I’ve been looking for a pair of corduroys for years. Corduroys are inherently unflattering: a little bulky, saggy-seeming in all the wrong places. Sort of like sweatpants made to look like regular pants. Most stretch out within minutes of pulling them on. Is it too much to ask for a pair of cords that are cozy and decent-looking? (more…)

Last Sunday we decided to check out the rare books and manuscripts auction at Skinner’s. While I was merely curious (I’d gone to my last auction with my parents when I was about 5), my friend had other intentions.

He picked up a bidding paddle at the front desk and spent the hour before the event fondling crumbling, leather-bound tomes with obscure titles. Almost all the potential bidders looked alike—erudite, bespectacled, and in their mid-50’s—with the exception of a South Korean film crew that was documenting “American culture” and the young female interns in black aprons walking the floor, making sure no one stowed a priceless volume in his underwear. (more…)

Nikki Dalrymple, owner of new North End home boutique Acquire, is totally someone you’d want to be friends with. She’s super-friendly. She has funny stories about reporting on women’s rodeos, thanks to a former life as a documentary producer. And she has great taste.

We recently asked the former Good shop girl to fill us in on the modern-meets-cozy wares that fill her narrow Salem Street shop. Perhaps her oddest selection? It’s called the Ecosphere.

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It’s that time of year again. Tomorrow night a new America’s Next Top Model will be crowned and too-sweet-for-comfort Whitney’s unmerited stint as the reigning champ will finally come to a much-appreciated end.

With such a weighty decision looming on the horizon, there’s one question on our minds: Why can’t we shake the weeknight guilty pleasure that is ANTM? We really should have quit watching when controversial celebrity judge Janice Dickinson left the panel, taking most of the show’s fun with her.

Now all we’re left with is off-the-rocker host Tyra Banks, whom you might recognize from her recurring role as comedic fodder on E!’s The Soup. Oh, and she also found some success as a supermodel.

But seriously, who is going to be America’s…Next…Top…Mo…del? (more…)

It’s not quite fall, not quite winter (and, unbelievably, almost 2009). Foliage is over, skiing has yet to begin. So, faithful readers, I’m sure you’re wondering what Bostonista was doing in Vermont this weekend. The answer: A whole lotta nothing… in the best possible way.

Overstressed and overtired, we drove up to the Stowe area late Friday night, in good company. After a quick fish & chips fix at apres-ski mainstay the Shed, it was up the road to the newborn Stowe Mountain Lodge. Though we’d taken a hard-hat tour of the property last year, we never imagined it’d look like this. (more…)

As the hassles of the holidays begin to bear down, it’s important to plan your season wisely. And so this weekend, before the travel and relatives and debilitating amounts of food began, I set out intending to get a start on my holiday shopping.

Most of the friends and family on my list are fairly easy (though, Dad, if you’re reading this, you might want to ask Santa for the new Judge Judy DVD; I can’t do it). But there’s one problem:

What to get the cat who has everything?

Though I’ve invested in a variety of carpet, sisal, and catnip-dusted cardboard cat scratchers, I’ve thus far resisted getting my pal Joanie a good piece of cat furniture. So she uses our couch, chair, and rugs—anything but the aforementioned cat scratchers—as her posts.

Now, our (and by our I mean my boyfriend’s) furniture looks like we have a cat, or maybe eight. But while it’s fine to take a risk on a $40 post that the cat uses twice, it’s much harder to take the leap on a piece of furniture that can run in the hundreds. (Nevermind where to put it so that guests don’t look at you funny.)

So after some extensive research, I’ve narrowed it down to three: (more…)

My hair has always been long and unmanageable. I’m notorious for going six months without a trim (because I hate when I ask for an inch off the ends, and suddenly four inches of my precious mane fall to the stylist’s floor).

But to maintain healthy tresses, you can’t just use an everyday conditioner. Here are my favorite treatments (and some not so good ones) that have helped (or hindered) my quest for lengthy locks. (more…)

We realize we are obnoxious and repetitive and insist on reminding you of the very grim things you are probably trying to forget by browsing frivolous blogs.

But we can’t help it; we have nothing else to talk about. Every morning our inbox is flooded with 40-, 50-, 60-percent-off sales emails as suffering retail outlets desperately try to lure customers; every time we so much as walk by a shop or boutique, we start picturing our hardass Depression-era grandmother, who would kill us with her eyes if she were alive to see us contemplating an orange tweed jacket (even one 60 percent off) in times like these (or, actually, ever).

As we patted ourselves on the back for not. Buying. ANYTHING since September, we had never heard of the Lipstick Index or, more recently, the Hosiery Index.

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Ahead of the curve as usual, we first discovered breeder Denise Ronayne’s well-mannered Yorkshire terrier pups almost two years ago.

This morning, just when we thought that we (and the rest of America) had reached cute puppy overload, we got word from Ronayne that the she and her Yorkies will make their national television debut this weekend when they star on Animal Planet show Dogs 101 (Saturday 11/15 at 8 p.m. and Sunday 11/16 at 7 p.m.). (more…)

We recently rented a house in Nowheresville, NH. The place was a dream, and the trip, divine. Getting there? Not so much. After a four-hour battle with Friday afternoon traffic, our navigation system lead us off the beaten path and onto a country-dark dirt road that was liberally sprinkled with sharp rocks, cavernous ditches, and (we swear) the Blair Witch. Disgruntled and on the brink of turning home, we finally made it.

Once there, however, we found the homeowner’s warning that standard GPSes often lead guests down an undriveable road. Really? Thanks. If only we’d used FlipKey, a new Boston-based website that provides the real dirt on vacation rentals.

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