

Looking for sparks of gold in daily life (Dance, Arts, Fashion, Books...)
Sesame Street is 40! The classic PBS children's show may be 40, but really, it is timeless. To celebrate its anniversary, American Apparel came up with a special line of t-shirts; I immediately got my little paws on one, of course.
I found it, distressed and abandoned on the sidewalk. It had most obviously not been taken care of for a long time. I carried it home, sanded it carefully and painted it bright white.




The metal door says Members Only. Upon entering, you must sign a discharge of liability. Yet this little Venice "club" is merely a place where you can buy produce, raw milk dairy products and all kinds of foods, some of which are pretty crazy - like the Kombucha featuring "symbiotic fungus"; I'll pass, but my dear friend Stacie swears by it. The dairy products, made with raw milk à la Europe, come from an Amish community, know for its commitment to all-natural methods and ingredients; the Amish also produce an apple cider I'm eager to try.
As I continue to search for X-mas presents on my fave shopping website, Etsy, I sometimes stumble upon items I can't resist buying... for myself.
I really needed (yes, really) glass cases, as I hate my Ray-Ban's ugly and bulky case and don't want to scratch them, and as I lost my eyeglass case a long, long time ago. Etsy's Sew Gracious offers lovely, very affordable ($8), handmade eyeglass cases I chose 2 of. Aren't they perfectly exquisite?
Perhaps you are already familiar with my witty comments which I sometimes leave on this lovely blog. My name is Tao, aka Taocito, and I am a traveling pooch. I was given to my owner at the tender age of 2 months and ever since it has been quite the adventure. She took me to Ithaca when she was studying for her MBA at Cornell, and then we jetted off to Mexico. While in Singapore she did have to leave me behind but then she took me to Amsterdam where I blissfully resided for two years.
When you think of Kenya, where I spent some years as a child, the Indian community is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet there are many Sikhs living in Kenya - the British brought many Indian workers to build the East Africa railroads and to serve in the police forces.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been tutoring kids at France Exchange, a Los Angeles institution that has been offering French language programs for over 20 years. Little by little, the house has become filled with all things French for children, including an extensive book collection, with some concessions to local passions - witness the basketball court. It is precisely around this court that you will find the almost life-size figures of some of French children's most beloved characters. 
Some time ago, I posted about how, in bounty-laden California, people have been getting together on private properties to pick fruit that would otherwise just rot away. This is done, of course, with the kind authorization of property owners, and the fruit is then donated to food pantries.
I just joined Food Forward here in Los Angeles - "a grassroots effort by Angelenos to help fight urban hunger." And on Sunday, I participated in my first orange pick. With a group of volunteers, we descended upon a garden in Northridge, reaching for oranges packed with sunshine and sugar; we then loaded the fruit-filled crates into an old blue hatch back car. All the oranges we picked will be distributed to struggling people around the LA area.

Travel to London
Travel to Amsterdam
Travel to South-Western France
Travel to the Cannes Film Festival 08
Learn about dahlias
Learn about Irises
Carolyn Brown
Emily Dickinson
Sylvia Plath
Indira Gandhi
Vivienne Westwood