And it happens to me

It may come as a refreshing surprise to learn that I am not immune to impulsive purchases. The most common are farmer-generated and occur at outdoor markets year-round (at least here in the San Francisco Bay Area). Visually inspiring and delicious, veggies and fruits often lead to impromptu desires. That’s me (right) communing with a bundle of scapes at a friend’s farm stand at the Ballard Sunday Farmers Market in Seattle last month. The temptation was strong, but I resisted them despite the lure of their curls!

But here’s a first for me: while leaving the Mission Community Market last night, I got side-tracked not by produce, but by a towel.

 

Blooming in a D.I.Y. kind of way

One of the happiest joys and honors is an invitation to witness friends unite their lives. As a natural observer and sometimes documentarian, my eyes are always drawn to the quiet details that make each event so unique. In recent years, I’ve notice a proclivity to incorporate incredibly personal handmade or D.I.Y. (a.k.a. do-it-yourself) elements, and this has been most notable in the flowers.

A wedding I attended last year featured arrangements and a bridal bouquet lovingly homegrown by the bride’s sister. I consider this to be a brave and stunning undertaking, especially when one is at the mercy of Mother Nature!

 

I thought I knew what “quilt” meant

A long ago discarded pair of pants are hanging over my desk. Well, that’s partially true. To be precise, parts of my pants and parts of two other peoples’ pants are hanging over my desk in a wall warming creation called The Traveling Elephant Quilt.

The elephants are parading through space to an unknown destination, but the “traveling” part of the piece hails from my insanely talented, creative, and silly friend, Sharon. Throughout the earlier part of this year, I received sporadic emails from her that read, “Now where? Hee hee,” and “Elephants in Orleans, CA?”

 

How to recycle the years gone by

Time was up. I could no longer defer the inevitable: I had some outdated wall calendars that I was unable to part with. Keeping them any longer was ridiculous, but recycling them meant discarding something I felt was not disposal-worthy. What was an organizer girl to do?

 

A shoe fetish for the holidays

From a distance, it looks just like any other bedecked Christmas tree. But this one, residing in the back room adjacent to my neighbor’s kitchen, is a little different from the one in the living room. (Yes, she has two.) You have to get close to see what I mean. This tree is aptly and affectionately called the shoe tree.

 

Reminiscing about “paper or plastic?”

“Paper or plastic?” may soon be obsolete…at least in California. On June 2, the California State Assembly passed a bill (AB 1998) to ban single-use plastic shopping bags. The bill goes to the Senate later this month, and if it passes, the golden state will become the first in the union to ban the option.

In San Francisco, there is already a ban on single-use plastic shopping bags at chain grocery stores and pharmacies, and today, an expansion of the existing legislation is being introduced that could lead to more extensive city-wide elimination of plastic bags. This prospect makes someone like me very very happy.

The SF Department of the Environment provided a startling figure at their booth at a local farmer’s market last week: 380 billion single-use plastic bags consumed in the U.S. each year, and that translates to 1,500 per person. California consumes 19 billion of those bags each year – more than any other state. These numbers are astounding. Things have to change, and thankfully they are…slowly but surely.

 

She’s got the whole world in her hand

"The World," by Drew, age 6

It’s a world that brings joy, but it will cause pain if handled without care. This world is made of a crayon-marked crumpled piece of paper gingerly held together by straight pins and a rubber band-as-equator. A hand-drawn American flag impaled by a toothpick marks the location of the creator’s home.

“My brother was making a globe in science class, so I wanted to make one too,” said six-year-old Drew about the inspiration for this piece when I interviewed him via his mother via e-mail.

His mother, my friend Barb, told me about this sweet creation and how she didn’t quite know what to do with it.

 

A trashy tour

Do you ever wonder what happens to your trash?

A year ago, my curiosity led me to sign up for one of the monthly tours of San Francisco Recycling & Disposal Solid Waste Transfer and Recycle Central.

Despite the threat of rain canceling the tour, me and my equally inquisitive partner, Sven, drove to the southern end of the city to take in the sights, sounds, smells, and surprises that awaited us.

Swarms of seagulls filled the air above the transfer facility property and provided a directional indicator that let us know we were almost there.

 

Community art show at 18 Reasonss

Food, community, art. Oh wait, the sign reads the reverse: art, community, food. Either way you say it, my heartstrings, soulstrings, and stomachstrings are tugged and dance with glee.

For the next couple of weeks, the 18th Street Corridor Community Show at 18 Reasons offers a wonderful representation of local art and expression on the walls of this tiny and mighty multi-use space.

I’m excited to be part of this community-based endeavor and am represented in the show by the following two photographs.

Horsescape, Sylt, 2006

Shoot the Freak, Coney Island, 2008

 

Save the tiny toys and plastic thingies

Chances are at some time or another you’ve found yourself experiencing a bit of hesitation over what to do with a small plastic toy or a little plastic doodad that no longer has a home or serves a purpose. You stare at the thing for a while and turn it about in your hand as you try to recall how exactly it came into your life. Then perhaps you place it on the table and ponder what to do with it.

Putting it in the trash or recycling bin* doesn’t seem quite right. It’s cute, maybe it’s useful, and it simply needs a new someone to find it’s potential and inner magic. Problem is, you don’t know who that someone is…until now. I have found that someone – actually, the someones. Enter Shana Astrachan and emiko oye.