Happy New Year!

and in Portland too.

Latke On!

Funny

Today's Reality Check

"An Afghan boy arranges bricks at the brick factory where his father works on the outskirts of Kabul. Laborers earn $12 dollars a day per 14-hour shift, six days a week."

PHOTO BY RAHMAT GUL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Today's Favorite Bumpersticker

Mississippi Street Fair!

I will be vending this weekend at the Mississippi Street Fair. I'll be mid-block, west side, between Mason and Skidmore. The fair runs from 10am - 9pm. Come down and say hello and pick yourself up a pretty or two!

p.s. I will probably need pepping up sometime around 4 - as I will most likely be exhausted by then - so you singing and dancing for me would be good too!...

Sun Flower Necklace

Another new item in my Etsy shop! A swirly, curly sterling Sun Flower Necklace. This largish pendant is super eye-catching. A little bit spirally, a little bit asymmetrical, it lets you carry a bit of summer with you all year round.

7/7 update: sold!

Big Ass Raspberries from the Backyard

Today's Laugh?

Today is World Day Against Child Labor

"No life for a kid: Eight-year-old rag picker Barud sleeps on the doorstop of a building in Siliguri, India, after a day of collecting recyclables. June 12 is World Day Against Child Labor, which highlights the plight of children engaged in work that deprives them of adequate education, health, leisure and basic freedoms."

PHOTO BY DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Loopy Shoulder Dusters

New earrings! Loads of sterling circles woven together to create 4" long bold shoulder dusters. Loopy Dusters are available in my Etsy shop and in my booth at the Portland Saturday Market - while they last...

6/22 update: Sold!

Dotted Leaf Earrings

 New(!) listing in my Etsy shop. These lovelies are riveted sterling dangles that I've sold at the Portland Saturday Market for a while, but have just now listed online.

I'm making an effort to list more of the new(ish) items I have on Etsy and not just keep them for the Market.*


*read: lazy is as lazy does (or doesn't)

Today's Reality: Twelve Buried Villages

Sludge victims: Indonesian villagers who lost their homes to a mud volcano immerse themselves in the volcano's muck in Sidoarjo, Java. They were dramatizing their suffering during a protest marking the seventh year of the ecological disaster. Experts believe the gas drilling company Lapindo Brantas, controlled by the family of powerful tycoon Aburizal Bakrie, was responsible for the catastrophe, which permanently buried 12 villages.

PHOTO BY JUNI KRISWANTO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

A Panorama of Mars!

Mars Gigapixel Panorama - Curiosity rover: Martian solar days 136-149 in The World

This is mind blowing! A panorama of MARS. A crystal clear picture from another freaking planet! My head just exploded. (Hint: definitely go to full screen)

Today is World Water Day

PHOTO BY ALBERT GONZALEZ FARRAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

"A precious drink: A mother offers water to her child at the Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced persons in El-Fasher, Sudan. Water at the camp is scarce, forcing refugees to walk miles to collect it and haul it back."

Today is World Water Day. Water is a basic human right. Every day, 800 million people around the world live without access to safe, clean drinking water. It particularly effects women and children (watch Why Water). Visit charity:water to learn more and see how you can help. It's only right.

First Day of Spring, Portland Style

It was a typical Portland first-day-of-spring. This means we had all four seasons in one day. It was cold, it was warm, it rained, was sunny, the wind blew and we had periods of hail - all today. You can tell it's spring in Portland because the weather gets all schizophrenic. As I came out of a store this afternoon, I turned around to see this gorgeous rainbow; beautiful bright colors that arced across the whole sky. By the time I got my phone out to take the picture, it was already starting to diminish. Another minute later it was almost gone. It made me happy that I was able to catch it in all its glory. As you can see in the picture, it was sunny where I was. Pulling out of the parking lot, it started to rain... again. Ah, it's spring in Portland!

Kakenya Ntaiya: A girl who demanded school

 In honor of International Women's Day, a TED talk that moved me to tears.

Phone Pole Philosophy

Random note stapled to random phone pole, inner SE Portland. Well, it made me smile.

Today's Laugh?

A Portlandia Moment

Walking into the park this morning, I see across the field that Portland City workers are putting up some playground equipment. They've got their trucks there and the three guys are busy setting up a new slide. One of the trucks has the door open and the radio is on so they can listen to some music while they work. The sound is wafting over the park. Nothing unusual about that, right? Here's the Portlandia Moment: what are they listening to? Classical!

And that's why we live here.