November 13, 2006 – Pinay New Yorker

It’s already 6AM but it’s still pitch black outside. We’re up really early this morning because Alan is headed off to another business meeting in Denver.

What a way to begin Monday. =) I could’ve opted not to get up because Alan has left once or twice and I just felt him kissing me and Angel goodbye. But I couldn’t let him leave without breakfast this time around. So after he had his sandwich and coffee, here I am blogging bright and early waiting for the car service to pick him up.

It was raining a lot yesterday — here’s hoping it lets up today.

My basil garden by the window is helping to aromatize my dining room. I had tried to raise three different herbs over spring but only the basil survived. (Hey, I tried..) I have two other small greens struggling but they are alive and well. I hope to cultivate the basil to grow healthy enough through the winter and onto spring next yaer. Mabe then I will be able to get a window planter that I can hang outside my window when it’s cool enough.

The cuttings I have in the office have grown healthy and are springing new parts which I will hopefully get to cut away into a separate plant before the year is out. Talk about growing!

I have no illusions I have a green thumb but it’s very fulfilling to see the plants growing. It gives me a sense of measurable accomplishment. Of course I have to try hard this time so that they don’t go the way my calamansi plant did — it whittled away and died in the common garden outside my unit for lack of watering. (Yes, I forgot.. I plead guilty.)

Most designer and name brand suits and coats here are sold with loosely stitched labels on the sleeves which are meant to be taken out after purchase. I would think that the logical reason the tags are stitched on the sleeve is to help the shopper browsing coats or jackets on a rack to view the label or maker of the suit/coat without having to go to the collar.

Those who shop for suits or coats are often drawn to a particular piece by its color or material, and with name brands and designer lines usually lumped together, it is helpful to see the label on the sleeve. Again, they’re supposed to be taken off and it’s regarded as uber tacky to be seen wearing a coat with this tag still on.

It seems that there are those who are label or advertising conscious who forget or are not aware that this tage is supposed to be removed. Googling fashion faux pas like this seem to show that tags that are generally loosely attached are produced in that way to enable to buyer to easily take care of removing them after purchase. I often find myself itching to tell some person I see on the subway or on the bus wearing their coat or suit jacket with this still on, but hey, it’s a free country. We are all entitled to act stupidly if we wish.

So don’t be caught wearing a coat or a suit with that sleeve tag still attached to it. You may feel mighty proud wearing your Armani or your Calvin Klein suit, but wearing it with that sleeve tag still attached brings you down notches to being unfashionable. With winter fast approaching and people shopping for new coats to look trendy, don’t get caught with that tag announcing to the whole world not that you bought something in good taste, but that you don’t have the class to know how to wear the coat without that tag.