Stereoscopic Cameras
The Stereoscopic Lens cap
Loreo Stereo Camera (no longer being manufactured! What a shame!)
Garter Belts (I wear tall socks)
Bare Necessities
Sock Dreams
Button Makers
(I'm hoping to come across one at a thrift store now that I know what they look like)
Dramatic Tea (I just got a glass teapot at the Salvation Army)
Xian Kang
Blooming Flower
Teaposies
Rising Sun
Lily Basket
Golden Prosperity
Awakening Spirit
Jasmine Fairy Maidens
Anita was working this morning on a translation about Saint Catherine Laboure and I did a little searching to see if I could figure out if that really is the woman's corpse or not at the rue de bac. Seems to be so, though it's hard to believe.
This led me to a webpage listing saints' patronages. Botulph is the patron saint of Boston. The patron saint of computers, computer users, and computer technicians is Isidore of Seville. Mental Illness has many patrons. Narcissus and Saint Mark the Evangelist share the patronage of insect bites. Narcissus lived as a hermit in the desert and probably then suffered from all kinds of flea bites and such, but Mark has no fewer than 19 patronages. It seems unfair to make Narcissus share the one measly patronage he has. Mark has Egypt, Venice, lawyers and scrofulous diseases. Hardly seems fair.
On our way home from Vermont recently, at a particularly commodious rest area, a flyer for Spiderwed Farm caught my eye. "Home of the 'original web site'", it boasted. Today I finally got around to checking it out.
"REAL SPIDER WEBS ARE HARVESTED -
collected by Will Knight. The colorless, fragile web of an orb-weaving spider called Araneidae is first brought to light by painting. It is then transferred by hand to a wooden plaque where it is protected with a fine furniture finish to assure a lifetime of enjoyment for all web lovers."
I bet these are kind of amazing in real life, too bad the pictures aren't a little better. I'm sure they don't do the work justice. I bet these are hard to dust.
Nanowrimo. I don't stand a chance of finishing. Do I? So far I am 0 for 5 or 6 or however many years I've signed up.
I got pretty far last year.
I think I have a better chance at Drawmo.
Recently, in a wine shop in Medford, I saw a display of wine marketed to a fairly obvious target market: exhausted mothers. I'm amazed I never saw anyone doing this before. A pregnant woman, especially in America, spends nine or more months without a drink. Then she gives birth, which at its best is a somewhat traumatic experience. Her entire life has changed. A whole new layer of potential stress and guilt has been laid atop her existence (and joy and wonder, but those aren't the ones that make you say, "I could sure use a drink," so I'm glossing over for now).
I found this marketing gambit pretty ballsy, here in Puritanical Massachusetts. I wonder who's behind it. "Mommy's Time Out." Brilliant! And notice, the display is empty.
The store's attempt to market wine to die-hard Red Sox fans, to the left of the Mommy's Helper box, was slightly less successful. Those guys are already drinking beer. The idea of putting baseball players' faces on wine seems like as bad an idea as Mommy's Helper is a great one. Wine drinkers won't like it, and neither will jocks and baseball fans.
Here's another wine targeting mommy, though with slightly less hutzpah and humor.
That label says to me, "I'm so drunk that my child has become nothing more than a colorless, fuzzy sketch to me. Hope she keeps up, 'cause I'm not stopping now."
This just came for me via registered mail to J & D's address in Portland. I have no idea what it is.
If you aren't already listening to This American Life and Radio Lab, I highly recommend you check them out. I especially am enjoying Radio Lab these days.