Cold Spaghetti

June has been a difficult month, with posts that reflect this with writing on the thoughts and life changes that come with civil unrest, national conflict, and personal loss. Two countries which we have deep personal connections, Honduras and Peru, have been immersed in violent clashes. I’m still not sure where I stand with the Honduran coup d’etat… I’m not even sure if I feel right calling it a coup. I do hope that the International community keep Honduras in it’s sights no matter how the situation continues to unfold: it is a country of beautiful, open, forgiving people, 70% of whom live in poverty. Any sanctions or separation imposed on the country due to its political situation will ultimately work to the detriment of the nation’s most vulnerable. The Big Picture, the fantastic photography site hosted at Boston.com, posted a collection of photographs of the protests.

Peru also has experienced civil unrest. For years, indigenous peoples have lived in remote areas of the Amazon rain forest with protection from development. But the country wants to use it’s natural resources, particularly it’s forests and oil reserves, to comply with agreements the government made in the US-Peruvian free trade agreement. Violence erupted at roadblocks where people gathered to protect their land from entering developers. You can read more about the conflict at Life in Peru, particularly this post.

Also, as was pointed out by another Peruvian blogger, Peru also lost one of it’s musical legends, Alicia Delgado, who was unexpectedly murdered (a true-to-life telenovela type story). In honor of Alicia (and with appropriate homage to Alejna’s musical JPs) here is Ms. Delgado:

Below are the June Just Posts. Thank you thank you thank you.

• almostidealist at One Year to Change the World with Take action for Tiananmen Square’s victims, Sexism sells, Free speech, free range and Going green for the Iranian protesters
• Barbara Drake at An American in Lima with Archbishop of Cusco to Evict More Local Restaurants
• Christine at flutter with The Luxury of Safety and an untitled post
• City Girl at Country Girl/City Girl with Oh, HELL no
• Emily at Wheels on the Bus with This is what a leader looks like, Education dollars at work,
  Questions (part one) and Rejecting Yertle
• Emily at LA Mom’s Blog with What kids need
• Erika at Be gay about it. with My, what a gayngled web we weave.
• Emmy at Los Pininos with Revised Eulogy
• girlgriot at If you want kin, you must plant kin… with Voice of the People?
• Glenna Gordon (guest posting) at Scarlett Lion: Liberia with Global Post: Miss Coco’s Liberian Barbies
• jen at one plus two with the universal backbone and guess what’s coming to dinner
• Kyla at The Journey with My child, every child
• La Gringa at La Gringa’s Blogicito, with Relative calm in Honduras, despite what you might read and Honduran views on Mel Zelaya and the current events
• laloca at baggage carousel 4 public health stuff
• Mary at The Eleventh with Fed
• meg at A Different View of a Good Life! with Prison in Belize
• Mouse at The Mouse’s Nest with The radical act of being ourselves
• papilio588 at Walk with Me with Nickelsville
• Paul Newnham at Give a damn about poverty? with Why is fighting poverty so hard? and 40 Hour Famine
• Rebecca at Flying Tomato Farms with Are you “Man Enough” for the Middle Border?
• redbird at A Gringa Diary with The Honduran coup was personal here
• Zack Ford at Zack Ford Blogs with Sorry white men (and Ann Coulter), Sotomayor is not a racist. You are.
• Chris at Formerly Fun with Oh Oh, She’s Back on Her Soapbox Again

This month’s readers:

Mad
Emily
Holly
alejna
Stacie

Be sure to head over to Alejna’s for more Just Post love and musical thought!

All of Janine King’s MOD DOTS bags are on sale.  I’ve had a J.K. computer bag for several years and love it.  I’ve also given her purses as gifts.  Everything is wonderfully made — and to order!  She personally confirms all sizing for computers.  HIGHLY recommended.

Janine King on Etsy

Janine King’s sale items on Etsy

Thanks, Lucy, for this!

My five… More Lima Beans, The Painted Maypole, Janna Bee, The Journey, and Adventures in the 32-Aker Wood.

Thanks, Tina, for this!

Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person that has granted the award and his or her blog link. And pass the award to blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgment.

My five… The Albemarle Sound, More Lima Beans, Collecting Tokens, Wheels on the Bus, and MadHatter Mommy.

We’re shopping for a new host provider.

Need: ability to self-administer sites, good network capacity and storage, decent affordability, good communication when there is a problem.

And to Dreamhost… it’s one thing to have repeated outages for long spans of time (24 hours+).  It’s something else all together to report that ‘the problem will resolve in 5 minutes’ for the entire outtage.

This blog has been thrown into the hat for bloggie nominations!

I KNOW.

Who knew that just anyone could even get nominated?  Not me.  But then again, Ben Affleck won as Oscar, so maybe anything is possible?

The nominating process involves going to http://2009.bloggies.com/ , writing in “Cold Spaghetti” and the website (http://www.coldspaghetti.org/blog/), and giving your email address for a verification message.  When you vote, you have to nominate 2 other blogs for consideration for each category you vote within.

Here are some blogs that I nominated:

One Plus Two.  Jen writes eloquently about her work as director of a nonprofit agency serving the homeless, and she’s preparing a move to a jungle village in Central America.  I don’t think you need any other information for why she’s on my list of favorites.

Collecting Tokens.  Alejna is witty, eloquent, and very funny.  She also likes kick-ass women and pants.

The Show Must Go On.  Kitty writes beautifully and has great photos.  My favorite photos of hers are ones she posts from her film camera days — they have that deep, creamy feel that only comes from film (in my opinion).  Also, I’m buttering her up so that one day maybe she’ll come and work on some crazy health project where we are desperately seeking a nurse.

LaLoca.  I don’t visit the Washington Post site much anymore, because I trust that if something of interest is happening up there, Jenny will point it out.  Plus, her photography is creative and striking.

Liprap’s Lament.  Leigh reads more websites than anyone I know and somehow seems to do so before the posts are even published.  Then she compiles them all into summary posts on her own blog, with her own commentary.  Or, at least, that is what it seems like.  These days, I’ve come to prefer the first hit of local news through a good filter.

UPDATE… Oh My Heavens.  I forgot to mention Lisa, of Left Coast Cowboys, who I nominated in a bunch of categories, because I love Green Acres.  And because she makes me want to move to San Francisco, possibly to grow grapes and raise terriers.  She makes it all sound so beautiful!

Nominations END JANUARY 12th! So please consider going over and voting soon!

If you’re up for a little more, please consider visiting my friend, mentor, and all-around amazing Emmy… she wants to gather up her Honduran family for a big reunion and you can vote to help her do it.

The year I struggled the most was right after college.  I was working for the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, DC, and had living expenses that were crippling.  One month, desperate for a suit I could wear to some of awards ceremonies I had privy to attend, I purposely used my overdraft protection to write a check that I knew I couldn’t cover on overdraft — knowing that I was to be paid two days later and therefore would not bounce.  That following month, already starting in the hole because of my $50 suit, I gave $10 to a co-worker in the mail room who was collecting money for his daughter’s school.  Initially after I gave it, I regretted it.  It was the same $10 that was suppose to be my lunch money for the next few days.  But ultimately, when I thought about it, giving that money became one of my proudest moments.  I’d be feeling so strapped for months — living paycheck to paycheck — and it made me feel better about my situation and myself to give to others.  Didn’t Anne Frank say that no one ever became poor by giving?

I’ve written before about the importance of spending a little more to lend support to local organizations, local business owners, and local products.  As 2008 drew to a close, I was thinking more and more about the things I’m most proud of this year and wanting to talk about giving… but I felt like it would come across as showy or superior, which is not how I feel about it nor how I want to come across.  So I stayed quiet about things like money and giving.  Then Jen and Mad posted about giving and encouraged it from others.  So here I go.

I’m proud at how we give.  And each year, we strive to give more.  I’ve read a lot about folks trying to get back to basics, reusing and recycling, all that jargon that is so popular these days.  But what about giving your time and money?  That, in my opinion, is the giving that matters.  If you’re just giving away stuff from your attic or closet or basement that you don’t use anyway, is it really an effort to be a better person and community member, or just to improve your own life?  And while that’s good in it’s own place, what about setting examples for our children on giving more than our old things: our time, our attention, our energy, our talents, our hard-earned money… to help others?  Isn’t teaching compassion and empathy the whole point of living simply — and if it isn’t, well, then shouldn’t it be?

This year, we gave more than 5% of our total income in cash donations, donated our services to local fundraisers, served on nonprofit boards, sponsored local events, volunteered on committees, showed up for work days, assisted with computer help to organizations and individuals, wrote grants, taught English, and offered translation.  All of these called for our time and took us away from paying work.  We don’t have money to burn or family inheritance safe guards.  If we just had made our donations in-kind and saved the cash, we could have done all sorts of things we’d have loved to do: spent more time at the beach, gone to Disney World, finally replaced that 12 year old mattress with a king-sized set, upgraded my 6 year old camera, or hired help to finish some of the many renovations we’ve been working on for years.  But we believe that the only way to give is to plan for it every month as a necessity.  There is never enough for anyone to feel secure, it’s always that way.  So giving has to be a priority.

No one has ever become poor through giving.

And really, what will happen if you gave an extra $20 or $50 or $100 a month?  Would you starve?  Would you lose your home?  Because within that month, there are many many many many many in our world who will.  What will you have lost?  I’m not trying to be preachy… this is what I feel, what I say to myself when I feel frustrated or stretched thin or like I’m denying myself or my family things that could make our lives easier or brighter.  Because in the end, we are better than great.

And ultimately, when we came to the end of the year, I didn’t regret the things I hadn’t bought or done.  (Even if I still wish we had that big bed and am bummed that we are stepping over construction debris each day.)  All that really doesn’t matter.  Instead, I wished I would have given more during the year and encouraged others to do the same.

When you come right down to it, we live extravagantly compared to most of the world.  So we should do more.  There is so much more to do.

In the first few months of this year, we are giving monthly donations to Abeona House, the preschool we helped start after Katrina.  While Abeona House is just one of the organizations we give to, it’s one of the ones closest to our hearts and the one we pledged to give the most to.  Having helped start the organization, we know how it works, where the money goes, and how it is managed.  We know that the people employed are being paid a good wage (although childcare professionals are paid a pathetically low salary across the board everywhere) and full-time employees receive benefits, which is rare in this field in our city.  There are Abeona employees who lost homes in Katrina; one is still living in a FEMA trailer.  Abeona is one of the only preschools in the city to offer a sliding scale tuition.  Donations to the school help it offer placement to more lower-to-middle income families (teachers, social workers, nonprofit organization workers, artists) who would otherwise not qualify for State-based assistance programs.  If you are looking for a 501c3 organization that will use your donation in the service of children’s programming and family support: this is one that applies.

Other organizations we feel similar about and give to are Ecole Bilingue (where our kids currently attend school) and Planting Magic Beans (founded and run by good friends of ours in Peru).

No matter what happens, I know that we will be okay in the ways that matter.  And ultimately… No le hará rico; no me hará pobre.

2008, the bloggy recap, as described by the first sentences from first posts from each month.

January: I was too chicken to climb on the roof, wondering why they weren’t using the extension ladder and feeling incredibly impressed that Paul and David were climbing to the top of the A-frame and hoisting themselves up on this end of the roof.

February: It’ll take hours for my 7-year old computer to eat up all the pictures from the first 2GB card I filled this morning, so here’s a preview from the second set already loaded.

March: I am surprised and impressed that now, in my moment of weakness, neither of you seem willing to make the final blow and do me in.

April: We’re having a bad day.

May: Look! A ceiling in the study!

June: In the past, re-entering the United States after weeks abroad has not went well for us.

July: Cabinets, cabinets in my room.

August: “My parents called.  They said that Kate called them last night.”

September: A few strong cells have moved through Mobile, but nothing so threatening that we bothered to move chairs inside.

October: The “Greater New Orleans” interview airs tomorrow on WLAE channel 12 at 7 and 9:30 (and I think again at 2:30am?)

November: “Mommy, I love you sweeter than the sweetest bullfrog ever kissed.”

December: Writ in the style of “The Piggy in the Puddle” — my favorite children’s story to read out loud.

Bonus, a few favorites:

Krewe of Abeona, Mardi Gras 2008.

One of the many pictures of our house with no floors.  Or walls.

Will dresses Kate.

The La Divina Commercial.

Seeing Obama.

Kate meets Elmo.. and THE DOG.

I throw my two cents in the political ring.

Will and Kate give advice to tourists.

The WLAE interview.

The start of our ongoing health insurance woes.

Ode to La Destructora.

Old Holiday Photos.

—

And for next year.  Some bloggy goals.

— Finish the writing and posting from the three weeks in Peru (I found the missing notebook!) and post pictures now that the article is up.  (Once I get a good copy of it, I’ll post it, too.)

— Finish adding tags/categories to the posts dating back to 2004.

— Clean the blog up.  Make a design that works.  Add the pages about the tuk-tuk and the hopes and dreams about driving one across the country.

— Write down what I eat.  Use the blog as a motivation for being a healthier person: more exercise, less binging.  I hesitate to make something like ‘weight loss’ a goal, because without a partner in the grind of it, I know it won’t work for me.

— Write snappier openers.  Some of the sentences above are painful.

—-

** I first saw this style post over at Mad’s.  Then there were similar posts at the ‘Tars and by Magpie.

Yesterday, I spent a few hours in the park photographing some friends.  A family, actually, who we met when they started at Abeona last fall and who remind us of Helen and Paul.  There is just this glow about them — their happiness, their manners, their causal and friendly approach — that reminds us of the friends we miss.  My mind goes there anyway this time of year.  My eyes linger a little longer on the photograph taped to the fridge, the one Helen took of our kids and husbands together in Music Together class.  Seeing it presses the work of being a better person, living more fully, and being grateful into my daily grind.  Then there was a random email about the need for our community to take a stand, again, against crime.  (For those who aren’t up on NOLA news, our Mayor showed up long enough to cut funding on anti-crime activities in a petty hissy fit that the City Council wouldn’t sign off on the ridiculously high salaries for his sycophants.)

These thoughts have had me feeling a bit lost for the past day or so.  Just… off.  Questioning, again, why we work so hard to be here?  Thinking, what would happen if we just… ?

But it’s no point thinking about it, really.  There is no other place for us in this country, we know that now.  Even as I dream of a home near the beach, I know that this could only be a weekend escape, a summer retreat.  Not home.  Not New Orleans.  But still, I question my faith.  I wonder if my longing for this place puts us at risk or inflicts undue hardship.  If life were easier, would we be happier?  I think that I don’t know the answer, so the question remains, plaguing me.

So the affirmation and support from other writers was a huge boost to my spirits.  Especially to see that Lisa, a vineyard owner in California, made the space to so elegantly write about New Orleans and several bloggers — even me, who she pinned so neatly and squarely you’d think we’d been buddies for years.  Amazing, timing wise.  A little holiday cheer so neatly placed right before me.

My favorite thing?  The award is in Portuguese.  (The Spanish would read something like ‘Este Blog invierte y cree en la proximidad.’  Although Jenny or Alejna could probably do better than that with the English, Spanish, and Portuguese translations than I have.)

I’ll pass on the love shortly; once my thoughts settle and clear.

I’m trying to figure out where this award originated?  Any one better at the google search for this type of thing?

Everyday I blogged for the 30 day month of November.

I like that I was forced to think of something to write each day.

It did take me away from my research in the sense that it was time not committed to translating or considering codes.  But it made me think about writing, and the things I like to write about.  Even if I didn’t get a chance to finish what I wanted to say — more than a few days I just filled what I could.

After reading Alejna’s post about the event, I am realizing that there is a lot more I could have done and gotten out of the experience.  I didn’t log-on to the website at all, didn’t participate.  Maybe I should do it again and see what happens?  Or maybe my family will commit me?

UPDATE: I’m doin’ it for December.  What the hell?

h/t: Kate Harding

UPDATE: Stacy, you rock! YOU TOTALLY NAILED IT! Who can resist that catchy beat?