Monthly Archives: February 2023

cracking the case.

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A man has been convicted of stealing nearly 200,000 chocolate eggs, worth around £40,000 ($48,000), in what British police have dubbed an “eggs-travagent theft.” Joby Pool, 32, pleaded guilty in court on Tuesday to criminal damage and theft, West Mercia Police said in a statement.The chocolate was recovered when Pool was stopped by highway police on Saturday, the force said.

According to PA Media, prosecutor Owen Beale said: “This clearly wasn’t spur-of-the-moment offending, if I can put it like that, because he had taken with him a tractor unit and he had to know that the load was there in the first place. It’s clearly a leading role and it’s clearly significant planning.”

Pool’s solicitor John McMillan told the court: “He stopped the vehicle when he realized he was being followed. He realized that the game was up – he realized the police were behind him and pulled in when it was safe to do so. He wasn’t offering any resistance and he was then arrested. Shortly after the theft a vehicle, presumably purporting to be the Easter bunny, was stopped northbound on the M42 and a 32 year old man was arrested on suspicion of theft.”

my deep thoughts on this case:

i do love these, but one or five are generally enough to make me happy for a year.

i also love true crime and find this fascinating

i wonder why he chose cadbury chocolate eggs as his loot

(though i do admire his choice)

i wonder what would the easter bunny have done without these

i wonder if there is a thriving black market for this merch

it seems an odd crime, but then, most crime is odd by the very nature of it.  

“he who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.”

-plato

 

source credits: ianne kolorin, london cnn, pa media

sweet chaos.

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the perfect product name. 

a little bit of crunch, a little bit of salt

and a unexpected swirl of sweet drizzle.

one that would be so fun to adopt as

a nickname, a profile name, a stage musical, an abba tribute band name,

or even a lifestyle. 

could also describe a holiday gathering.

depending on your family. 

 

“experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

-oscar wilde

 

gallery.

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the kinder have begun to create their own art gallery in the space where they play.

“art is too important not to share.”
-romero britto

cake4kids.

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Meet Cake4Kids: The Nonprofit That Bakes Birthday Cakes for Foster and At-Risk Children

 Inspired by an article profiling a young girl in the foster care system who burst into tears upon receiving her first birthday cake, Cake4Kids founder Libby Gruender recognized that such a simple gesture could have a profound impact on the lives of underprivileged children. IIn 2010, Cake4Kids launched as a grassroots effort in Sunnyvale, California, with a handful of volunteers baking 13 cakes for a few agencies that support youth. Today, the organization encompasses hundreds of volunteers, serves over 400 social services agencies, and provides over 3,000 custom, homemade cakes or sweets for at-risk kids (ages 1-24) on an annual basis — with more than 40,000 treats delivered in the past 13 years

While a birthday cake may seem like a simple gesture to many, each baked good serves as a sweet reminder to the children and youth in the U.S. foster care system that they are seen, cherished, and not forgotten.

Per the organization’s website, children served by this mission include “youth in foster care, group homes, homeless shelters, transitional and low income housing, domestic violence or human trafficking shelters, substance abuse programs, and refugees.” Agencies partnering with Cake4Kids must serve at-risk or underserved youth, be categorized as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization or government agency, and have offices in an area served by Cake4Kids.

Three years after Cake4Kids began, Gruender sadly passed away, but her mission continues to live on: The organization has since expanded across the country, with chapters all across the United States.

For more information, visit the Cake4Kids website to learn how you can volunteer, start a chapter in your area, and donate.

“how far that little candle throws his beams! so shines a good deed in a weary world.”

-william shakespeare, the merchant of venice

 

 

-source credit: julia diddy

humble hearts.

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“love is the humblest yet the most powerful force that the human being has.”

-mahatma gandhi

happy valentine’s day to all

 

art credit: george shaw, painted love

salad snack.

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something about a dehydrated salad in a bag doesn’t really scream either snack or salad to me. 

 

“one of the benefits of eating salad is that you can eat tons of it and never be satisfied.
-jim gaffigan

*yoopers.

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I
It took a month to make some of the incredible snow sculptures that were part of the annual Michigan Technological University Winter Carnival. Phi Kappa Tau extended its winning streak to five years with a huge rendition of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. (Photo: Daniel Staelgraeve | Michigan Technological University)
what you do in the winter (and sometimes in may),
when you go to college in the upper peninsula of michigan
* yooper – a native or inhabitant of the upper peninsula of michigan
 “i wrote, and sometimes, when i was stuck, i hit the road.
i ate pasties in the upper peninsula and hush puppies in cairo.
i did my best not to write about any place i had not been.”
– neil gaiman

this says…

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“this says –  i love my whole family.”

 

“writing isn’t letters on paper. it’s communication. it’s memory.”

-isaac marion

atmosphere.

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Reminiscent of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” this stunning photo of Jupiter’s swirly atmosphere, was captured by the Juno spacecraft, which is dedicated to studying Jupiter’s composition. It recently appeared on NASA’s Instagram page just in time for the news that astronomers have discovered 12 new moons belonging to the planet. That brings Jupiter’s total moon count to 92, more than any other planet in our solar system.

 

“it’s better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are…

than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think you are in paradise.”

-henry david thoreau

 

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstadt/Sean Do

 

small kindnesses.

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I’ve been thinking about the way,

when you walk down a crowded aisle,

people pull in their legs to let you by.

Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes,

a leftover from the Bubonic plague.

“Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes,

when you spill lemons from your grocery bag,

someone else will help you pick them up.

Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.

We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,

and to say thank you to the person handing it.

To smile at them and for them to smile back.

For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,

and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now.

So far from tribe and fire.

Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy,

these fleeting temples we make together when we say,

“Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

by Danusha Lameris, Small Kindnesses

 

 Danusha Laméris is a poet, teacher, and essayist. She is the author of The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), which was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her poems have been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The SUN Magazine, Tin House, The Gettysburg Review, and Ploughshares.