Tag: Mr. Rogers

Seven Things that I Love (7-26-2021)

  1. 1. This Restaurant Logo – It’s brilliant! Sadly, it seems the restaurant never opened. This website says, “Sadly due to unforeseen circumstances this project never made it through to launch.” I wasn’t sure if that was because the restaurant didn’t opened or if they chose to go with a different logo (which would have been a huge mistake.) I couldn’t find a restaurant by this name, except in reference to this logo, so I’m thinking the restaurant didn’t get their funding or something like that. What a waste.

2. These Gelato Bars – I found these at my local grocer and man, am I hooked. Admittedly they are a bit pricey (they’re $4 each at Sendiks) BUT if I went out to a gelateria I would easily pay that much. More importantly, they are keeping me from eating an entire pint of the stuff! Here’s the best part though, my favorite bar (the Chocolate light) only has 90 calories and my second favorite, Coconut Breeze, has 170 calories (still not bad.) I think the highest one is Pistachio chocotella at 210 but most of them are between 80 and 170 calories.

3. This Music Video with Bjork – I LOVE, love, love this song! It makes me smile when I hear it. You may think I am crazy or that you’ve got the wrong video when you first start watching but you’ll see what I mean very quickly. “It’s Oh So Quiet” was originally sung by Betty Hutton in 1951. It’s actually the English cover of a German song written by Hans Lang. I can’t decide whether I like Bjork or Hutton’s version better. I think I like Hutton’s version better but Bjork’s video is so fun and she’s so damned cute…

https://youtu.be/BooO0rViUKI

4. This Tweet from Randy Rainbow (a goddess) about Bezos Going to Space – Randy always knows the right thing to say.

In case you need a visual.

This photo provided by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and space tourism company Blue Origin, exits the Blue Origin’s New Shepard capsule after it parachuted safely down to the launch area with passengers Mark Bezos, Oliver Daemen and Wally Funk, near Van Horn, Texas, Tuesday, July 20, 2021. (Blue Origin via AP)

Oh, and the Washington Post and Late Night Talk Show Hosts also had a field day with the hat (well, pretty much everyone did).

5. This Children’s Show – I just found out about this show. How have I not heard of it before?!? (Admittedly, I stopped being a Children’s Librarian in 2007.) It’s been on the air since 2012. The opening was warm your heart – the Neighborhood of Make-Believe!

https://youtu.be/m08BrNDkJjw

6. These Photos of John Singer Sargent Painting Gretchen & Rachel Warren – It’s not often you get to see photos from this era of people actually having fun or smiling.

“Five very informal snapshots of John Singer Sargent painting ‘Mrs. Fiske Warren (Gretchen Osgood) and Her Daughter Rachel’ in the Gothic Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1903. Sargent was staying with Mrs. Gardner during a several weeks’ visit to Boston and his hostess allowed him to use the Gothic Room as his studio. In 2018 the Museum borrowed the portrait from the MFA and made it the centerpiece of a small-scale but fascinating exhibit about the painting. For the duration of the show the portrait was set up on an easel on the very spot in the room at which it was painted! There was even a brief catalogue available.” [Found via the Facebook Group the Gilded Age Society]

7. This Suns Fan Who Donated to a Milwaukee Food Bank – Adam Richardson traveled to Milwaukee from Virginia for Game 3 of the championships. An avid Suns fan, he didn’t let his loyalty to his team prevent him from noticing how welcoming and friendly Milwaukeeans are! To thank the residents of the Bucks’ home city, Richardson sent a check to a local food bank.

The comment by the food bank’s VP speaks volumes as to why this is so meaningful.

“We get checks in the mail all the time, but this one was different,” said Scott Marshall, the food bank’s vice president of development and communications. “It’s wonderful that so many people locally want to work with the food bank, but when someone from a different community has a one- or two-day experience in the city and says, ‘I want to give back to the city,’ it means so much.”

‘Go Suns, but thank you Milwaukee’: A Suns fan was so inspired by the city’s hospitality that he donated $1,000 to a local food bank by Grace McDermott of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; July 23, 2021

Word of the Week

I have to admit, I didn’t know that this was a thing. I mean, I’ve heard of people doing it but didn’t know it had become so rampant that it had actually been given a name. And it’s not just being used for pranking/revenge but for extortion too. A man recently died because of a swatting incident because two people were trying to get his twitter handle. His TWITTER HANDLE.


Quote of the Week

Seven Things I Love (7-12-2021)

  1. 1. These Japanese Pastries – Nobody makes more delicious looking pastries than the Japanese. These are from a patisserie in Iwakura, Japan. Aren’t they incredible? For more photos visit this Instagram.

2. This New Book by Architectural Writer John Ota – A friend of mine recommended this book and I must say, it wasn’t what I expected. It far exceeded my expectations!

Ota and his wife wanted to create the perfect kitchen so he decided to travel across North America visiting kitchens from various eras found in a baker’s dozen of renowned homes, several belonging to some rather famous people including Thomas Jefferson, Georgia O’Keefe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Julia Child and Louis Armstrong.

Each chapter begins with a simple, hand-drawn sketch of a kitchen as well as a floor plan. Not surprisingly, Ota discusses the aesthetics, features, and functionality of the kitchens but he also covers the history and culture of the person, place and/or time associated with the room. He ends the chapters with a short letter to his wife Fanny, sharing with her what he learned and what he felt they could incorporate into their own space.

Link to WorldCat.org (to see if your local public library has a copy)
Link to the book at Bookshop.org

3. This Video of Alan Rickman Making Tea – as the title says, it’s epic. (It’s been around for a while but Alan was trending a week or so ago and whenever I think of him I think of this, among the dozens of other fantastic roles he’s done.)

4. These Bulldog Puppies – If you don’t want to rub those little bellies you aren’t human. (And those piggies!)

5. This Art Jeweler, Sarella Suarez – I bought the piece below (in silver) at an art festival this weekend. I LOVE IT so much! It’s about 30 inches long so it can be doubled and worn as two necklaces or worn as one long necklace. During festival season many artists have few pieces listed on their websites so at the moment Sarella only has a couple things in her online shop – you may want to check back again around October.

6. This Hydrangea Bush – I love hydrangeas but I had never seen this color, isn’t it gorgeous??? A friend of mine and I went to the Whitefish Bay Art Fest on Saturday and we parked on one of the side streets. As we were making our way toward the main road we saw these. It wowed us.

7. This Trailer for Season Two of Ted Lasso – There are a lot of shows I’m watching but this one brings me the greatest joy. Ted Lasso is Mr. Rogers for adults. If you haven’t watched it yet, you don’t know what you’re missing. (Season two begins streaming on July 23rd!)

Word of the Week


Quote of the Week

Five Things I Love (4/27/2020)

  1. 1. Stanley Tucci making a Negroni – if you haven’t seen this video yet, you have to watch it. It’s true, I could watch Stanley Tucci reading a phone book (there’s a handful of actors that I can say this about and he’s one of them,) but this is entrancing.

2. The Film Short made while isolating by one of my favorite history buff/film makers. I love her sense of humor.

3. Children’s Book Emoji Pictionary – how many can you figure out? I managed to get 15 out of 15 (yes I’m bragging, but full disclosure I was a Children’s Librarian for 12 years before becoming a library director so I have a bit of an advantage.) I’ll put the answers at the bottom of the post.

4. Gabe Kaplan beating the pants off of Robert Conrad in a race from the Battle of the Network Stars. Raise your hand if you remember this show! I do, I do!!!

https://twitter.com/super70ssports/status/1222315769981218819?lang=en

5. This video of Mr. Rogers & Julia Child cooking together. I would have given anything to meet Mr. Rogers but I can say I got to meet Julia Child back when I worked at Schwartz Bookshop in Milwaukee during her ‘The Way to Cook’ book tour. She’s as fabulous as you would hope she’d be and so wonderfully tall. As a tall person myself I was overjoyed about that.

6. This article on ‘5 Reasons to Bake Pretzels with Walter the Baker‘ – yesterday was National Pretzel Day and when I think of pretzels I can’t help but think of the book Walter the Baker. For those of you who haven’t read the book, here is a lovely video story time. Walter the Baker is one of my favorite Eric Carle books. It may be because it’s about pretzels. It may be because it has a Duke & Duchess in the story, (good or bad I’m partial to stories that include royalty.) It may be because I love all Carle’s books.

Anyway, being in isolation, pretzels are the perfect thing to make at home, assuming you have flour – I hear it can be difficult to find in some areas. How yummy!

7. Last but definitely not least, these Coloring Sheets inspired by WES ANDERSONS & HAYAO MIYAZAKI films. O……M…..G, I’m in heaven!!!

And the answers to the Children’s Book Emoji Pictionary are:

  1. Green Eggs & Ham
  2. Charlotte’s Web
  3. The Very Hungry Caterpillar
  4. Good Night Moon
  5. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
  6. Cat in the Hat
  7. Rainbow Fish
  8. Stone Soup
  9. Three Little Pigs
  10. Alice in Wonderland
  11. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
  12. If you Give a Mouse a Cookie
  13. Goldilocks & the Three Bears
  14. The Giving Tree
  15. Where the Wild Things Are

How’d ya do?

Five Things I Love (11/25/19)

Love may not actually be a strong enough word for some of these, but I didn’t want to oversell anything. Thought I’d share with all of you, on a weekly basis (plan to do this on Mondays), five things I came across, used, saw, thought about, well, you get the gist, during the previous week. Here’s my first go…

1. This video of Taika Waititi and Stephen Merchant breaking down a scene from the movie JoJo Rabbit…

Taika Waitiki came onto my radar after I had watched Thor: Ragnarok. Ragnarok was different from all of the other Marvel films up to the point and I became a little obsessed. I started watching everything I could find on YouTube – outtakes, deleted scenes, and all the special little videos that Taika had created for the fans about the making of the film. He’s amazing and it’s no wonder.

Chris Hemsworth and Taika Waitiki on the set of Thor: Ragnarok (click photo to go to Den of Geek interview with Taika Waitiki)

A native New Zealander, its no surprise that Taika is super cool, talented, AND has a fantastic sense of humor. But it’s also understandable why we here in the northern hemisphere hadn’t heard much about him before he directed Ragnarok. Thankfully his talent has been recognized and it has opened doors for him to do projects like JoJo Rabbit.

It seems a lot of people were a bit worried about a satirical movie about Hitler, so much so that Taika had to take on the roll of Hitler himself. But there’s a lot of awards buzz so it looks like he knows what he is doing!

2. FITS socks – I have been a SmartWool girl for years. I get cold feet and these things were like manna from heaven – wool but washable and not itchy? Pinch me! Then a friend of mine told me about FITS socks and said she liked them better than SmartWool. I was completely skeptical but I decided to try them. OMG, she was right! They still have all the benefits of SmartWool but with betters options in terms of height (fat calves over here) and padded heels (insert Hallelujah chorus). Both socks are a blend – Smartwool is Merino wool, nylon, and elastane. FITS is Merino wool, nylon, polyester, and lycra. Admittedly I do like a lot of the designs on the Smartwool better but I’m willing to give that up for comfort – you know what they say, “form follows function.” Sorry SmartWool, I’m afraid I’m a FITS girl now.

3. This photo of Ted Danson – the man is utterly joyful from being arrested. I LOVE THIS GUY!!!

4. This article about What We Can Still Learn From Mister Rogers as Adults By Shayla Thiel Stern. You’re going to want to read the entire article but the main points are:

  1. Routine and responsibility are the bedrock of your day.
  2. It feels good to make something, even if you aren’t very good at it.
  3. Put on your sneakers.
  4. The Land of Make-Believe is still there for you.
  5. Look for the helpers.
  6. Finally, just be a good neighbor.

5. These photos taken by photographer Jermaine Horton. An 8 year-old named Marian Scott (isn’t that an epic name for a little kid in 2019?!?) showed up to school in Jackson, Michigan on school picture day. It seems however the school has some sort of nonsense policy that kids are required to only have hair color in “natural tones.” Marian had red-extensions. What did the school do? They didn’t allow this 8 year-old to have her school photos taken. Can you say devastating? Well guess what – her parents were pissed to say the least and it got on the news. That’s how Jermaine Horton heard about and she offered to do a super awesome photo shoot for Marian free of charge. And as you can see, the photos are WAY better than any old class pictures would have been.

Photographer Jermaine Horton put on a professional photo shoot for 8-year-old
Marian Scott after she was denied school pictures for having red hair extensions.