Dangerous Cupcakes?

Don't tell anyone please - I want to stay in business - but I broke the law today.  And I did it deliberately.  My illegal action involved a cupcake pillow - perhaps you can guess what it was.  That's right - I removed the large, ugly tag that said:  Under Penalty of Law, This Tag is Not to be Removed Except by the Consumer.  I find this type of tag completely baffling.  There are no special life saving instructions printed on this tag - only a statement that the materials used in making "the article" are in accordance with law.  ?  I think the materials in pretty much everything we sell from postcards and wind up toys to jewelry are "in accordance with law" and none of those items come with large threatening labels.  If anyone can enlighten me, I'd be happy to learn the reason why cupcake pillows merit this tag . . . . .

At The Risk Of Repeating Myself . . .

Joie de Vivre has now had a blog for three Thanksgivings . . . long enough that I just looked back to see what I wrote on each of the last two.  Then I thought - how silly, even if I write pretty much exactly the same thing - who will remember?  I'm sure (or relatively sure) that JoiedeBlog readers don't go back and compare what I wrote one year with what I wrote another.  And, I do feel kind of the same every year.  There are lots of things I look forward to -seeing all the customers who come, like Christmas, but once a year, for one. And the whole thing is kind of crazy and fun. I'm also slightly horrified at what is to come - my 24/7 work schedule, the end of regular life for a month . . . and slightly apprehensive about various things - will it be a "good" season, will we have a big snowstorm on a critical weekend, do we have enough extra staff, enough inflatable fruitcakes and other cool things to satisfy all our customers?  Will I make it through the season with my sanity intact?  As a (relatively) sane person, I do have some reservations about the commercial extravaganza the holidays have become and I shudder to read of stores opening at 5 am on Friday morning, a time that all of us Joie de Vivre people plan to be sound asleep in our beds. In any case, we look forward to helping you with your holidays needs be they large or be they small. And our lovely customers will certainly be on the long list of things I will give thanks for tomorrow when I raise that glass with family and friends.  Happy Thanksgiving and see you soon!

What Could This Mean?

A day or two ago I noticed a plastic bag pushpinned to the back of a jewelry display.  Inside it was a candy corn and a note scribbled on a post it that said "I am the Mirage Frog - currently replaced by a jelly bean."  Okay . . . .

It took me a minute or two to figure this out - but when I did, I realized how completely unfigureoutable it would be to anyone but the staff of Joie.  Jellybean?  A candy corn that calls itself a mirage frog?  Explanation - we have an item called the Mirage which has a reflecting mirror - it comes with a little plastic frog.  We must have replaced the frog with a jellybean way back at Easter, then put the frog back, then replaced it with a candy corn at Halloween and for some reason saved said candy corn when Halloween was over. Anyway, I kind of cherish these odd little moments

Possible Ballot Initiative?

Some pretty crazy things get onto ballots these days - for example, the recently defeated "personhood" for fertilized eggs one in Mississippi.  I was talking to a friend the day after that went down and our conversation meandered into the weather and her walk to work that morning.  She mentioned that she had observed several houses with full fledged Christmas holiday decorations.  We were discussing how awful that was and I was suddenly struck with a brilliant idea - what about a ballot initiative that would make it illegal to put up holiday decorations before Thanksgiving?  Now there's something we could get passionate about . . . and possibly it could have a rider stipulating that they also must be taken down by Valentine's Day.  There could be a few exemptions - perhaps for those with really time consuming displays - but your average inflatable Santa would have to wait until the turkey was digested. We really feel that holiday decorations are more special and exciting when confined to a month or so.  Look for our petition in 2012 ! !

May We Introduce the Duchess of Devonshire?

We have been selling a wonderful Fotofolio postcard for many years - "The Dutchess of Devonshire Feeding Her Chickens."  I never knew much about the Dutchess, except that she looked fabulous in her evening dress, feeding some pretty happy looking chickens.  The other day a customer called to special order a dozen of the postcards. (Incidentally, available at Joie de Vivre for $1 and - buyer beware - on Ebay for $4.99!)  In the course of our conversation she mentioned that a biography of the Dutchess was being published this fall.  Then today, I was browsing on the MacMillan website and found the notice for the book, along with this rather imposing picture.  I think I just might have to read that bio . . .

                                                    

The Best Deal Ever - (An Unabashed Plug!)

I just got a reminder from Pandora Radio that my subscription was coming up for renewal - you all probably are familiar with their service - it's basically free internet radio where you can program your own stations - you choose an artist, or a song, and they take it from there, playing music they think you will like based around your selection.  And, you can have up to 100 of these personalized stations. Pandora has been a godsend for Joie de Vivre.  For one thing, you can immediately stop a song you don't like - and we had plenty of otherwise great CDs with one wildly inappropriate song. We also got very tired of our CD collection - no matter how many we had, we felt like we were listening to the same ones over and over - and it was often hard to find music we all liked.  Now anyone at the front desk can have their station and stations can be switched in an instant.  You can have all this absolutely free - they just break in every so often to say "You are listening to Pandora radio" sometimes adding a small explanation of what the service is.  But, for a mere $36 a year, you get it with no interruption at all - $3 a month for their amazing service. This is what they used to call in the old days "such a deal."  We  L O V E  Pandora.