Bitchin' about bags

Two years ago I bought an Ellington black microfiber backpack-style purse at eBags.com. It had received rave reviews from dozens of users who praised its looks and durability -- in particular, the silver linings that make it possible to see what you've put into the three zipper compartments.

The Ellington bag arrived, and it exceeded even its advance publicity. I realized I needed to purchase a duplicate immediately.

But, of course, the highly rated bag was no longer available. I wrote to eBags, and they wrote back, apologizing but noting that the manufacturer had discontinued the model.

I checked and discovered that Ellington now offered a more casual pack-style purse that looked like something you'd lug on a weekend trip, not take to a business meeting. After more than a year of searching in vain for the nicer, original bag at discount sites and on eBay, I gave up and began hunting for a replacement bag. The plan was to get either a similar backpack purse or a shoulder bag with multiple compartments.

In the past few months I've looked at thousands of bags, and have bought (and returned) a couple. My beloved backpack purse is showing increasing signs of wear, and I'm getting a little anxious.

Though I haven't found a bag I like, I now speak fluent "purse." I know that what I want is described as:

• a shoulder bag
• north-south (that means vertical)
• with a platform (that means a flat bottom) - at least 3" deep
• with an extruded exterior zip pocket (you could fit a wallet and Treo into it)
  
• with an exterior slip pocket (no clasp - you can slide a brochure into it)
• with a top zip main compartment (secure, but no flap to fuss with)
• with an interior zip compartment (security in the main compartment)

I have yet to find a bag with all those characteristics. And, beyond that, there are aesthetic issues:

• It should not be a shapeless sack.
• It should not be a rigid box.
• It should not look like an overstuffed couch somebody sat on and squashed in the middle.
• It should not look like part of a cowboy costume.
  
• It should not look like it's been active in the bondage scene.
• It should not remind anyone of a lime green daschund.
  

(I could easily illustrate these points with thumbnail photos of purses with these defects, but I'm afraid of being sued by the designers who dream up these $500 eyesores.)

My problem seems to be that all the bags that meet my criteria are "totes," which by definition have two short handles rather than a long shoulder strap. The bags with the long shoulder straps turn out to be either:

• vast, undivided pits into which your possessions vanish (you know what I mean -- the kind women rummage frantically in while everyone around them rolls their eyes);
• narrow leather envelopes-on-a-strap into which you can slip maybe a couple credit cards and some charge slips (keys would make an unsightly lump); or
  
• sealed with a big, heavy, flap so you need two hands free to get anything into or out of them.

I've now gone back to looking at backpacks and messenger bags. I spotted something I like over at Tom Bihn Bags, but, in spite of it being on the homepage of the site, it's being redesigned and is out of stock until May.

As my dad used to say, "Sheesh!"

The Oyster O------s

The annual fundraiser for Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, held at Anthony's Homeport just down the street from our house, used to be known as Anthony's Oyster Olympics. But the Olympics complained (the U.S. Olympic Committee, not the mountains) so the event will be known, at least this year, as Anthony's Oyster O------s.

It's March 27, 3-8 p.m.; it's $95; it's for a very good cause; and...they're serving oysters! If you think you want to go, act soon -- last year I tried to get tickets in the final week, and all the oysters had been booked solid.

For more info or to reserve, call the Alliance at 206.297.7002.

The pattern of events

I like conventions and festivals and dance camps. Preparing for them is stressful, but when I get there, I know I've brought along most of what I need and I have the ability to easily get anything else that's required. I plan a lot of activities, but realize I'll only get to do about half of them.

What I haven't adjusted to, but hope to eventually, is that two-thirds of the way through any multi-day event, be it for business or fun, I crash.

It's not as dramatic as the word "crash" sounds -- it's not even noticeable to most people around me -- but it's always disturbing.

When I arrive at an event, I start out doing a lot of exploration of the hotel, the neighborhood, and the convention itself. Once I've got enough information to operate in the new environment, I feel comfortable taking some risks. And, as a rule, I've set up some "who knows what could happen" activities -- meeting people I haven't seen in a long time, or tackling a subject area that's new to me. I try to mix those with sure-fire things like spending time with a friend, or going to eat food I particularly enjoy.

I believe what happens to me after the first day or two is that I run out of energy. All I know is that suddenly I'm not hungry (even though I should be), and I can't make decisions about anything. (Frequently that's why I can't eat.) I might experience pain, like the start of a migraine. I experience slight depression, even mild paranoia. At this point, I realize I need to get food, get to a quiet place (like my hotel), take a bath, and go to sleep. But I am so distraught about missing out on everything that's supposed to be happening in the next several hours (dancing, meetings, social events, tours) that it takes an hour or two of wandering around in an increasingly debilitated daze to accept that I must have a time out.

(At this point, my introvert friends are probably thinking "That's what big meetings and gatherings are like for me, from beginning to end!")

Saturday at dinnertime I had to bail out of the Dance Flurry, force myself to eat a real meal (at the hotel, no less), take serious medication, and crawl into bed for the night.

Of course, I woke up this morning perfectly fine, dashed out to breakfast and then went and danced for seven hours straight. All better!

I guess from here on out I'm just going to have to dedicate six hours on my event schedule as "crash and/or retreat." My hat is off to the politicians and other public figures who pursue relentless schedules of meetings and appearances 12 or more hours a day, seven days a week. No idea how they can sustain it.

Rescheduled

Southwest Airlines recommended that I reschedule my flight to Albany, so now I'm flying out Friday morning; if I make the connection in Baltimore, I should be on the floor at the Dance Flurry by 9 p.m. When I called the hotel to rearrange my booking there, the clerk cheerily said they have 3 feet of snow and a wind chill factor of 25 degrees below zero.

I remember why I moved to Seattle.

Meanwhile, the folks at SeriousEats.com have a pair of videos that remind me why I still miss New Haven: Pepe's white clam pizza with fresh clams, oregano and lots of garlic. (Watch the part near the end where they show the semolina underneath the crust.) And Louis Lunch, home of the hamburger. They explain why there's absolutely no ketchup allowed. Just cheese, tomato, and onion, and fresh-ground beef served on toasted bread. (They pronounce it "Louis Lunch" but the locals say it "Louie's Lunch.")

Family tradition

One of the time-honored traditions in my family is the trip cancellation discussion.

It started when I was 15, and had been accepted at a summer program at a New England prep school. It would be hot, my mother warned me. I'd swelter. I wouldn't be popular. The academic work would be too difficult, and I'd be forced to come to grips with my intellectual mediocrity. The beds would be uncomfortable. I wouldn't like the food. I pointed out that two of my cousins had loved the program. "Them!" she said darkly. She offered me $500 if I would drop out of the program and stay home for the summer.

Three days before I was scheduled to depart for the program, and was getting fairly freaked out about the dire warnings at home, a college-age friend from the neighborhood took me aside. "Go," he said. "You'll love it. I'll deal with your mother."

Indeed, I had the time of my life at the summer school, and the following spring I announced my desire to go hear Bill Monroe play at a bluegrass festival in North Carolina on Easter weekend. The plan was for me to drive down to North Carolina with my parents and my friend Mary Anne; there we'd meet up with a friend from summer school and his mom, both bluegrass musicians.

About a week before the trip, my mother went into cancellation mode. It was sure to rain. The festival would be hot. It would be rainy. The place would be full of Southerners! By the time we were packing Thursday night, she had worked herself up to a scenario that included a motel with bedbugs and a lynching conducted by the Ku Klux Klan.

Fortunately, my father wanted to hear Bill Monroe, and we made the trip. The festival was phenomenal.

The trip cancellation discussion usually starts about a week before I'm headed somewhere, although my mother can try to put the kibosh a trip on much shorter notice. Perhaps the fastest she's ever gone into gear was in a train station in Paris, when she become convinced I was getting onto the wrong train to go to the Paris airport. (I was to catch a plane back to Italy, where I was living at the time; my parents were headed back to the States the following day.) My last view of my mother was her being restrained by my father as the train whisked me away to the airport.

The trip cancellation hysteria, annoying as I find it to be, has occasionally played out in my favor. There was the trip I didn't want to make to visit a rather overbearing acquaintance in California. It was a few months post 9.11, and my mother had heard there was a security alert at one of the ports in L.A. The fact that I was supposed to be flying into Burbank, an inland airport, meant nothing to her. She begged me to cancel. And, sanctimoniously referencing her concerns to my would-be hostess, I weaseled out of the trip.

The only time my mother does not invoke the trip cancellation routine is, of course, when the trip I'm making is to visit her. Ironically, this resulted in the most terrifying and dangerous journey of my life. Five years ago, when my dad was still alive, I flew to visit them in Florida. They were not up to driving at night, and I insisted, for the first time ever, that I would rent a car at the airport and drive the half hour to their condo. When my flight arrived in Ft. Myers, I dutifully called on my cell phone, as promised, and let them know I was picking up the rental car and was on my way. As I was walking out of the car rental pavilion the heavens opened. I couldn't see the end of the hood of the car through the driving rain. Had I been on a business trip, I'd have just sat in the car until the storm subsided. But I'd just promised my mother I'd be at their place in 45 minutes. So I drove.

Traffic was inching down the flooded highway at about five miles per hour. I was following a county public works truck, which stopped twice to let towering tornados roar across the road in front of us. Periodically there would be a deafening clap of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning that revealed palm trees blown horizontal along the median strip. When I arrived at my parents' condo, water was gushing down the sidewalk at ankle height. My mother was standing at the front door yelling "There are tornados on the TV news!"

Yeah. No kidding.

We're having the trip cancellation discussion again because I'm scheduled to fly to Albany, via Chicago, Thursday morning. I'm trying to explain to my mom that snowstorms Tuesday night at those two airports don't necessarily mean that either of them will be closed when I fly Thursday, when the forecast is for sun.

Stay tuned, as they say. Weather at 11.

What's wrong with this picture?

When we got our little tabby kittens three years ago, we called them "The Stripe Sisters." The Feb. 12 post at Cute Overload features a batch of teeny tabbies where you'll notice one of the kittens has slightly different stripes. And that's not all!

My furry friends

The campaign to get Kaylee (our smallest cat) to stop removing all the pushpins from my office bulletin board seems to be successful. As soon as she saw the squirt gun on the desk, she knew I meant business. Of course, a few days later she tested me. And got drenched.

Now she contents herself with simply putting a paw on my chair and looking at me pathetically when she wants something. Of course, she's still pulling pushpins out of the bulletin board in the hall, since there's no squirt gun out there. Apparently we need to make another trip to Archie McPhee, local source of water-powered weaponry.

Just as I got Kaylee under control, one of the local raccoons got feisty. We often go out to find the little garden fountain filled with dirt, courtesy of the coons. About a month ago, a decorative part of the fountain was smashed. Earlier this week, I found the pump lying on the patio. Today I found the whole fountain in a mess, and the pump had stopped working. Betaille (the cat that likes to drink from fountain stream) was glaring at me as if to say "DO something."

So I ordered a different type of fountain, one with a hidden pump and a water reservoir that we can cover with bird netting to keep out the raccoon.

Yeah, right.

Season of the hype

Living through the run-up to February 14 is like watching a NASCAR race. You just know somebody's going to get hurt.

That's why Zorg and I have agreed to ignore Valentine's Day. It rather drove me nuts to get roses that I knew cost him three times as much as the nicer roses he gave me for our anniversary. It makes us both crazy to go out to dinner on a busy night when service and cooking are likely at their nadir. Fortunately, we have our "first date anniversary" just a few weeks before Valentine's Day, so we celebrate that instead, with a dinner out that traditionally involves mixed drinks. (Don't ask.)

Standing safely on the Valentine's sidelines, I have to admit I enjoy the tackier side of the holiday: the candy. The Candy Blog, which, as you might expect, goes wild this time of year. They've started out with candy rings and heart-shaped Junior Mints and will be moving upscale later in the week. I hope they mention Bittersweets "the Valentine's candy for the rest of us" somewhere along the way.

Pizza nirvana at Snoose Junction

I'm trying to figure out why there aren't people charging through the streets of Ballard waving their arms and screaming "Pizza! Pizza at last!"

Maybe it's hard to scream with your mouth full?

The big news is that Snoose Junction Pizza on Market Street is open. The good news is that the pizza (by the slice or by the pie) is rich, cheesy New York style 'za, all melty and spicy and salty on a puffy, crispy, yeasty crust.

The great news is that Snoose Junction is a genuine neighborhood pizza place, very much like the small Ray's Pizza houses you find in Manhattan. Order a slice, and the server grabs a small aluminum plate, drapes it with a sheet of red-and-white checked paper, and shovels the slice onto it. The drinks include beer, wine, bottled sodas, and fountain sodas (not cans!) and the cola is Coke, not Pepsi. (Does this make a difference to anyone else? It sure does to me.)

Snoose Junction has that "sit down and relax" feeling that turns me into a repeat customer. You can bring the family and take over one of their big booths. (Booths are in and of themselves relaxing things -- probably one of the reasons I frequent the Lockspot Cafe.) Or slip in by your self, sit at the counter, and read the thought-fully provided local newspaper as you devour melted cheese and rich tomato sauce.

Snoose Junction offers 10 type of combo pizzas, most with the usual ingredients though one, a white pizza, has some unusual elements. And you're invited to start with their basic 16-inch cheese pizza ($14) and "build your own" from a long list of ingredients. They also have calzones, panini, and a variety of salads that go well beyond the basic garden and Caesar. Desserts include lemon sorbet and tiramisu (both imported from Italy), spumoni by Snoqualmie Ice Cream, and sfogliatelle (order that one in advance; there's a 15-minute prep time for the ricotta-filled pastry).

I have plenty of nice things to say about the gourmet pizzas at Via Tribunali, Tutta Bella, and Serious Pie. But, frankly, from here on out, you're more likely to find me at Snoose Junction.

Yuzu jasmine

No, I haven't been blogging much.

Being sick with three annoying things in succession -- norovirus, a quick cold, and another one of my back things (aggravation of an old herniated-disk problem) -- filled up the time I usually spend doing things I later blog about. (Postponing and rescheduling my annual visit to my mom in Florida made me berserk, as well.)

Whining and crabbing don't yield much good blogging material, so considering yourself spared.

Now I'm emerging from it all to discover things aren't as grim as I'd feared. I have plenty of writing work to do, and the household and the cats are in good shape. The weather is even pretending to warm up.

Today I went downtown to see Larry Swanson, the therapist who is helping me with the range-of-motion problems I was having with my right arm in yoga class. After the appointment I went to Pacific Place and visited Eddie Bauer, J. Jill, Nordstrom, Aveda, and Williams Sonoma. I scored some great Bremerton-fit pants at Eddie Bauer, nothing at J. Jill, but some new yoga leggings at Nordstrom and a pair of fuzzy bed socks on sale for $2. At Aveda I managed to buy a lip gloss without being lobbied too heavily to buy a dozen related makeup products. (When I say "I don't wear makeup" they look at me and it sinks in that I'm telling the truth.)

The true luxury was what I bought at Williams Sonoma: Five bottles of their dish soap -- wasabi green tea, Meyer lemon, French lavender, Valencia orange, and Yuzu jasmine. The lavender smells like the scented water my grandmother used to spray on her ironing.

These dish soaps work quite well, smell gorgeous, and look elegant on the countertop. Of course they cost more than Dawn. But a few years back, when we remodeled the kitchen, I decided I was never putting a bottle of butt-ugly, toilet-cleaner-blue dishwashing liquid on that beige Corian counter. So I bought some Williams Sonoma liquid in the elegant clear bottle, and have never looked back. Not even when Zorg opened a bottle off the stuff labeled "pink grapefruit" and wrinkled his nose.

He got used to it.

I expect to be back downtown quite a bit this week and weekend, not for more medical/retail therapy, but for the Left Coast Crime conference at the Renaissance Seattle. Linda Richards, mystery author and the founder of January Magazine, will be on a panel tomorrow afternoon about finding mysteries that are "outside your comfort zone."

Interested in crime fiction? I believe there are still conference tickets available.

Vista bombs

Around dinnertime Saturday evening our neighborhood was shaken by the sound of bombing. I thought "Fireworks?" and we looked out at Shilshole, where neighborhood kids will often set off fireworks in a empty parking lot. But...nothing. The noise was deeper than fireworks -- truly much more like artillery fire.

The loud "bombing" continued at intervals, and we were puzzled. We looked at some online local news sites, but they made no mention of it. I looked outside and noticed that there were no airplanes (we live on a flight plath for Sea-Tac airport). Had air traffic been grounded because of some sort of attack?

The din finally stopped. A while later Zorg heard from another player in World of Warcraft that the noise had been from a Microsoft publicity stunt connected with the release of the latest Windows operating system, Vista -- a massive fireworks display a few miles to the southeast, on Lake Union.

Accounts of the display, from people with a view of Lake Union, say that it was absolutely spectacular. For those of us without a sightline to the event, it was just disquieting and annoying.

No more Mr. Nice Guy

This is Kaylee, the bulletin board bandit.

She removes push-pins from bulletin boards, causing important papers and reminders to cascade onto the desk, onto the floor, and behind bookcases, where they are found months later.

The word "no" means nothing to her. She loves it when people chase her off the desk and race around the house, shrieking. She finds it particularly amusing when they skid on the fallen papers, or stomp on a push-pin.

Her reign of terror is about to end.

My new year's resolution was to take back control of my bulletin board. I've re-pinned and re-papered the bulletin board, and placed a filled squirt gun in a empty mug on the desk.

Film at 11.

Let's play the Bookworm Meme

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the following three sentences on your blog, along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book on your shelf! (I know you were thinking about it!) Just stick with whatever is closest.
6. Tag 5 people

The nearest book is on the top of my pile of books to be catalogued with Delicious Library: Rains All the Time, by David Laskin.

The 5th - 8th sentences on page 123 are:

"John M. Wallace, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington and a prominent member of the climatology community, describes some of the groundbreaking research that he and his colleagues at the University of Washington have been pursuing in the past few years: "This has been a very active area of research here, and the pieces are fitting together to give us the big picture of what has happened over the last seventy to eighty years, which is about as far as we go back. Relying on historical records of sea surface temperatures, pressure patterns over the Pacific, temperature along the coast, runoff in rivers, fishery records, and winter snowfall, we've concluded that there has been substantial inter-decadal variability--bigger than you'd expect to happen purely by chance."

Whew! Too bad it was a quote. I liked Laskin's writing better than the professor's...

I've sent tags to five other bloggers, but consider yourself tagged as well!

Quarantined

My "flu" turned out to be a norovirus, the type of food-borne virus associated with cruise ships. I didn't go on a cruise, but it's fair to guess I picked it up on the previous week's travel to and from San Francisco.

I'm still considered contagious until Wednesday, according to the doctor I saw this morning. (And I still feel pretty awful.) The doctor wrote a letter to American Airlines and I cancelled tomorrow's flight to Florida. Even with a doctor's letter, cancellation still involves penalties, complications, and requires that you re-book on the same airline; however, I had $15 trip insurance, which bypassed the airline bureaucracy, netting me a full refund.

Back to bed...thanks to all of you who've emailed with "get well" messages.

iPhone hyperbole

The lighter side of iPhone: Conan O'Brien shows the first iPhone commercial; Saturday Night Live parodies Steve Jobs' keynote speech scarily well (if you just listen to the audio).

A short hiatus

I have the flu and am taking a few days off from blogging. The Zorg is on his annual snowshoeing weekend in Winthrop and the cats are taking care of me. Look for me again on Wednesday...

Seen on the street (and in the stores)

It's been fascinating to watch the transformation in San Francisco during the past six Macworlds. I attended the 2001 Macworld came just as the dotcom bubble was on the verge of bursting. It was a dizzying explosion of limos, conference schwag, and lavish, wild parties -- but not much to celebrate.

The 2002 conference took place in a city that looked almost post-apocalyptic -- empty storefronts, abandoned renovation projects, and an enormous population of street people. Rumors were that the hotel limos were now being driven by former dotcom art directors.

Gradually, over the past few years, the area around the Moscone Conference Center (a few blocks from Union Square) has come back up. The better-planned projects have been completed, and mid-range stores (including the Apple Store) have moved into the shopping areas along Market.

In its current incarnation, this area of San Francisco is a great place to look at fashion, particularly because the weather is mild and people don't go around bundled up against the cold or rain. Here, boots and coats are a fashion statement, not a necessity.

The city's lively, off-beat take on design and fashion is strongly fueled by retro concepts. 1950s-era jazz is heard on the street; there's still a tinge of Haight-Ashberry rusticity and pop-art color; and from Union Square you get a strong dose of elegant 1960s Italian fashion (classic tailored black wools and gold jewelry). Top it all off with the leather-and-chains look that remains perennially the mode in the Castro District.

Yesterday I saw people wearing clothing I couldn't imagine seeing in Seattle -- beautiful Italian leather hobo bags; wildly elaborate post-hippie tops and skirts from Anthropologie; designer jeans and spike-heeled black boots everywhere. You can buy the look for big bucks at Nordstrom or Kenneth Cole, or cheaply at Forever 21. But wherever you shop, the words "plain" "basic" and "practical" probably don't get spoken very often! And certainly not "boring."

Plane crackers

It was the usual Southwest trip -- left on time, got in ahead of schedule, comfy leather seats, and an empty middle seat in the row I shared with a fellow who commutes between Bellingham and Baja.

Southwest has, thankfully, removed the rancid party mix from its snack menu and substituted a custom product (by Nabisco) called "plane crackers." (See picture.)

The only off-note was Godzilla the Goth in the seat in front of me. About 7 feet tall, he was a rocker and a bouncer, who kept dislodging the tray table so it unlatched and plummeted into my lap. There's one on every flight...

At baggage claim I got talking to a delightful fellow traveling with a banjo. Turns out he's a friend of friends of mine in Bellingham -- and an amazingly generous person. He had a rental car lined up, and delivered me right to the door of my hotel in downtown San Francisco. What a great start to Macworld!

Nostalgia trip

Major nostalgia trip. I'm sitting at Southwest's Gate 6 at Sea-Tac, a place I visited nearly every week for five years while commuting to San Jose. I haven't been there since changing jobs in February, but when I walked up to the Starbucks (newly remodeled and expanded) the woman at the counter remembered my usual order ("grande Awake tea, one teabag").

The place is full of ghosts.

There's the ghost of Chris, who carpooled with me to the airport for the first two years of the weekly commute. I remember the time we got back from the trip so frazzled that we not only couldn't find the car in the parking garage, we couldn't remember if it was his Volkswagen or my Honda we were looking for. Chris works for Microsoft now, and, ironically, is headed to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show this week as I head to Macworld in San Francisco (via Oakland).

And there's the ghost of David, who's still making the regular commute to San Jose these days. He's not going down this week, though, and he'd be headed to San Jose, not this flight to Oakland. It's odd to be here without him

I remember the first year of the group commute. 9/11 had just happened, and our Apple laptops, which glowed in "sleep" mode, occasionally freaked out inspectors and stewardesses. My most comfortable winter shoes were tall, lace-up Santana boots, and it took me forever to get reassembled after going through security.

Today is my first time flying since the three-ounce liquid rules were introduced. So I checked my rollaboard with all my shampoos and stuff, and it's rather nice to be at the gate with just a small purse and a lightweight computer briefcase to tote aboard.

This being a mid-day flight, there aren't the Bluetooth earphones, high-end cellphones and iPod earbuds I remember from the heavily wired 6:30 a.m. commuter flights. The scene is quite peaceful, actually, just the mumbling of the TV trying to freak us out with the news that there was a mysterious smell in New York City and downtown Austin is closed "in the wake of mysterious bird deaths." And the soft babbling of the cell phone addicts. "Hi. I'm at the airport. Where are you?"

Rain + coat

This won't be news to anyone living out here in the Northwest corner, but -- it's raining. Again.

The gray clouds are streaming past the windows of my office, with occasional glimpses of faint blue, but the rain is pretty much steady, and, at times, nearly horizontal.

My long, dressy winter raincoat with the wool lining, which I wear perhaps three or four times a year, is no match for this. I wore it today and the wool clung to the legs of my corduroy pants -- making walking awkward -- while the shoulders of the coat rapidly turned sodden. The hood blew off repeatedly in the wind.

I came home and hung the thing up to dry; when it does, it'll be on the fast track for the consignment shop. Then I went looking for a new dressy raincoat.

I was pretty sure that anything I bought at Macy's (that's where my current "raincoat" came from) would be purely cosmetic in terms of keeping me dry in a storm. So I went the opposite route, looking for "performance outerwear." Sounds serious. With that, waterproof is a given. But the challenge is to find something that doesn't make you look like a 17-year-old snowboarding dude.

Fortunately for me, Slate.com writer Seth Stevenson set out a few years ago to explore the mystique of Goretex waterproof, breathable rainwear and discovered (via some highly amusing home testing) many products that rival Goretex, including coats from North Face, Pearl Izumi, and L.L. Bean. Following his advice, I checked out L.L. Bean's online offerings and ended up with a three-quarter length waterproof raincoat in a conservative, versatile black. (I passed on the version with the wool lining, figuring I'll end up layering with some type of fleece or wool jacket anyway.)

It was cheaper (and easier to pronounce) than Arc'teryx and L.L. Bean's phone customer service is still awesome.