THE C WORD!!!

Have you ever been around me when I spot someone wearing Cr...Cr... cRO.....CROCS?

Yep, pretty much the same two days ago when our customer care manager came in the office and I spotted them upon her feet. Just substitute the name Raven for Emily and it was the same scene.

EARTH DAY

Today is Earth Day, a day many people get involved in Earth activities or it gets swept under the carpet. I have always loved the day. It's a day to celebrate annually, though we should be caring for Mother Earth daily It's a day to highlight environmental protection and promote sustainability. The day can feature many things to get involved with, or we can just change our ways to protect and serve, like neighborhood tree plantings, creating a bird or bee habitat, liter pickups, or just unplugging things not in use frequently or turning off lights and things when not in a room, using grocery reuseable bags or a market basket INSTEAD of those dreaded damn plastic bags! I never go to the farmers market without my trusty basket to put everything in. Or it could be as simple as donating to so many various animal and environmental charities and agencies. I got a small group of us at work to go today to a park in Mechanicsburg to do a litter pick up, and once home, it's a day to make an extra contribution to several of the charities I belong to. Since I was in Philly for the weekend, another great way to have a fun day and do something to make a difference is look into your local parks!!!

I'm amazed at the parks in Philadelphia, which has almost over 63 park spaces in and around the city...Fairmount Park being one of the largest urban landscaped park systems in the US. So, this year I decided my new charity to give to this year is Friends of Rittenhouse Square, since I can't be there in person. I saw a booth this weekend and signed up. Rittenhouse Square, which is the fourth oldest park in the US, is like many other parks in the county. They need care and help, maintaining and improving to keep them around for our respite. Friends of Rittenhouse work tirelessly to help transform the Square into a place of peace and inspiration like litter removal, cleaning graffiti, planting flowers, weeding, and tending to gardens, clearing leaves, mowing lawns...or just donating or volunteering time, to a fund or group if they have one, and some parks even have benches you can buy and have placed in memory of someone. Our parks are more important than ever, what with urban crawl and development, or funds being cut off completely to maintain them. All these photos are fine example of parks in Philly I have taken over the years.

So many ways to give, or donate money or time too this Earth Day. Time to protect the environments and our animal and insect world before it's too late. Here are my primary groups I usually give too on Earth Day.

 

The Sheldrick Trust

The Nature Conservancy

National Audubon Society

World Wildlife Fund

And if interested in parks, check out your Parks and Recreations section of your local or city's website to see if they have a donations section or have a volunteer program.

And Happy Earth Day!

🌳🌼🌳🌼🌳🌼🌳

GIOVANNI'S ROOM

Nice to see some main stay and things of the past continue on. While in Philly this weekend, I can never pass on a chance and never will miss a trip into Giovanni's Room. Founded in 1973, the bookshop is named of course after James Baldwin's gay novel of the same name. During it's initial establishment, the shop included works of all gay and lesbian authors, and works by James Baldwin, Gertrude Stein and Wila Cather and many others...and still does, but is has now more than 30,00 titles dedicated towards not only gay men and women, but also feminist, transgender and bisexual topics, biographies, nonfiction tell all's, safe sex books and a section of "artistic" skin books and magazines for men and women and even a decent music selection of cd's and vinyl's. There's even a 99 cent section!!! For years now its been on the Historical and Museum Commission registersry as a historic location when the bookshop, was the first LGBT bookstore in the country,  and now the final one still operating.  The place has always been a mainstay, and haven for the community to come, hang, gather with others and search out help , services and reading interests just for us.  When the last owner, Ed retired after 48 years, the community worried, I recall posting way back then with worry what would happen to the place... but thankfully the Philly Aids Thrift took over. And it is glorious to see how well the place is doing. I love taking people there...just ask Sixpence! The girl I talked to said they are busier than ever, and she has seen a huge uptick in people wanting their money to stay IN THE COMMUNITY and not to big box and online presence. I couldn't agree more. I only get books through them, and if they don't have it, they can get it. The place was jumping on Saturday.

I have always loved this chandelier.

Good times! I have spent hours in there at a time back in the day. Had great conversations, bought to many books to recount, possibly some of my skin mags, got some great art, and cards learned, great source of information and community events, not to mention maybe even got cruised and taken back to some gent's abode on a couple of occasions!!! It's all part of the experience after all. But again, great to see the place was packed on both floors.

PAT at Giovanni's Room

345 S 12th and Pine Streets

MOOD BOARD

 

A good weekend. Read the previous post to see what I was up too. About the only thing I didn't mention was meeting two guys with friends why we took several libations at Ubar. Several drinks and three hours of conversation. I was asked by each of them when I'd be back in Philly. Whilst I did have my phone, everyone chuckled when I asked the bartender for paper and a pen to get their numbers. Nice to see some things never change. The tried-and-true method I say. Onward to the week.....

MONDAY!!!!!

Have a good week all! 

And it's time to get the fur chubbies out of the vault again.