Elephant Art Enters Guinness Book

     Eight Thai Elephants’ six by 2.4 meter painted masterpiece was sold recently for 1.5 million (equivalent to 39,000 dollars) to an elephant lover in the United States.  This price set a record worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records for the most expensive piece of elephant art ever sold.
     These elephants  trained for years before attempting their painting, entitled “Cold Wind, Swirling Mist, Charming Lanna Number One” at the Mae Sa Elephant Camp in Chiang Mai, Thailand.  They have been taught by prominent painters and have been provided with room and board along with seventy other elephants at the camp which has been in operation for over eight years.  The money from the painting will be used to pay for all of the elephants’ care.
     The painting itself (see picture above) is a pastoral landscape and is done in a mixture of impressionistic and pointillism styles.  The original design was drafted by human artists and given to the elephant trainers (called “mahouts”) who “advised” (who knows what that means!?) the elephants in their color choices and style. 
     The elephant group, composed of four males and four females, can paint both realistic and abstract paintings, and have an impressive repertoire.  However, most of their paintings are not being sold.  In fact, “Cold Wind, Swirling Mist, Charming Lanna Number One” was not going to be sold until the outrageous price was proposed.
     Sadly, there are only about 2000 wild Thai elephants left and 3000 elephants in captivity.  If further action is not taken, all of the wild Thai elephants could be wiped out within fifteen years.
~Rosalie Lawrence
 
Information found at: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050220/sc_afp/thailandanimals_050220231955

Dream:

The dream was set in a Halloween Town type location. I was asleep in an old scraggly eucalyptus tree when someone woke me up.
for some odd reason I thought the person who was waking me up was Tarzan. It wasn’t Tarzan. It was a girl named Willy and Willy looked an awful lot like Rochelle.
She told me we had to go and she pushed me out of the tree. I landed on an old woman who was holding a black cat. Willy told me to run so we did. We ran  behind a ragged old house where I found my little brother and a giant carton of milk. He jumped inside the carton and popped out as Tona.
Willy and I said “Hi!” to Tona and she tried to eat us. So we ran away to an underground mall where suddenly we were accompanied by Amanda and Lucy. Amanda introduced herself as Edwina and Lucy said her name was Joyce. We were walking around the mall parking lot when the old lady I fell on popped out of nowhere and said to get off her property. She started to chase us so we hid behind cars and bushes and then we ran into a carnival.  In the carnival we hid in a cotton candy machine. We were hungry so we ate all the cotton candy and we turned into giant blobular versions of ourselves. The old lady found us so we jumped out of the cotton candy machine and rolled down a paved path. Willy and I shrunk but Edwina and Joyce rolled away into a clump of bushes where they eventually deflated but meanwhile the lady was still after Willy and me. we were our regular sizes so we had an easier time moving around. We found a giant can and we jumped inside. The giant can started driving, and I was flipping out. The can had turned into an H2 and was driving all over the place. I turned to Willy who was in the back seat. She assured me someone was driving the car so I turned back to the driver seat and one of Santa's elves was driving the H2. He couldn’t see over the dashboard so he accidentally crashed into a mountain. The mountain wigged out and exploded. Tons of milk squirted out of the mountain. Then I woke up. 

~Sarah Sondossi

Featured Items:
(these are a few of our favorite things)

Coffee Rio Candies

Coffee Rio Coffee Candies are delicious hard candies with the taste of sweet coffee. They are great for gifts, or just for satisfying your sweet tooth. They are available at Trader Joes.
~Flora Lawrence.

SoftSoap Juicy Melon:

This hand soap is probably the best-smelling stuff I’ve ever owned. It actually smells like watermelon, though it is kind of artificial since watermelon doesn’t actually have much of a smell. But I highly recommend this impeccable sanitizing formula for all of your hand washing needs.
~Rosalie Lawrence

Recipe of the Month:

Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks of butter
  
• 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
  
• 2 cups flour
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.
  
  

• combine all ingredients and knead with hands until everything is blended.
  
• chill and roll out to about 1/2 inch on a floured board and cut into shapes. (Or you can cut it after it’s baked when it’s still warm.
  
• Bake at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned.
  
  

Icing:
(For cakes or cookies)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sifted confectioners sugar
  
• 1.5 Tbs. soft butter
  
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  
• 1/4 tsp. salt
  
• 3-4 Tbs. milk
  

• Combine all ingredients in a small mixing bowl.
  
• Stir until smooth and well blended.
  
• Adjust for spreading consistency if necessary.
  

Reviews:

rent
Cold Mountain
This is a really sad, emotional Civil War story that actually really, really good. It stars Nicole Kidman, who is one of the best actresses of all time in my opinion, as well as Renee Zelwegger who is awesome. But this is definitely only for those who enjoy crying during movies, and those who don’t get annoyed by historical fiction. It’s also rated “R,” so this can be a drawback for some of us. But I definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys tragic love stories. There’s some kind of intense violence, so if you get grossed out by blood, I advise you to shut your eyes when the battle scenes start!

Verdict: A
~Rosalie Lawrence

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws