Diana Vreeland was a legendary editor at Vogue Magazine for years.

People thought she would never pass away and if she did, they’d just prop her up in the corner in the office somewhere and they would get divine inspiration from her. She was an institution. She was editor-in-chief at Vogue from 1963 until 1971.

She was famous for having said this: ““Unshined shoes are the end of civilization.” I’m not sure about it being the end of civilization, but I do know that when she had her shoes shined, she insisted that the soles be shined as well. That kind of reminds me of the song, “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes.” She was a bit, well, flashy and high maintenance.  She was gloriously impractical for the normal person but she had imagination. And that’s why I’ve always found her interesting.

During a previous stint at Harper’s Bazaar, she had a weird little column titled, “Why Don’t You…”  that I read about in her autobiography. It was essentially a bullet-point list of ideas that were wonderful to the extreme, but unless you are Kim Kardashian, these ideas were financially out of reach and some were downright impractical. And when I say they are impractical, I mean some of her ideas were outrageously extravagant. Some were just plain off the charts.

Here are some examples: “Have your bed made in China—the most beautiful bed imaginable, the head board and spread of yellow satin embroidered in butterflies, alighting and flying, in every size and in exquisite colors?” 

“Tie black tulle bows on your wrists?”

“Bring back from Central Europe a huge white baroque porcelain stove to stand in your front hall?”

“Why don’t you wear violet velvet mittens with everything?”

Allrighty, Diana. We’ll all get right on that.

Diana Vreeland didn’t want people to actually do these things. She wanted them to think originally. Differently. To try and come up with original ideas. So she created these outrageous suggestions every month to shake things up.

The thing is, she actually had some great ideas that while impractical for most people not born in the upper crust, certainly added fuel to the imagination.

This gave me some ideas. And yes, it does apply to our birds. My thought was this:

Why don’t we put our heads together and come up with some outrageously wonderful ideas that we can do to either make our lives easier, our birds lives better or how to make things simpler? It could be one little thing that you do do that you don’t even think about that might help another person in the care of their birds. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just a ridiculously simple but brilliant idea that works.

And you all know that I love what works.

If you have a simple, but beautiful idea that might help others, (and it doesn’t have to involve ordering a hand carved bed from China) please post it in the comments section and I’ll compile them into a post later on. Remember, the simpler and the more helpful, the better. I’m looking forward to your ideas!