that people don't even wear Seven's anymore...
"My father opened it a couple of years ago and I took it over when I came back from Montreal. He spends most of the year traveling in India sourcing the best cashmere. You?"
"Uhm... I work for a not for profit."
"Neat."

The good or bad news depending on your vantage is that the Cashmere Shop is NOT an isolated incident. In fact for your average uptown graduate of Havergal or Branksome Hall minding shop is the new black. While our grandparents may have worked their asses off to ensure that their progeny would never have to work the schmatta trade down on Spadina subsequently pushing a generation of pre-Faux Hillary's into professional degrees (thereby allowing them move to the Faux and BECOME the Faux Hillary's they are today) the latest trend round the Village is to help your daughter establish her own jewelry business, retail establishment, or online boutique. This is for some reason a gender specific trend.

Witness a friend of a friend called Buffy. Buffy "the Holts Now or Never Saler" (see what I did there?) recently started up her own jewelery line. Buffy Wear is an "affordable yet stylish collection of costume jewelery designed by Buffy." Buffy believes that jewlery should be FUN! and AFFORDABLE! and STYLISH! I found myself on Buffy's website the other day at work, mouth aghast at what this former singer, actor, dancer was up to. The tagline: "its all about who you're wearing" - speaks to establishment glee and while the jewelery designs are nothing special - my friends grandmother makes nicer beaded necklaces from the Hazelton Lanes Retirement House arts and crafts department - Buffy appears to be making a go of it.

Meh - who am I to judge - at least Buffy gave up her nascent singer, songwriter career.

Mind the store folks.