And in other news . . .
. . . I’m finding it hard to convince my coworkers I have pig flu. Was easier when it was bird flu – I just told them my budgies were sneezing . . .
But that’s not really relevant to anything. Got a couple of shout-outs – very excited to see Elvy Ess has an Etsy store now. I got a fantastic, custom-made bag from her that I ordered at Wild and Worn and I love it (it’s got a stag beetle on it *squee*).
My friend Pangaia is also in the process of setting her Etsy store up too, but until then you can get her stuff at Visage n Vice in East Brunswick (and you can buy my jewellery there too *hint hint*).
And I’ve jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. I was going to avoid it – I’ve managed to hold out against Facebook for this long – but given that I’m now trying to sell stuff I’ve got to start thinking about things I’ve never considered before such as . . . well . . . marketing. Anyway, you can catch all the fun @stillbeing00.
Last of all, lots of great new stuff in my store! I’m starting to focus on belly dance coin belts, and I’ve got a few new anklet styles in stock too!
Oooh! Purdy anklet!
Victoria’s Burning . . .
Photo courtesy of The Age
Big news here – we’ve had record breaking heat and fire conditions today and half the state is on fire. There have been fourteen confirmed fatalities so far and they’re saying it could go as high as forty. The temperature has dropped considerably from the 46.4ºC (114.8ºF) we got earlier but the wind is still crazy so conditions are still volatile with so many fire fronts across the state. My heart goes out to all those who’ve lost, to the wildlife who’ve suffered and the livestock destroyed, and my hat goes off to all the firies doing it tough out there – sure, we live in a country where bushfires are natural, but there is nothing natural about the conditions out there and without their efforts things could be far, far worse.
DSE fire map here and CFA updates here.
Offers for assistance can be made here or here, or consider donating to Wildlife Victoria or WSPA’s emergency funds.
Baby Whale needs TLC
Photo: Nick Moir, from The Age website
Anyone who knows me well – especially anyone who knew me as a little kid – knows I love whales and dolphins to bits. I had whale and dolphin books, posters, Greenpeace membership at age seven, even a cassette of whale calls I would listen to and imitate when I was a little tacker. I was completely cetacean mad. So when I read about this today, my heart absolutely broke. Just look at the little guy! Poor thing . . . and the hardest part? Knowing there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it. It’s not like finding a baby possum or something and taking it to the wildlife rescue people. You can’t just hand-raise a baby Humpback and release it in the wild again. You can’t just come up with some whale-formula and make a surrogate mother out of a sock puppet like you can with baby birds. And you know what else does me in? Knowing how distressed he must be. I can just imagine how his little whaley brain must be thinking and feeling and it really gets to me.
But I probably empathise with animals *way* too much . . .
Anyway, on another note, I came across a really cool game today which it turns out I really suck at. You watch a bunch of people reading a section of a poem and you have to guess where their accent is from. I always thought I was fairly good with accents, but I only got 28 points and some of them are really tricky. I’m interested to see how everyone else goes.
