I'm STILL Miss Chatelaine.

I enjoy a good periodical. I try to read every issue of the New Yorker. The Sunday New York Times Magazine makes me really, really happy. I quite often read Vanity Fair (maybe half the issues put out in a year). Over the last year or so I've started picking up Downbeat, Jazz Times and Coda on a regular basis as well. Toronto Life comes to the office and I at least skim every issue. The change of season usually inspires me to pick up a home decor mag for ideas and fantasy. I used to read Premeire Magazine a lot, but I hardly make it out to the movies anymore, so really, what's the point?

Once, I made the Robeau buy me a copy of Playboy, because there was an interview with Derek Jeter in it. And you know what everyone says about how great the interviews are in Playaboy! I didn't want to buy it myself because I didn't want the nice Korean man at the corner store to think I was a pervert.

I never buy "woman's magazines". You know what I'm talking about. "Ladies Home Journal", stuff like that. Magazines that talk a lot about how to feed a family of six on a budget. Recipes for casseroles. And things involving marshmallows. Or even casseroles with marshmallows. I know you know what I'm talking about.

I was in the bookstore the other day and I picked up a copy Chatelaine. I was pulled in by a beautiful picture of Nigella Lawson holding a plate of cupcakes. Then there were the headlines about "knowing if it's time to break up with your RRSP" and "learning how to run". I want to change up my RRSP, I want to think about learning how to run again before I do that (down hill) 10 K I've committed to doing in May (ugh). I should buy this magazine! Besides, if the Robeau was nice enough to buy me a copy of Playboy I can certainly return the favour with a picture of Nigella Lawson, holding cupcakes, no less.

So I bought it. The minute I left the store, with my copy of Chatelaine in tow I felt about 100 years old. And that was unfair of me, I know. The first and last time I bought this magazine I enjoyed it. I really have to get over this bizarre problem I have with "women's magazines".

That night, curled up on the couch with a glass of red, I started to flip through Chatelaine. The Robeau was in the kitchen making his Mother's recipe for Beef Stroganoff. Can you say delicious? Can you also say recipe probably culled from the pages of Chatelaine magazine some 30-odd years ago?

When I was flipping through the magazine, I came across an ad for Starbucks. I lingered on it a moment, because it felt familiar somehow. It was then I realized that this was a photo of the Starbucks at 185 King Street East, right here in Toronto!

Click on this picture to make it bigger. I'll wait for you.



You see "Ethan" and "Cara" who are on their first date since the birth of baby "Alec" (are "Ethan" and "Cara" fans of "30 Rock"?) OK. You see "Cara's" head? Good. Do you see the two pictures hanging on the wall behind "Cara's" head? Do you? Those are MY pictures! You'd never know it. Not in a million years. But these, are them:





They must have shot this add when I was having my exhibit in support of Hurricane Recovery last Fall. And I find this endlessly amusing. I'm quite tickled. Do you think every time I buy Chatelaine I'll be "featured" in its pages?