If I had a sugar daddy...

Square-back high-neck wool sheath by Akris
$896, in-store at Saks Fifth Avenue

McQueen lip gloss is fine and good, but...

...this asymmetrically-draped Grecian style column gown from the brilliant Brit's too tiny section at Saks -a beauty I only intended to photograph but after saleswoman Maria's sweet wink and West Berlin tinted "Darling, just a taste, yes?", I swallowed hard, calculated in my head how many hours of language tutoring it would take to pay off a $5,295 pricetag and followed her into a dressing room "bigger than the Blue Banana"- just might have given me my most favorite fashion moment of my young life.

It's not just that I'm standing next to a blue-sequined shirt dress...this gown really is that stunning.

I think I actually liked the back better than the front...Draping as structured and layered as this is something you really can't find in lower-end pieces

A last-minute decision

Unfortunately for you and me both, at the last minute I've been called out of town for work-related reasons from today until Friday to a place that is ASJiNE inaccessible indoors and 25 degrees colder outdoors.

Yeah, I'm pretty over the moon about it, too.

Of all the pictures I could leave you with until I return on Friday afternoon, I wanted to give you something pretty to look at, something somewhat fashion-related and of course, something Monte-focused. I think you'll agree the one I chose of the Baron von Bobbysocks and his trusty pal Burt (obscured by my heavy legs) investigating the new Chanel collection at Saks this past Saturday fits the bill quite nicely.

Before any of you go crazy with your rant-tastic "how could you bring your dogs into Saks?!" attitudes, please to note that the floor manager of the designer section approached Hot Redhead Lawyer and me on his own accord and effusively thanked us for having done so, calling the practice "so French" and therefore, not just perfectly acceptable but correct.

"I do say, Burtie, that one-shouldered dress is okay - a bit Kate Moss for Topshop for me - but compared with the sable-sleeved Prada dress your Mum just bought, it's just so utterly pedestri...oh, oh, come now, little one, I do believe I smell on-sale Gaultier thattaway!"

p.s. before the rumors start spreading, yes, there was a "situation" earlier in the day on Saturday, and yes, it did involve this position in this store. I would like to thank the proximate shoppers who politely looked in the opposite direction during the actual "release," the nice man from the espresso kiosk who so graciously threw away the Border's coupon with which I tidied up the accident, and oh yes, HRL for informing everyone from a small child in the shoe department to a Humane Society volunteer distributing adopt-a-pet flyers to an elevator full of chatty tourists that my dog has a penchant for taking dumps in upscale department stores.

p.p.s. if you too have been feeling a little heart-achy around the holidays, please check out the iMix I put together to make those consciously melodramatic "I wonder what ____ is doing right now..." gazes out the airplane window just a little bit more consciously dramatic:

1. "I'll be over you" (Toto)*
2. "Again" (Lenny Kravitz)
3. "Almost lover" (A Fine Frenzy)
4. "The tracks of my tears" (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
5. "All my life" (Linda Ronstadt)
6. "No names" (Kate Rusby)
7. "No one" (Alicia Keyes)
8. "Someone said goodbye" (Enya)
9. "I'm not in love" (10cc)
10. "The search is over" (Survivor)
11. "Ballad of a bitter end" (The Poems)
12. "As long as I live" (Anita O'Day)
13. "How lucky we are" (Meiko)
14. "It ain't over 'til it's over" (Lenny Kravitz)
15. "Answer" (Sarah McLachlan)
16. "If we never meet again" (Louis Armstrong)

*'Anonymous No More' -- I told you I'd remember to download it!

If I had a sugar daddy...

Featherweight wool trousers by Armani Collezioni
$575 at saks.com

Because I know it's wrong...because I know it's wrong...

I've learned quite a bit about being a Mum in the past two years.

I've learned how to manipulate my schedule just so to ensure my puddlebug gets his minimum four 20-minute walks per day no matter how busy, sick or heartbroken I happen to be; I've learned how to reconcile my penchant for wearing all clothing black while living in a constant state of shedded white fur; I've learned the necessity of reallocating funds away from my shopping habit to put toward his monthly insurance bill and Shady Springs slush fund; and then there are the little things, like learning how he needs his paw stroked through rough patches of airplane turbulence and how to diffuse his frustration when I fidget too much during our superclose shared sleep.

In short, since I've had my little Montesquieu, I've become a much more responsible, selfless and practical person.

So much so, in fact, that when I receive e-mails like the one today from Saks announcing the addition of "Juicy Crittoure" pampered dog accouterments to their online offerings, I can honestly say, despite my own fixation with twice daily full-body moisturizing, I wasn't even tempted to place this Pawtection softening paw balm ($28 at saks.com) into my basket.

Not even a little bit.

After all, even an entitled prince(ss) still needs his ability to grip a sidewalk.

"Mom, you know I don't *do* Missoni."

For me, a trip to Saks is about as close to Dorothy-goes-to-Oz as a girl who loves clothes, shoes, makeup and professional-level sycophantic treatment can get.

Whether I'm doing a head-tilted sigh at the sight of the perfect hug my frame enjoys from this two-toned Tibi dress in my manse sized dressing room, sidling up to the incredibly hot Jordanian woman (picture a slightly younger Shohreh Aghdashloo) giving her incredibly hot, incredibly hands-on demonstration at the Clive Christian perfume counter, or wading among tables of Prada boots, Jimmy Choo sandals and the perfection of Stuart Weitzman pumps in the Shoe Salon, Saks is, from floor bottom to floor top, a fantasy land in which I could - and did this past Saturday afternoon - expire hour after hour without a whit of disappointment, boredom or guilt.

The closest parallel I can draw between my penchant for wandering every last square of the square footage of my favorite department store is that of an art lover traversing exhibits at the MOMA, Sotheby's or the Musée d'Orsay. Neither of us, ostensibly, is there to buy or to even consider the prospect of one day being able to do so but rather only to look, to admire and to find and feel empowerment through the inspiration of design. Some of this inspiration is found in likely (Rebecca Taylor, Theory and Lida Biday) sources while others (Julie Haus, Prada and Miu Miu) crop up in less likely but often more satisfying (read: thought-provoking) places.

Unfortunately, though, Saks is not an art museum and most of the wayfarers who enter its double set of double-doors come equipped with five-digit credit limits, commitment-free afternoons and not maybe-I'll-buy but rather what-else-can-I-buy? attitudes.

The sight of women who were obviously trying on with the intent to buy rather than to simply try on to try on as I did (and still do) used to swell in me a real sense of envy and insecurity. I was so sure the salespeople - who were almost always as aloof and discriminating as the customers themselves - could tell right away from my gape-mouthed "this is just so beautiful" expressions and drawn-out fingertip touches upon the fabric that I was going to be of no assistance in reaching their monthly sales quotas. Frankly, I just looked too obviously impressed by everything to be the kind of person who routinely woke up and stood in front of a closet full of $285 short-sleeve button-ups, $580 cashmere sweater dresses and $970 almond-toed Italian-sewn leather 3.75-inch stiletto boots. I was the outsider, I was Vivian in Beverly Hills minus the Lycra mini dress and over-the-knee pleather boots -- I knew it and they knew it.

As maturity set in, the envy and insecurity waned and I began to feel less like Andie at Steff's house party around the privileged, my previously once annual Saks sojourn turned into seasonal and eventually, bimonthly visits.

No longer do the well-heeled nor the judgmental get to me, for I now understand and appreciate who they are and how they came to carry that black AmEx:

Some of the women who tote piles of Chanel and St. John's into private dressing rooms have achieved this luxurious lifestyle through conscious his-life-for-mine trades; some of the women who plunk down their plastic to purchase that $4,445 Zac Posen evening gown are able to do so because they've worked their Pilates-earned asses off at the firm to make partner - and a healthy six-figure salary - by 35; and the rest, well, I have no idea how they've positioned themselves financially in the way they have, but I do know in one way or another they've earned it through some kind of sacrifice.

But even though I now feel as free as a bird to float through and sigh over Saks' this and Saks' that, as Bret Michaels so brilliantly imparts in his most powerful power ballad, I discovered on Saturday that every rose does indeed have its thorn.

In this case, the thorn that pricked its way right through my zen bubble was a self-entitled no-older-than-15-year-old back-to-school shopper whose dismissive, "Mom, you know I don't do Missoni" response to the sweater dress her Mother deferentially presented to her sourpussed, be-pimpled, barely-developed girl of a daughter just about incited me to "Don't you get just how lucky you are to be here?" action.

But just as I was about to interject, take the Mother's side and put this gawky brat in a two-on-one verbal chokehold, I heard this: "Oh sorry, honey, I did know that. What about Marc Jacobs? He's got some cute things, don't you think? Or what about Diane von Furstenberg? Doesn't Sarah like her clothes? Sarah always dresses so well...honey? Honey?"

It was at that point I decided I'd had enough for the day, paid my last respects to the Mona Lisa, slipped out the side door and made my way back to Kansas via the Red Line.