2003-01-28

OK, I�m off the weather thing. Really, I�m done. I love the weather. The weather loves me (in a �tough love� kinda way � it only makes my fingertips fall off when I�m bad, I swear!). It�s going up to a balmy minus seven degrees tomorrow: that�s practically bikini weather.

But I�ve had it up to here with one particular manifestation of winter that�s especially insidious in this neck of the woods: French Canadian fashion. The well-heeled Qu�becoise (and I mean that literally � nothing says �I�m a hip urban professional� like six-inch stiletto heels, right ladies?) just isn�t complete without her skanky cloak of mangled wildlife carcasses. God. Ick. And I�m not only speaking as a smug, self-satisfied vegan prig. Beyond the whole �that mink needed its fur more than you do� PETA-style homily, it�s just tacky and tasteless. Like, look at me! Je suis riche! Can�t you tell? I�m so en vogue that I can afford to have many furry leetle creeters bonked on the head and stripped of their furry leetle skins so that my ample derri�re doesn�t get chilly while my Mercedes warms up! Don�t you weesh you were as sp�cial as moi?

Of course, those who can�t afford genuine pelt parkas go the �faux� route, and look like they�ve effected a full-scale slaughter on the set of the next Muppets movie, making up in sheer unadulterated bad taste what they lack in fashionably insouciant brutality.