Vancouver in Bloom

Photo credit: Pixel Works

Tomorrow I'm torn between taking the Bike the Blossoms tour of Vancouver or listening to the final showdown of Canada Writes on "Go!" with Brent Bambury to cheer on my favourite contender, Laurie Schwartz.

However, I must admit that the Cherry Blossom tour is winning out because it involves both physical activity and food, and well, I'm a sucker for both. I'm going to leave it up to whichever way the wind blows...

A Sugar Plum Amongst the Prunes

I feel compelled to pay tribute to local retailer Plum Clothing at 12th & Granville for their outstanding customer service. In my experience, I've found the lack of service in many Vancouver stores downright frustrating. It took so long for my friend to exchange a garment at The Bay downtown that I thought that we'd have to camp overnight before we could get someone at the counter to help us. Yet when I returned to Plum to get reimbursed for being overcharged on a cardigan that was supposed to have been on sale, I was pleasantly surprised by their willingness to make things right. Although the manager who oversaw exchange told me the cardigan technically wasn't on sale--someone mistakenly placed it on the sale rack of fall/winter items even though it was a spring line garment--she said she'd give it to me for the sale price because it was the store's mistake. The cashier who assisted me was extremely accommodating despite my request for a different size after she'd processed the refund; she had to process yet another return just to keep track of the size for inventory. I apologized for the inconvenience I'd caused but she smiled and said, "Oh no, it's totally fine. I just look at it as practice!" I wanted to hug her and tell her she'd just made my day.

So, thank you Plum for making an extraordinary effort to keep your customers happy; I'm sold. Here's to buying local!

P.S. For all my Alberta peeps, there's a location in Calgary too!

The Debut of Montecristo Magazine

I happened to get a hold of the first issue of Montrecristo Magazine, a decidedly Vancouver publication that launched in mid-December. Montecristo is the vision of Pasquale Cusano, founder of Montecristo Jewellers and the quarterly national publication NUVO. He says the magazine "will be firmly rooted in this community. It is about passion, about quality, about the artisanal [sic] way, and about those in this region who pursue those things," and it certainly espouses the desires of the upper class community, boasting full-page advertisements for such names like Chanel, Rolex, Jaguar, Land-Rover and Mercedes-Benz. The articles appeal to anyone with a sense of aesthetics within a broad range of interests from travel to punk rock and philanthropy to the future of automotive alternatives. The magazine serves up high-calorie slices of insight on west coast life and I appreciate some of the tasty morsels that are offered up (such as the article about the handmade clothing of Hajnalka Manula). These bite sized features may not provoke as much thought as the articles of The Walrus or The Tyee, but a little indulgence never hurt anyone; it's about keeping it in perspective.