Overheard in Toronto:

Guy, walking down street, to his girlfriend: "...this is America we live in!"

(To do him credit, this is the only part of the conversation I overheard. For all I know, he might have been quoting somebody.)

I love Burt's Bees.

Burt and his bees have, over the years, provided me with many wonderful and excellent, as well as natural, personal care products. I have used Burt's soap. His hair conditioner. His shampoo. His foot cream. His cuticle cream. His hand lotion. His body lotion. His facial wash (my personal favourite). All of them have been excellent and wonderful.

So when I saw that Burt and his bees were now producing a natural SPF 15 sunscreen, I was excited. I was already using a natural sunscreen from another company, but since Burt had always had such a track record of excellence, I thought I would try his as well. The other sunscreen was a bit thin and watery, so I thought that maybe Burt's would be a better consistency.

Well, it was. Burt's sunscreen can certainly not be accused of being thin and watery. In fact, it runs so far the opposite direction that it's almost the facial equivalent of modelling clay.

You squirt a bit onto your hand. A nice, white glob. So far, so good. Then you put it onto your face. You rub it in. So far, so good.

Then, you look in the mirror. Or a kind friend says, "You have streaks on your face," and you look in the mirror. And you realize, to your horror, that you look like the Zombie Bride of Frankenstein. White streaks are ALL OVER your face.

You try to rub them in. Then you realize that within 0.00002 milliseconds of encountering air, this Burt's Bees sunscreen stuff has hardened into the consistency of cheese, and when you try to rub it in, not only does it NOT rub in, you are left with white crumbs of the stuff that has now rubbed OFF your face but still sticks to your skin.

No matter how vigorously and thoroughly you massage the stuff into your skin, you will at best be free of huge obvious streaks. You will ALWAYS, no matter how hard you try, look as if you have inexpertly and thickly applied white foundation makeup. Worse (to me, because I have hyper-teary eyes), if you tear, the tears turn a milky white as they course down your face.

I am disappointed. I expected better of Burt.

Perhaps it is just the fact that it is a new product. There's always room for improvement. Perhaps the second generation of Burt's Bees sunscreen will be much, much better.

But I find it hard to believe that in testing the product, the testers ALL missed the fact that they looked like zombie Brides of Frankenstein! Who did they test it on, pantomime artists?

I realized last night I made a terrible mistake. A mistake of epic proportions. In cataloging my recent vintage haul, I completely forgot one dress.

How terribly neglectful of me. In order to remedy that situation, here it is:

I really like this dress. Even though it's not my usual style, or colours, it's grand. I can imagine wearing it to some upper-class garden party, or outdoor wedding. It's sort of 60s watercolour pop-art.

I realized last night I made a terrible mistake. A mistake of epic proportions. In cataloging my recent vintage haul, I completely forgot one dress.

How terribly neglectful of me. In order to remedy that situation, here it is:

Even though in many ways I actually feel like writing something else, I'm going to go ahead and finish this series up. It's been fun, folks.

First up is this fabulous plaid blazer. Yes, I know this probably should have gone into jackets instead:

It's slightly too big, but it's pretty fabulous!

Next, this cute plaid shirt:

Wrinkled, but still fabulous!

Next, we have laugh-out-loud quaint and bizarre with this orange number:

In closeup:

In a continuation of Stuff Only I and Maybe Three Other People Care About, here's a rundown of my vintage clothes haul, in dresses:

First in line is this cheerful number. Red gingham with psychedelic flowers? Says summer all the way:

Isn't that purty? Here's a closeup:

If that doesn't make your eyes bug out, let's carry on. The best part about this dress? Flip it around:

Even though I'm well aware this will be of interest to me, and possibly about three other people (who will have to be lucky enough to stumble upon this blog), here, for your viewing pleasure, will be a complete list, serialized, with pictures, of my vintage clothes haul from the previously-mentioned store. Anybody who realizes that he/she will be lethally bored by this, had better click away now.

Still with me? OK.

Anyone who knows me will know that I have an interest in vintage clothes. OK, never mind, it might more accurately be described as an "obsession".

One of my favourite ways to waste time is to wander into a thrift store and dig through the racks and racks of mostly unappealing and well-worth-tossing garments in search of a gem. Hours of fruitless searching yield only one or two keepers. But when you find and pounce on that fabulous item from an era past, it's all well-worth it.

I twigged to something today while listening to the very excellent Sonship series taught by Barry Henning of New City Fellowship, St. Louis.

The reason why God doesn't give us righteousness or salvation or anything else in response to our own efforts or attempts at living righteously, is that to do so would be to place God in man's debt. This in turn would make God into not-God, but a cosmic genie who exists to bend himself to man's will and to fulfill the legitimate demands placed on him by our good works. It would mean that we could manipulate God into giving us what we deserve for our efforts.

This is impossible. Instead, as Paul rapturizes in Romans 11:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?"
"Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)

The reason that righteousness comes only as a gift, never in response to our own efforts, is not only that it is impossible for us to establish our own righteousness due to sin. It is also so that, by doing so, God ensures that all the glory will go to him. As it is rightly so. However, we are the beneficiaries of this boundless and totally free generosity, received only by faith and not by any works we have done!

It seems like a good system to me.

Travel by Greyhound has consistently provided me some of the most unique experiences of a lifetime. My catalog of bizarre bus trips is long and varied, and I don't think I've ever had a two-way journey in which at least one of the legs wasn't overly complicated and odd.

Yesterday was no exception. It began when my sisters and I arrived at the bus terminal in Rochester, NY, for my journey to Toronto. An SUV marked US Border Patrol was parked outside the station, and as we sat inside waiting, two border control officers walked in, resplendent in army green suits and intimidating sunglasses. When the time came to board the bus, I was one of the last because of saying goodbye to my sisters. When I finally tried to board, a Border Patrol officer was blocking the aisle. "You'll have to wait," he barked, and when I said "OK" and stepped back, he clarified: "No, outside."

I disembarked and joined a group consisting of the jocular driver, a baggage handler, and a smoking black-clad Goth girl with a Jersey accent and shaved and tattooed eyebrows that arched in a bold blue swoop across her forehead. As we waited, one of the border patrol officers escorted a dreadlocked guy off the bus and made him retrieve his baggage: for whatever reason, he wasn't going to be allowed to continue his journey.