“Hippity, Hoppity, Easter’s on Its Way…”

There’s something about eggs.

I don’t know what attracts me to them: their smoothness? their asymmetry? their promise of new life? Something about them seems like Hope to me.

In kidhood, I had a large tin egg illustrated with Peter Cottontail scenes which, with enough rotations of the handcrank, would play a tinny version of “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” I no longer have the musical oddity, but it comes to mind each Easter.

Last weekend, I happened upon some eggs of a different kind. They’re part of The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt and charity auction in London—grand in scale, unique in design, a few even falling into the “exquisite” category. Each of the 200 eggs was created by an artist, architect, jeweler, or designer to benefit Action for Children and Elephant Family. These eggs, of course, led me to people and places and loveliness that I hadn’t known existed.

Take a gander yourself and see where the eggs take you. (If you’re anywhere in or near London, you must go see them. I’ll be jealous, but that’s okay.)

[Pics from top to bottom: “Caeruleus & The Good Egg” by Rhea Thierstein, and “Pandora” (dinosaur hatchling) by Martin Aveling.]

Today Only: Play A Game, Feed Joplin’s Homeless

This kind of breaking news often comes to me too late. However, if you’re reading this on Thursday, 2 June 2011, then you still have time to make a difference for the animals of Joplin, Missouri, who lost their homes to a tornado.

The FreeKibble “game” is one multiple-choice question, but you can choose to play more questions if you wish. And you can revisit the site throughout the day. Just choose Bow Wow Trivia or Meow Trivia or both.

This site donates food every day to shelters, but today the goods are dedicated to Joplin alone. Plus, if 1 million pieces are reached, the Halo pet food company will match it. (Halo is wholesome food for any pet and not typically the brand served in shelters.)

So let’s help the homeless four-leggeds get some highly nutritional food while they’re waiting for their old families or their adopters. Every click is worth 10 pieces of kibble.


[You can see some of the unclaimed pets (including birds, turtles, ferrets, and rabbits) on the home page of the Joplin Humane Society.]

A BIG THANK-YOU to the Lull reader who passed along this information!

My Head Hurts

I just donated 500 grains of rice by answering some math questions. I would have donated more, but apparently I've forgotten how to divide negative numbers. There's a link at the right of Lull to Free Rice. Use it to feed the world. Test your knowledge of languages, mathematics, art, geography, or chemistry. It's good for you and good for someone else.