Trader Joe's is the exclusive retailer of Charles Shaw wine, popularly known as "Two Buck Chuck" because of its original $1.99 price tag in California (local prices vary).  Of the wine selection at Trader Joe's, Coulombe has said, "We built Trader Joe's on wine first, then food.  Trader Joe's is an American chain of grocery stores headquartered in Monrovia, California.  The chain has 571 stores across the United States.  The first Trader Joe's store was opened in 1967 by founder Joe Coulombe in Pasadena, California.  The chain was sold to Aldi founder Theo Albrecht in 1979, who owned it until his death in 2010, when ownership passed to his heirs.  Trader Joe's is named after its founder, Joe Coulombe.  The company began in 1958 as a Greater Los Angeles area chain known as Pronto Market convenience stores.  Coulombe felt the original Pronto Markets were too similar to 7-Eleven, which he described as the "800-pound gorilla of convenience stores", and was concerned that the competition would be too heavy.  Coulombe developed the idea of the Trader Joe's South Seas motif while on vacation in the Caribbean.  The Tiki culture craze was still widespread in the United States in the 1960s, so in a direct nod to the fad, the Trader Joe's name itself was a spoof on Trader Vic's, the famous tiki-themed restaurant that had opened its first southern California location in the Beverly Hilton in 1955.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trader_Joe%27s 

Standard bed sizes are based on standard mattress sizes, which vary from country to country.  Bed sizes also vary according to the size and degree of ornamentation of the bed frame.  Dimensions and names vary considerably around the world, with most countries having their own standards and terminology.  In addition, two mattresses with the same nominal size may have slightly different dimensions, due to manufacturing tolerances, amount of padding, and support type.  Mattress sizes may differ from bedding sizes.  Naming standards on different bed sizes and their corresponding actual measurements can vary across national standards.  Examples of such nomenclature are names like "Single", "Double", "Queen" or "King" size. Sometimes the naming standards are further divided by adding adjectives such as "Narrow", "Wide", "Extra Wide", "Long", "Extra Long" and so on, which also can vary across national standards.  Because of the growth of international trade and the above potential cause of confusion, bed sizes are becoming more standardized. In most countries, using the International System of Units, bed dimensions most often appear in centimeters, and often only by width and length.  In the United States, Canada and other regions influenced by the former British Empire, dimensions are often in inches.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_size   

The full moon in April is known as the "pink" moon, named after the herb moss pink, also known as creeping phlox, moss phlox or mountain phlox.  This is a plant native to the eastern USA that is one of the earliest widespread flowers of spring.  NASA said other names for this moon include the sprouting grass moon, the egg moon, and—among coastal tribes of North America—the fish moon, because this was when the shad swam upstream to spawn.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/20/april-2024-full-moon-rises-tuesday-and-is-called-the-pink-moon/73387548007/    

Earth Day April 22, 2024  Today, solar, wind and battery power are dramatically less expensive than they were even 10 years ago.  In 2023, electricity from wind and solar was significantly less expensive than from coal, nuclear and natural gas.  The unsubsidized cost of wind power has dropped 66% since 2009, while the cost of unsubsidized solar has fallen 84%, according to an analysis by Lazard, a financial advisory firm that publishes annual estimates of the total cost of producing electricity.  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/04/22/earth-day-2024-celebrate-climate-change-optimism/72863462007/   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2804  April 22, 2024