Monday, May 31, 2010

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby Will You Be Mine?


A recession buster bracelet and earrings set ~ an opportunity to give and wear handmade.

Black Kitty Learns Manners

This little kitty tried catnip.

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This little kitty tried smelt.

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But he wanted more and more
So he hunted on the African veldt.

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This little kitty stalked mousies.


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This little kitty watched peepers.

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This kitty's under arrest de housies

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And can't be the black kitty grim reaper.

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These newly-well behaved black kitties are right here.

Confessions of a Bead-Driven Cat, Part 2

My name is George and I live in the bead room.

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I have a sister named Gracie.  She helped raise me, back when the Human rescued both of us.

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We live apart now.  She's single, too, and likes it that way.  But I'm a wild and crazy guy.  I'm a love machine.  You can see it in my eyes.

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My mama called those "bedroom eyes."  I've got 'em.  Oh yeah.  And I'm lookin' for love. The object of my affections lives nearby.  She comes by every evening to dine on the dish the Human puts out for the outside animals.

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The Human was making a Love necklace. 

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She used rose quartz and pink Peruvian opal.

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As I;m sure you're aware, pink opal is a joy-bringing stone. It can help to bring the sweetness and lightness back into life.  I need sweetness and lightness.

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Especially the lightness.

And rose quartz is called the love stone.   It opens the heart chakra to all forms of love: self-love, family love, platonic love, and romantic love. I want the romantic kind. 

So while she was making the earrings and dropping beads, which she loves to do, I got busy and nabbed some of those beads for moi.  The Love Machine.

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I put them in my bed and I slept with them. 

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The next time my sweet honey comes around, I'll be ready.  Hope I'm not too much man for her.  Oh, yeah.  And here's her sweet picture.

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If you're lookin' for love, I recommend the necklace and earrings.  Maybe you'll get lucky.

The Most Sincere Pumpkin Patch

There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics and the Great Pumpkin.
~Linus Van Pelt

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Linus' goal every year is to create the most sincere pumpkin patch.  As he explains it, "Each year, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is the most sincere."


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"He's gotta pick this one. He's got to. I don't see how a pumpkin patch can be more sincere than this one. You can look around and there's not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see."

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In Bead Land, of course, the most sincere pumpkin patch is created from bits of lampwork and sterling silver and porcelain and pressed glass.

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And when the Great Beaded Pumpkin sees how sincere this bracelet and earrings set is, with lampwork glass hearts, no less, he will rise up out of it...

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...and give beaded gifts and presents to all the good boys and girls of the world.


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Linus: [to Sally as she walks away with everyone else] Hey, aren't you going to stay to greet the Great Pumpkin? Huh? It won't be long now. If the Great Pumpkin comes, I'll still put in a good word for you!
[realizes what he just said]

Linus: Good grief! I said "if"! I meant, "when" he comes!

Linus: I'm doomed. One little slip like that could cause the Great Pumpkin to pass you by. Oh, Great Pumpkin, where are you?


Don't slip up.  The Great Pumpkin is watching this pumpkin patch and YOU!

Monday, May 24, 2010

I Heard It Through the Elephant Vine

There's all sorts of research out there on how elephants are excellent communicators.  Apparently they communicate through growls, trumpets, squeals, skrieks and infrasonic rumbles too low in pitch for humans to hear. 

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Elephants can use  rumbles to determine the location of other elephants' locations.  Based on the strength of the rumble and the voice of the rumbler, they can tell where friends and family members are located. 

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In fact, elephants' low-frequency rumbles can travel over two kilometers (1.2 miles), and some studies suggest that the sounds travel up to 10 km (6.21 miles).  Not only do these vibrations travel through the air.  They can  be transmitted through the ground.  Elephants can sense these long-distance seismic vibrations through their feet or by pressing their trunks to the ground.

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It can be assumed, then, that the elephants on this bracelet and these earrings are superb communicators.

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If they played a pachyderm version of the game Telephone, it would NOT go like this.


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Czech Glass Elephant #1: I stepped on a cheetah on the savannah.

Cloisonne Elephant #1: Who dropped lion spit on my bandanna?

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Czech Glass Elephant #2:  He arm-wrestled a monkey for his banana.

Cloisonne Elephant #2:  There's a farm-tested wildebeest in Havana.

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Czech Glass Elephant #3:  Where's the charm school for zebras at the Tropicana?

Cloisonne Elephant #3:  There's no rule about eating dead lantana.

Czech Glass Elephant #4:  What kind of fool eats a cigar from Havannah?

Tiber Silver Elephant #2: I stepped on a cheetah on the savannah.


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Try it for yourself and see what they say right here.


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Rainbow Treasure

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.



So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.
Written by Paul Williams and used by Kermit the Frog, of The Muppets, Jim Henson Productions


A bracelet (and earrings) for diversity, inclusiveness, hope, and yearning.  

Confessions of a Bead-Driven Cat, Part I

My human thinks I'm a little bit insane.

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Just because I lie in her In Box all day and make strange sounds.  And it's true.  I'm not quite right in the head.  But I'm working on it.  No, I'm not seeing a therapist.  Do you really think VPI would cover that?  Ha!  They barely cover hairballs.  And I don't do meds.  The odds of the Human putting anything down my throat are pretty slim.  She still has a scar from the last time she tried.

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But think about it.  I live in a bead room.  When I say I live there, well, I really live there.  Every so often (maybe once a day) I run outside the room like I've been seized with a higher purpose.  I make some noises and then I run back in.  Makes the dog think I'm doing something important.

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In the bead room, the Human keeps many beads.  (That's why I call it the bead room.  Of course, I keep a lot of spare fur there and she doesn't call it the Fur Room, but I digress.)  And there are plenty of gemstone beads.  By plenty I mean hundred and thousand of gajillions.  And, as all cats know, different gemstones have different powers.  So I decided I'd treat my neuroses and psychoses with gemstones. 

Last week I was having flashbacks.  I was remembering living under the fig tree, being pelted by overripe figs the squirrels had missed, with my Feral Mama and my two sisters.  This is before the Human rescued us.  (By then my sister was hiding in the wheel well of a parked car.  You can imagine the flashbacks she has.)  I was seeing figs everywhere.  Well, figs and those gigantic squirrels that hang out by the fig tree and the avocado tree.

I'd look at my bowl of Friskies Pate and I see... FIGS!  Nothing but figs!  Clearly something needed to be done.  So I dipped into the gemstones.  It's not the first time I've done that, and it won't be the last.  First I opened the container of Mookaite.  (The Human thought the lid didn't ft any more and muttered something about those friggin' Smart and Final containers but really, it was moi.)  I went for the Mookaite because Mookaite is said to be a stone of the "here and now."  And I needed to be here and now instead of with those figs and squirrels   Mookaite is particularly useful for protecting emotions, and I was on the brink of making some really strange sounds.

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Then I found the stash of Tiger's Eye.  The Human has quite a fondness for Tiger's Eye.  It can keep away the evil eye, they say, and I need that because I'm quite lovely.  (Many of the Insanes are.)  But this time I snagged one because it brings clear thinking and insight; it has the power to focus the mind.  I then repeated "There are no figs.  There are no figs.  There are no figs."  I was starting to feel better.


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But I was still a little shaky, and starting to make my sounds again.  "Meep.  Meep.  Meep."  The Perky House Human thinks this is cute.  She gets to stay.  Anyway, I went back to the bead stash and this time I pulled out Silver Leaf Jasper.



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Silver Leaf Jasper encourages willpower. The Human says it's worn by independent, highly disciplined people, but I think it would be equally useful for someone (say, a Cat) who isn't highly disciplined but would like to be.  That's moi.  I'd like to stop thinking about figs.




While the Human made a necklace and earrings with the gemstones I selected...


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I took one of the Tiger's Eye beads...

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...and hid it in my cat box.

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That way, when The Human cleans the cat box, she'll find it.  Then she'll think there are more beads in there and she'll have to sift through the whole thing.

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Bwahahahahahahahaha!

I told you I was crazy.

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Oh yes.  If you want the necklace and earring set, The Human listed it here.

White Tie and Tails

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A cat asked to wear his tuxedo

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To dance and to dine on the Lido

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Gave a swish of his tail,

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Sipped a tuna cocktail

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And said, "I'd as soon wear my Speedo!"

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Dance on the Lido in your Speedo with tuxedo kitties right here.