Ups and downs

Just cracked open a bottle of our bubbly red wine- its a Demi-Sec Rouge from Cellier Leonardo de Vinci that I really like. B thinks its nice for summer picnics but a bit embarrassing the rest of the year (eg, he wouldn't let me open it the other night when we had people over. Sometimes he is such a French snob). So tonight, I figure I'll have to make quite a bit of headway into this bottle so that it doesn't just go flat sitting in the fridge for days on end. Or atleast, that will be my excuse. Otherwise, I could say that I am mourning the end of Season 3, Desperate Housewives, since we finished off the last episode of the DVD's I bought B for his recovery. Don't know what we will do with ourselves now that we have to resort to French TV for entertainment once again.

Of course, I deserve a bit of a treat, since last night I went to Bikram yoga, once again. I have been brilliant lately and gone on a very regular basis, resulting in some very good results. Obviously, results would be slightly more impressive if coupled with some sort of healthy eating plan, but I am not a saint. I don't need to weigh 50 kilos to find happiness. I am more than satisfied with a flat stomach.

Oh, and I also got my hair dyed yesterday. I don't know if its all the exercise or the phase of the moon or what, but my hair had grown about 2 cms since my last color 6 weeks ago. Thats insane. So I asked the girl to do something to help it grow out better. I was thinking of maybe going a bit darker, but adding a darker color on the underneath bits. She decided to go a more honey blonde and in the salon, I liked it. Today, I'm not so sure. It makes me look sort of .... blah. The color seems a bit too uniform. Or maybe its just that the color matches my skin to closely. It looks flat. And also slightly more reddish than I originally thought. I am going to give it another day and another washing to see what I think. Maybe I need to go back and ask her to do something else.

But balancing that out, I popped over to the Brazilian consulate yesterday morning and managed to complete my visa application with minimal hassle. I really didn't expect to get away with only 2 visits. Of course, it wasn't all smooth sailing. I had mainly been reading the visa info in English, since it was all specifically aimed at Americans so I thought that the visa cost 100 USD, pretty shocking in and of itself, right? Well, if you are in France applying for the visa, then it costs you 100 EUR, or roughly 40% more. Can you believe that scam? I think my chin hit the counter when the woman told me the price. Seriously, I don't care how fantastic Brazil is, it is not worth an extra 100 euro to me. Still, I was so happy to just be done with the application, I handed over my money without too much regret.

And I do have more important things to spend my money on. Tomorrow morning I am going to get in line at the Maria Luisa Braderie. Last year I got 2 gorgeous pair of shoes and I only managed to get there on the 3rd day. If I can go on the first morning, I have warned Bruno that I may need a small donkey to help get my bags home. Of course, he suggested that I might need to spend the evening convincing him that these will all my very worthwhile purchases, necessary for my survival... That man has no morals. Honestly, what a girl will do for a pair of Manolos...

PS if anyone knows when Christian Louboutin is doing his vente privee, let me know!! I have been harassing all the fashion insiders I know to have this info, but no luck so far.