He is the Most Interesting Credenza in the World

In the shop now

Her Name is Rio

and she doesn't have any shame
she wears leg warmers
and she dances through the pain
and when her kids beg her
to stop she says no way
oh Rio's husband is late
for his tennis game




Yes, there WAS a lot of air tennis guitar in the 80s...I was there:



The preppy and the club dancer with a heart 'o gold:



Ralph Macchio, 'dat you?





Most naturally awesome:



Best dancer by far:



We went to an 80s party, obviously. Almost busted a friend's tooth out with a karaoke microphone. It was aight.

Killing Me Softly (with pesticides)

Oh human race, you are baffling. Somehow you have taken nature's perfect food and turned it into cancer-causing, neurotoxic death grenades.




The next time you see some study or headline or lame-o doctor proclaiming that "there is no evidence that organic is better", please feel free to revisit these facts:

Grapes have up to 14 different pesticides in a single sample

Peaches are treated with more pesticides than any other produce--with combinations of up to 57 different chemicals found in their flesh

Hot peppers are treated with as many as 97 pesticides, cucumbers 68, and greens (lettuce and dark greens like spinach, kale, mustard greens...you know, the really good stuff) up to 66.

You can read about the methodology of this annual study (as well as other fun and encouraging facts!) by clicking here.




The EWG comes up with a safe and unsafe list every year.

Here are their "dirty dozen" worst offenders:

apples
celery
strawberries
peaches
spinach
nectarines
grapes
red/yellow bell peppers
potatoes
blueberries
lettuce
kale/collard greens
[cilantro]*
[cucumbers]*
[raspberries]*

*also tested off the charts for pesticide contamination

And here are their "clean fifteen" with zero or very minimal contamination:

onions
sweet corn
pineapples
avocado
asparagus
sweet peas
mangos
eggplant
cantaloupe
kiwi
cabbage
watermelon
sweet potatoes
grapefruit
mushrooms

I don't know about you, but I'm shopping with this list from now on.

If by "winding down" you mean going crazy, also eBay

There's no way you can say that the end of a school year "winds down". That implies that something is gradually slowing down until it completely stops.

If by winding down they mean a manic two week frenzy of events, finals, yearbooks, daily demands for more volunteers and money ("if every parents donates $100, twenty hours of time, and all the supplies, we can make this school carnival a raging success!"), "balloon bouquets" attacking you from behind while you try maneuvering your car to the 10th graduation ceremony that week, a gaggle of kids that no longer view a crisp $10 bill and a pat on the back as an acceptable gift, all culminating in a huge Costco sheetcake-fueled nervous breakdown in somebody's streamer-bedecked garage, well yes, then I guess things ARE winding down over here.

But this year I am prepared. A little more than a week from now, I'll be luxuriating in my rented Mid-Century Palm Springs house, and there will be absolutely no balloons or sheetcakes allowed. Here's a peek of where I'll be staying:







Meanwhile I've managed to get a bit of work accomplished, although I'm not sure it matters. With all the events everyone has going on, eBay is getting as much traffic as Charlie Sheen's parenting website. Actually, less. No, he doesn't really have one. I made that up.

Check the store here.

Huge, chunky, wild 70s Danish teak dining table:







Set of eight comfortable Danish chairs:






Some vintage campaign furniture:

D. I. Why Am I Doing This?

There are a lot of projects I just can't wrap my head around tackling right now. I was in the fabric store yesterday and I gave myself a talking to: "You do NOT want to try and sew yourself something right now. You will not finish it. No. Don't argue. You WILL NOT!"

I know that some of you are KRAFTY with a capital K and can't touch anything without folding it into a cute shape and letterpressing it with your self-designed logos. You are awesome.

The poopy news about running a (non-crafty) business and living with giant hungry children is that wood-blocking my own drapes is going to have to wait. Lena Corwin's awesome book taunts me from the coffee table every night as I slip into a late-night KPBS/cheese coma.










I will battle my textile demons later.

But for now, there has to be something fun, easy, and REALLY, REALLY quick for the rest of us right?

YES! I love this idea. It takes like $1 and ten seconds. Even I can afford it.



Use a glue gun to apply lettering or patterns to an old glass jar and spray paint over it. How awesome for a party? Save your old Trader Joe's jars, paint them all the same color, and then group them together for centerpieces! You could glue-gun the bride's new monogram for a bridal shower, a baby's name for a babyshower, or just do modern geometric shapes and paint black or gray for something modern.

For custom-colored utensils, buy a bunch from the dollar store, tape off the tops and spray the handles (or dip if you have old cans of house paint to use).



I don't know if it would hold up in the dishwasher, but who cares? It's cheaper than renting utensils, and probably the same price as buying "good" plastic stuff!

O.K., so these are the craft version of serving olives with toothpicks as "appetizers" but who cares? It's quick and salty, and gosh darn it, if everyone is drinking they won't notice you were being lazy.

Kittinger Mandarin/Greek Key Furniture

Don't hate, but I recently acquired a full set of Kittinger Mandarin bedroom furniture. The estate was immaculate and the pieces look like they just rolled out of the factory. They have the original, sort of Tiffany blue/green lacquer, and baby these pieces are MASSIVE!







Look for them in the shop within the next week or two!

I love Greek Key motifs when used with restraint. Which probably doesn't surprise you since I have a Thomas Jefferson dining set and rugs from civilizations that don't even exist anymore.

I want to have my way with this amazing goldenrod number:



If you like this look but don't own an oil well or small Middle Eastern country, here are a pair of excellent hacks to try:

Bri used a really blah little dresser and some simple trim:



And made this:



I totally love the colors, but for you minimalists a tone-on-tone paint job would still be really beautiful.

It might go something like this:




That hack inspired Jaimee (whose blog seems to be defunct) to turn this:



into this:



This qualifies as super-brilliant because the white IKEA Malm dresser already has a nice, glossy white lacquer finish, and that's just not easy to achieve using a can of spray paint!

Any great projects this weekend?

The Bill and Melinda Gates School for Hipster Children (where Obama almost came to speak)

It was my turn to drive carpool the other day, and I pulled over to capture this with my cell phone:



It's the view from my kid's school--sparkling water, a sprinkling of yachts, the downtown skyline. You know, pretty much like every other school NOT.

This is the school at which, this semester, the kid's elective class is tightrope walking in the park. The school at which his roller derby-playing, band-member hipster Humanities teacher explained to me that my son is not being lazy and talking too much, but rather "socially maturing" and "fomenting his masterpiece". I know, look it up.

I just walked in on them playing bongos and singing "Don't Stop Believin". With their teacher. I joined in of course, because I am a parent who gets involved.

Yet the kid still occasionally wails that he wishes school had "never been invented".

Oh, you mean that air conditioned fun-factory by the bay that I take you to every day? Yeah. I feel you honey.

When I was his age, I was spending my days in Home Ec, accidentally sewing sleeves on inside-out with a 100-year old sewing machine, while getting regular updates on my breast and butt development from a fat red-headed kid named Brian.

So you know what? Don't get all "I know why the caged bird sings" on me kid. Go foment something why don't you?