Blog

A behind-the-scenes, unpromoted and otherwise unpublished musings while getting out and giving back and everything else.

January 27, 2012 – Spirit night!  What a cool concept!  Some friends from my hometown get together once a week for spirit night – wine and food, and talking and discussing about ways to go good.  I’d love to do that with my girlfriends!

January 26, 2012 - The Dining for Women event at the house last night went wonderfully!  Ten of us made it, and as small as my house is, that was a good amount of people.  I’ve offered to host again next month and already the women are talking about bringing their friends.  Good problem to have.  It was a good mix – most of us are in the nonprofit sector, one govvie, one for-profit.  The others who coudn’t make it are mostly govvie/prior military, so if they can make it next month we’ll have a great mix.

January 19, 2012 – I need to build more time to my appointments when I walk up King Street.  Yesterday I was approached by a homeless guy who I’ve served through the Christ Church Lazarus ministry.  He asked me for money for food.  If I had more time I could have taken him someplace and I always buy food – I never give money.  That’s the second time that has happened.  If I leave for my meetings earlier I’ll have time to help them out more.

January 16, 2012 – Martin Luther King Day, and Twitter - at least the ones I follow – are abuzz with projects.  I had signed up to do some outside work at Burgundy Farms, then tried to un-sign after realizing my time would be better spent today working on some projects for Living Legends and Volunteer Alexandria.  Board and committee work seems an awful lot like real work to me but needs to be done. 

Jan 10, 2012 – Finishing the story with City Dance and went to a Chamber of Commerce breakfast this morning.  Chambers, etc. require a lot of volunteer time also.  Must do some work with them and write about it, or get a guest blogger.  Hoping some of them will be part of the city’s Celebration of Service in May.

Jan 4, 2012 – 17 degrees outside and tonight Mike and I are volunteering to spend the night at St. Clements – an overflow for the Carpenters’ Shelter.  This will be our third year.  Last year no one came.  Finally we called the Carpenters’ Shelter, who told us that no one needed to use the church that evening.  He said that since it was near the first day of the month, many of them had received welfare checks and, coincidentally, family and friends offer them places to stay.  Unfortunately, no all of the homeless’s family and friends are as generous when the money runs out.  So, tonight, part of me hopes that our services are not needed because that would mean the area homeless have found alternative places to sleep. 

Dec 23, 2011 – A year ago I got my Droid, and thus began the love affair.  In the last year I’ve not been more than an hour away from that damn thing.  Along the way I have learned to upload comments and photos onto Facebook from it and tweet from wherever I can get reception.   It has slowly taken over my life.  Tonight I deliberately left it at home for 4 hours while I went on a date with my husband at the National Harbor.  It felt so odd not to sneak peeks to see if I’d received any email.  I liked not having it hanging around my neck like a weight.  2012 is going to mean less Facebook, less Twitter, more time away from my phone.  Most of what I’ve posted and tweeted has been a distraction anyway.

Dec 21, 2011 – Scary day yesterday when I told the Washington Life editors that I need to take a few months off from writing for them to re-assess everything.  Always terrifying to let go of the known, and in times past, after the fear of letting go, unimaginable, glorious doors have opened for me.  Hoping we still stay connected – they have been so good to me.  Not sure what lies ahead in 2012 or where I’ll be by next New Year’s Eve, but Get Out and Give Back is getting a huge reboot/restart in 2012.  Time for change and reflection.

Dec 20, 2011 – I had one more plate of Christmas cookies - a big plate – that I forgot to take to a dinner last night.  As I was walking home from our morning walk I saw a homeless guy on King Street so I got the plate of cookies and took them over to him.  He was eating something from the Starbucks across the street and I hope someone had bought that for him.  He asked me if I made the cookies and I told them a lot of people did because they came from a party.  Much warmer today but it’s supposed to rain. I hope he stays dry.

Dec 19, 2011 – Yesterday’s annual cookie party is over and as always, I was left with memories of joy, laughter, wonderful friends and a gazillion calories of sugar-y cookies.  After saving a few dozen for a dinner tonight, the mailman and my husband, I decided to put the rest in sandwich-sized bags and offer them to some of the homeless in the area.  My husband wasn’t sure about this - he thought it might look trite and I suppose it was.  I wasn’t offering them a job or a home or even a warm meal, but I did want to do something nice and wondered how they would respond to it.

So, this morning my friend and I each took 2 of the bags and set about Old Town during our morning walk.  It was really cold and I hoped everyone had found a place to stay indoors.  Near the waterfront we found a middle-aged guy just waking up, surrounded by blankets and a few steps from the Torpedo Factory.  I offered him a bag of Christmas cookies and he looked at me very strangely.  As we walked away he said, “God bless you.” A few minutes later we saw another man who appeared to be homeless on a bench.  My friend wished him a Merry Christmas and offered him a bag of cookies.  He took them and looked at us like he was confused. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if random acts of kindness were not so confusing?

Dec 15, 2011 – Sending out an email now to a boatload of nonprofits who’ve I spoken with over the last year about volunteering with them.  I really feel like I’m doing what I was meant to do when I try out all these new projects with them and spread the word about what they do.

OK, I did it!  I joined Dining for Women!!!

Dec 12, 2011 – Finally finished wrapping the gifts for the woman we are “adopting” for Christmas and drove the presents over tonight.  I always spend boatloads of $ on this project.  We were only given one person to support this year because everyone else in need had another sponsor.  That was good news.  She is about my age and disabled.  If I see a woman my age wearing the clothes that I bought her, I’ll wonder if it’s her and if she liked them.  I hope she has a family to spend Christmas with.

Dec 12, 2011 – We got back from New York City on Saturday night after spending 2 1/2 days there. It’s always been a bucket list thing of mine to see NYC and Rockefeller Center at Christmas and to see the Rockettes, and I can finally cross this off of the list. We checked out the Christmas displays in the windows of every major department store (Tiffany’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, etc.) and saw dozens of Santas on Saturday morning as part of Santacon. It was all gorgeous and creative and beautiful and then it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen one single nativity decoration. Not even the ornaments in Bloomingdales. Every songs was commercial. No shepherds or wise men or babies. Not a damn manger anywhere. At first I was sad, then angry, then finally I just felt like something huge was missing among all of the holiday glitter. I think it was more that I was missing my roots – all of the “Silent Nights” and “The First Noels” and “Joy to the Worlds” were gone. I remember singing them, along with “Rudolph” and “Frosty” around my grandmother’s piano when I was in grade school, and I missed that.

A few years ago a group of us went to a nursing home to sing Christmas carols as part of the Holiday Project and the list of songs they gave us were all commercial songs. Finally we asked the residents song they wanted us to sing to them and about 75% of them asked for “Silent Night,” even the lady who wore the Star of David around her neck.

Really, I think we’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater (so to speak) when we decide to completely erase the Christian roots of Christmas.

As I watched the Rockettes perform and kick and do their Rockette thing I was feeling more and more disengaged. Then, the last 10 minutes of the show was a rich and glorious re-enactment of the birth. Camels and donkeys walked across the stage with the sheperds and wise men, and an invisible chorus sang carols. I leaned over to Mike and whispered, “Finally.” Both of us were wet-eyed. Allergies, you know.

Dec 6, 2011 – Just found out that we are only sponsoring one person through the city’s Dept of Human Services this holiday.  I thought we had 2.  Sad that we can only support one person but thrilled that everyone has someone to bring Santa to them.  Ah well, there is plenty of need and I’m sure we’ll find someone or something!  Big news is that I signed up for Erma Bombeck’s Writing Workshop next April in Dayton at the University of Dayton – my alma mater!  Of all of the writing courses I have considered attending, this is the only one that really appeals to me.  I decided 2 years ago my goal was the be the Erma Bombeck of charity writing.

Dec 5, 2011 – OK, first musing.  The Reading Connection story came out today.   Forgot that it was one of Brooke’s charities, and knowing that made it even more special.  Uplinked to my blog on ACT for Alexandria it has an Alexandria site a few blocks from my house.  I tutored there last spring and am always amazed at how quickly the demographics change in Old Town.  Loved having the kids snuggle against me and read, and they didn’t even know me.  Love their trust and hope it isn’t ripped away from them as they get older.

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