This month’s first assignment for Featured Grownups is to write a letter of thanks to a fellow Xangan without identifying them, to tell them why Xanga is a better place with them here.  I am 99% certain that the person who I am going to write about is going to recognize this.

Dear Fellow Xangan,

When we first met online, it wasn’t on Xanga, but it seems there were so many parallels during the course of our friendship.  I remember taking a chance – hoping I wasn’t offending you – when I closed off one of our chats with “So long, and thanks for all the fish!”  When you responded with “42″ I knew that we were going to be good friends.

When we first met in person, I was nervous as hell but watching you check into your hotel room, you seemed so confident (and it’s funny how on another place, you said the same about me), though you seemed a little timid when we sat down to talk.  I knew you were in town for your trade and was in awe of you for breaking through the glass ceiling.  You really inspired me to try to do the same.  (In fact, you’ve inspired me to do a lot of things, whether or not you know it – going back to school not being the least of these.)

We always shared what was very close and personal to ourselves with each other – more-so when we started writing first on MDD, and later on Xanga.

I have been able to keep up with your life in a way I wouldn’t have been able to had you not been a part of the Xanga community.  I almost felt at times like we were sitting in your kitchen over coffee while talking about our relationships.

I was there while you wrote about the trials and tribulations of your marriage, and even witnessed some of it firsthand.  I felt like you deserved so much more than you were getting from that relationship.  I felt like there were signs of mental abuse (it just seemed your spouse was always finding ways to burst your bubble) and knew you were worth so much more than either of you thought.

I was there through the “doofus” era, and was so hoping you would not get your heart broken, because my fear was that things were moving way too fast for comfort. 

So of course, when you met your current Significent Other, I was cautious and felt overly protective of you.  But as time went on, I grew to trust that you would not be hurt – because of how happy you were.  Seeing the two of you – the love that passed like a bolt of electricity from your eyes when you looked at each other – made me realize that this was THE ONE.  I cried because I just knew you were going to be happy the rest of your life.

Now, reading about your happy life really makes me feel so happy for you – sometimes I could burst with it. 

Thank you for keeping Xanga someplace I want to return to – yours is the first blog I check for updates (so you need to update more often!!!)  Thank you for being someone that I trust with everything that is sacred to me – things I can’t share with other people who know me IRL.

But most of all, thanks for being one of my very best friends ever.  I’m sure you know who you are.

Stolen from Tyche who stole it from Alchemies

Extroverted Self-Knowing Believer

Okay, I know I’m extroverted, and I believe I know myself pretty well.  Believer in what is up for discussion.  I believe in a lot of things, but God is not one of them.

Sorry for not having been around in a while.  I have been so busy at work and took five days to just chill at my sister’s this past weekend.  I am so freaking behind in my reading and commenting that in my “how close am I to getting a badge?” page my “recent comments” dropped from 500+ to just under 300.  Guess I’d better get on the stick if I want that freaking TRUE badge.

This entry is for the Featured Grownups challange for the second half of April, where we are to write an entry on an abstract noun of our choice.  Since I work in an organization that promotes philanthropy, I thought I would make an attempt to define what charity means to me.
  
First let me tell you what I believe charity is NOT.  

• Charity is not giving out of feeling that the person you are giving to is pathetic (I believe most recipients, who refuse any kind of charity, feel like this is the spirit in which charity is given.)
• Charity is not giving so that you can take a tax deduction.  (When I clean out my closets and give my clothes to charity, then take a tax deduction for it, it’s merely a means of getting something out of throwing out my old stuff.)
• Charity is not giving for recognition.  (If I give to an organization so that I can get my name listed on their wall or in their publication, that’s not charity, it’s buying recognition.)
• Charity is not giving so that you can feel virtuous. That may be a result, but if that is strictly the reason, so you can say to yourself “I have given money to a great cause, so I am a great person.” then it’s not really charity.  It’s buying virtuosity (at least, in your own mind).

Here is what I think charity IS.

• Charity is giving because you really want to help someone.  You maybe have been where they are and maybe you were too proud to reach out for help, but you want to help them while also trying to help them keep their dignity.
• Charity is giving even if you can’t deduct it from your taxes.  For example, buying a homeless person lunch, or giving them a few bucks so they can buy themselves lunch.  Or thowing money in the Salvation Army kettle.
• Charity is giving because you really feel for the cause, and you don’t care if they knew it was you who gave or not.  Giving anonymously.  Throwing money in your church basket, without an envelope that says who you are, what you gave so they can send you a tax statement at the end of the year.
• Charity is giving because the cause moves you.  Because you really want to do something, anything. It could be volunteering to teach someone to read, or to tutor someone in math, or to be a Big Brother or Big Sister because you want to help a child become a productive adult, help give them some self-esteem (these are usually children from one-parent homes who are often in the care of a babysitter while the one parent at home works unless the parent is lucky enough to have a job during school hours.)
• Charity is giving out of love.

I have written about my charitable exploits.  And by my definitions here, it almost seems like they aren’t really charity.  Does writing about them mean I am looking for recognition, or to remove the anonymity? No.  I am writing to try to feel what the other person is feeling, and to feel good about helping to make their day a little better, whether they know who I am or not.  I have cited examples of my own giving that are not really charity. (Cleaning out my closet and setting it out for Purple Heart of Goodwill to pick up.)

Most of my giving is to the homeless.  It’s not tax deductable.  It’s not for recognition.  They have no idea who I am, except that I’m a person that stopped to give them something on my way to wherever I am going. And maybe I don’t “love” the people I give to because I don’t even know them.  But I do feel for them, very strongly.  I have been homeless, though I’ve been lucky enough to have a big family and not have to live on the street.  I have been near homelessness (one paycheck from it when I was living paycheck to paycheck).  When I give it’s really someone else giving to me, if I were in those same circumstances.  It’s treating people the way you would want to be treated (in those same circumstances.)

Whether or not it’s charity depends on the motivation.  Charity is not necessarily philanthropy.  I’m less impressed by a large philanthropic foundation giving 10 million to some cause and getting a lot of press and media attention for it, than I would be if they gave 10,000 (or 1,000) anonymously, quietly, and nobody really knew it was them making the donation.  (Of course, if I didn’t know about it, I wouldn’t know to be impressed, so there is a bit of a paradox there, but I think you know what I mean.)

Yesterday I was listing to the radio.  93.9 WLIT FM in Chicago.  I have been so out of the music scene for the past 20 years that I figured I’d break back in with a light radio station that plays both pop and country (so I can hear things like “Love Song” from Sarah Bareilles as well as “Breathe” from Faith Hill.)  It’s also where I get some of my “learn new karaoke songs” ideas.

So anyway, there are three stations I keep on my car radio that I listen to a lot.  Besides WLIT, I listen to 97.1 WDRV which plays music mostly from the 70s.  And I listen to 94.7 WLS FM which is billed as “Chicago’s True Oldies Station” which plays mostly songs from the 50s and 60s.

None of these stations are affiliated with each other.

So, I was listening to 93.  9 and the song “If I can’t Have You, I don’t Want Nobody Baby” (whatever the name is) by Yvonne Elliman (I think it might have been from the movie Saturday Night Fever).  Well, during the disco era, I liked disco, but I really don’t much care for it now, unless it’s something by Donna Summer.  So I thought I would just change the station because I didn’t want to hear it.

I flipped to 97.1 but they were talking.  I wanted music.

I flipped to 94.7 and guess what they were playing?  The same song 93.7 was playing!

I would have thought it was a simulcast except they were not synced (94.7 was in the middle of the song and 93.9 was near the end)

That creeped me out about as much as when I was 17 and listened to my Inna Gadda Da Vida album 5 times in a row, got tired of it, then turned on Detroit’s WRIF station and they were having their 5th anniversary show, and were playing….you guessed it….Inna Gadda Da Vida.

For anyone who has ever shown me any act of kindness, this is for you.  I am paying it forward.

There’s a middle-aged lady (Betty) who stands on the corner outside my building selling Streetwise – it’s a Chicago urban news-magazine that is sold by homeless or indigent people to help them get on their feet, and to give them a little dignity, dignity they wouldn’t have if they were standing on the corner holding out a cup asking for money to buy food.  (Not all homeless people are winos and drug users, as some would have you believe – in fact, in my own experience with them, the majority are NOT.)  Anyway, I’ve known Betty for a couple of years and whenever she is out there, I buy a Streetwise from her, and if I have visitors, I buy copies for my visitors, too, as souvineers.  (Some of my visitors haven’t seen the value of this and look at these vendors as little better than panhandlers – nothing is further from the truth.)

Several times I’ve seen Betty with a little girl, tutoring her in math and reading.  I thought it was her grand-daughter and that she was babysitting.  Finally one day I asked.  She said, “no, she’s the daughter of that homeless woman who usually sits across the street.  I’m trying to help her in her math and spelling and reading because her mom can’t read.”  So I would gush over the little girl every time I saw her when she would tell me she got 100 on her spelling test.  I also gave her a dollar (after asking Betty quietly if it would cause problems if I gave the child money) any time I found out she got 100 on her spelling test.

One day I asked Betty if there was anything I could do.  She said she wished she had flash cards for the little girl.  A week later, I gave Betty 3 decks of flash cards – addition/subtraction; multiplication/division; and language.  The following week, Betty told me the child LOVED the flash cards.

Today, in McDonalds where I was enjoying their super duper healthy fare (yes, that was sarcasm LOL) a man leaned over the stool next to me and looked at me with pathetically sad eyes.  I just looked away.  I really can’t stand panhandlers bothering me while I am eating.  After I finished, I was haunted by the sad look on his face and decided I would buy him lunch, but when I looked around, he was gone.

I walked out of McDonalds and sitting there, a ways down the street, was a woman that I’d seen several times before.  I knew this must be that little girl’s mom.  As I walked near here, she said “Can you spare something so I can give my daughter something for Easter?”  I asked her if her daughter was the one that Betty sometimes watched.  She said yes.  I gave her $5 and said “tell your daughter this is from the lady who got her the flash cards.”  She said “Was that you?  She loved them and played with them until they just fell apart.”  I smiled at her and started walking away, and she said “God bless you.”

As I walked away, I thought that the woman would probably spend the money on some kind of Easter basket for the little girl, but wouldn’t have enough left over to buy her dinner.  So I walked down to the CVS  pharmacy and found an easter basket designed for girls (wrapped in pink, and containing, in addition to a few candy selections, a jump rope and a game of jacks).  I bought it and took it back to the woman.  I said “Here is an Easter basket for your daughter.”

I wish I could be around to see the daughter get the Easter basket.  But there will be at least one little homeless girl who will get a visit from the “Easter Bunny”.

Has someone done you a kindness that you’ve “paid forward”?

I responded to an entry that was featured yesterday.  It was by a girl who is half Phillipino and half Caucasian.  She wrote something like “What I hate about white people.”  One of the things she said was ignorant was Free Internships.  I responded (she already had 101 comments) that a free internship for a college student would look better on a resume than “exotic dancer at KnockersUp” or “Fry girl at BurgerBiggie” even though the latter two would earn her some pocket change.  My point was, a little less money now for a better future.  (As a hiring manager, I might be able to negotiate a higher than entry level salary for someone who’s worked in the field during college, whether it was as a free intern or a paid part-time summer help.)

I received a couple of replies to my comment, but evidently, this girl couldn’t take the heat, so she put her blog on friends lock, so I can’t even go now and read my comments.

Why do people submit controversial blogs for featured content if they aren’t willing to subject themselves to comments they may not like?

To me it’s still Saturday.  Took a 4 hour nap this afternoon and so I’m still up at 5am. I think I’ll go to bed now.

This really screws up my internal clock!

If I had stayed married to my first husband, today would have been our 27th anniversary.

But fate stepped in and changed the course of my life and in June I’ll be celebrating the 14th anniversary married to my soul mate

This is the topic of the month on the Featured Grownups site.

I first started this blog (under the name notMarthaStewart before I changed it to Kallioph) to document my clean sweep through my house.  So I thought I would post a photo blog to show the before and after pictures – the changes my house went through.

Here is my kitchen, before:
 

and after:

Living room before:

Living room after:

Dining room before:

Dining room after:

Guest room before:

Guest room after:

 
Master bedroom before:

Master bedroom after:

For the most part, four years later, the changes are still in effect.  I vowed never to put anything on top of the kitchen cabinets, but we bought a grill/griddle and have noplace else to put it.

Now we are thinking about painting and getting the house ready to sell.  I’m glad I did this decluttering when I did, because that is that much less that I’ll have to do to get it ready to put on the market.

So where did it come from? Every year on April 1 the unwitting, the gullible and the plain stupid are caught out by tall stories or practical jokes. But why do people play these jokes at all?

And what is so special about April 1 that otherwise normal people do their best to make their nearest and dearest look stupid?

The origins of April Fool’s Day are not very clear. But it seems safe to say that this eccentric festival is connected to the coming of spring.

Ancient Romans and Celts celebrated a festival of practical joking and mischief making at about the time of the Vernal Equinox, as do millions of India’s Hindus.

Even the French have taken this festival to their hearts calling it not April Fool’s Day but rather poisson d’avril, or April fish.

One 19th century English commentator reasoned that its origins probably lay somewhere in human nature itself rather than being the invention of one tribe or civilization.

“To find the practice so widely prevalent over the earth, and with so near a coincidence of day, seems to indicate that it has had a very early origin amongst mankind,” he said.

The first April Fool

There are two contestants for the first April Fool, the Greek goddess Demeter and the dove which, according to the Bible, Noah released from the Ark during the flood.

Both Demeter and the dove qualify for the title after being sent on fool’s errands, an apparently popular early form of humour.

The goddess failed in her quest to rescue her daughter Persephone who had been whisked away to the underworld.

While hunting for her, Demeter mistook the echoes of her own voice as being her daughters cries for help and ended up both lost and daughterless.

Noah expected the dove to perform the seemingly hopeless task of finding signs of dry land while the whole earth was covered in water.

Stolen from the BBC – a story written 11 years ago and still timely.