Sanderson's

D and I paid a visit to Sanderson's on our way out of Quimby's this year. Sam and Weeza Sanderson led us on a tour of the wood shop and showed us how their wooden bowls are made, then took us out into the fields to meet their sheep, goats, pony, cats and miniature donkeys! We chose two bowls to be shipped back to SLC, and picked up a few postcards for good measure. Peep the rest of the photos over here.

Ghazal: America the Beautiful

 

Do you remember our earnestness our sincerity
in first grade when we learned to sing America

The Beautiful along with the Star-Spangled Banner
and say the Pledge of Allegiance to America

We put our hands over our first grade hearts
we felt proud to be citizens of America

I said One Nation Invisible until corrected
maybe I was right about America

School days school days dear old Golden Rule Days
when we learned how to behave in America

What to wear, how to smoke, how to despise our parents
who didn’t understand us or America

Only later learning the Banner and the Beautiful
live on opposite sides of the street in America

Only later discovering the Nation is divisible
by money by power by color by gender by sex America

We comprehend it now this land is two lands
one triumphant bully one still hopeful America

Imagining amber waves of grain blowing in the wind
purple mountains and no homeless in America

Sometimes I still put my hand tenderly on my heart
somehow or other still carried away by America

                                                         - Alicia Ostriker, 1937

Etsy Snafu, Illustrated

Due to a glitch that Customer Service has been entirely unhelpful at fixing, my Etsy account (under which I've never sold anything) has managed to field orders sent to literally everyone named "Lauren". Turns out that there are a lot of creative Laurens in the world, whom, based on the messaged I've received, hand-letter fonts on weight loss jars, bedazzle cowboy hats, customize superhero birthday shirts and mermaid birthday cards, sell hair feathers, bunny-shaped pins and felt dog patches, among other items. Below are a just a few examples of some of the requests that my account has received over the past few months.