Here is an instance when procrastination may really pay off. If you still have not gotten gifts for your loved ones, here are 3 ideas for meaningful gifts that give back to the world and can be procured with a click. Click away fellow procrastinators.
Heifer International is a great organization with a unique gift catalog where you can choose to gift a village with a live animal to supply wool, milk, eggs, etc. You can also choose to give the gift of clean water, an education, and the list goes on. From $10.
Our friends on the East Coast are still in need of funding. One of the best ways to provide them with quick aid is through the Red Cross.
Women for Women is one of my favorite organizations. I have sponsored women through this program for over 8 years. You meet and support amazing women from all over the globe. Knowing that you are helping women to help themselves is an awesome feeling. You can either choose a one-time donation, monthly donation or sponsorship. This is a great present for your bestie, sis or sis-in-law. From $50.
There are no words for the events yesterday at Sandy Hook Elementary. While we hang our heavy heads and hearts, pray and grieve for our lost angels and their families, it is truly a time to act. This country is in dire need of action and gun reform. Let’s follow our fellow friendly nations’ leads, like Australia, and place some stringent laws into action to avoid this type of atrocity in the future. We must protect our innocents and ourselves- it’s time to take care of our own, not cowtow to power and politicking. If you are in favor of gun reform, please sign this White House petition, in order to get the administration to act on gun reform legislation. It’s time to stop talking about this and start acting. Enough is enough.
This New Yorker article is worth a read for a perspective on how the world views us.
Yesterday was the first day I actually had the thought of wanting to move to another country, not for the sense of adventure and experience, but for the safety of my children. As a mother and as a citizen, I am outraged. Let’s do something about this.
This is just cool. Cy Kuckenbaker (great name, right?) shot footage of all plane landings at the San Diego Airport on Black Friday from 10:30am to 3:00pm. This is his edited time-lapse video of all flights.
Tis the season to carry a clutch. Great for gifts or for (ahem) yourself. A few great finds from Clare Vivier, Falconwright and Etsy. P.S.: Etsy is aplenty with great handmade foldover and envelope clutches.
Pair your Falconwright clutch with a classic NV Billecart Salmon Rose. Yes, you’ll spend more on the champagne than the clutch, but it’s the holidays- a good reason to splurge on good bubbly, especially when you can get such a stylish clutch so affordably.
Vivier avec Vivier. California made by French hands, the husband and wife team of Stephane and Dana Vivier turn out a beautiful little California rose- you’d swear you were in Burgundy. Clare Vivier was an American in Paris and brings a French sensibility to her California-chic handbags. These two go great together.
If you are in New York and want to volunteer in Staten Island, here is a great list posted by a friend actively involved in the Staten Island relief effort.
11 Tips on volunteering in Staten Island:
1. Know where you are going and who are you going to volunteer for (check out recovery.org/staten island) but I recommend giving donations at the Crossroads church and dispersing from there. 192 Ebbets Street is a distribution center smack in the middle of the worst parts that needs help.
2. Avoid being a Disaster Tourist – if you are shooting photographs, also use your muscles to help. Consider donating money if seeing extensive damage freaks you out and renders you unable to do anything but gawk or cry. Make yourself useful and be pro-active.
3. Most needed donations: mops, brooms, facemasks, knit caps, mittens, work gloves, solar-powered anything.4. Bring a portable rolling cart – it will allow you to deliver goods and food father to the people who need it most. And donate it when you’re done.5. Get ready to get dirty. There is a lot of clean-up to do, spores are in the air, and sludge is everywhere.
6. Ask anyone and everyone how you can help and where. Everyone is very grateful and informative. Locals always know best. Trust them.
7. Bring your own headlamp and/or flashlight, work gloves and facemask. There is NO POWER there and it gets dark fast.
8. Travel light. If you must bring a bag, have a lightweight shoulder bag that allows you to be hands free and your back to be pain-free.
9. Go early so you can make use of the daylight and familiarize yourself with the neighborhood and plan for travel time.
10. Dress warmly. It’s freezing even in the day time. Wear comfortable but waterproof shoes.
11. Be careful and follow FEMA signs. The last thing you want is to get injured and become an additional load on EMS personnel there.
Take a page out of Harlem Prep’s book. Be sure to exercise your civic duty and VOTE! I just got back from my local voting precinct and always get such a joyful rush out of our freedom to vote. It is definitely something to be grateful for.
With New York, New Jersey and Connecticut still suffering from the aftermath of Sandy, this video below of Casey Neistat’s trip through Staten Island is worth a watch. If you are able to donate, please do so. The latest from friends in the area is that Staten Island is inundated with physical donations, the best thing to do now is to either volunteer your time and/or donate money or blood. Great places to donate: Food Bank NYC, Red Cross, and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance NY.
In other less important news from the weekend, I’m always in the mood for a good C.I.A. movie or show. One of my all time favorites is Three Days of the Condor and I am totally obsessed , like the rest of the country, with Homeland. I used to think I wanted to be in the C.I.A. and had visions of meeting with men in trench coats on benches along the National Mall, speaking to each other with our heads facing front. But me in an interrogation room would not exactly be useful to the intelligence community.
In any case, I was psyched to go see Argo. It was our 1st official date night with a babysitter and with a pit stop at our favorite local restaurant, Hank’s Oyster Bar, this little outing was definitely worth the babysitting fee. I have to give it to Ben Affleck- he has slowly but steadily resurrected himself from a borderline cheesy actor (post Good Will Hunting, of course) to a really good, solid and thoughtful director. I have to say, his movies in the last couple of years have been some of my favorites and I rather dig his new subtle style of acting too.
Argo is a great, what I like to call “adult movie”. I feel this way about Alexander Payne’s movies- especially Sideways. Hard to put into words- just really good adult movies. The story is unbelievable and it being true just makes it all the more compelling. I’m not sure if the drama really unfolded to the minute the way it is harrowingly portrayed (it is a dramatization after all) but nevertheless, it is seriously unreal. I don’t want to spoil it by giving away details but the concept that Tony Mendez came up with to rescue 6 Americans from Iran during the hostage crisis is hair-brained and inspired all at once. It’s pretty fantastic to watch it unfold. Ben Affleck manages to infuse the right amount of comic relief (anything with Alan Arkin AND John Goodman and I’m in!) into the suspense and does a good job of fleshing out the characters, a tribute to the screenwriter Chris Terrio as well. I dug it.
We also watched Happy, the documentary, on netflix. Really nice to ruminate on what’s really important especially during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The documentary takes a look at people from all walks of life: an Indian rickshaw driver, a fishing family on the Bayou, working men in Japan and centenarians from Okinawa (with the world’s largest population of people ages 100+ per capita). Happiness it seems basically boils down to, surprise- the usual suspects: family, community, nature, giving back- it’s a recipe for happiness no matter what your situation. The idea that the difference between making $5,000 and $50,000 a year is a huge disparity, while making $50,000 or $50,000,000 is not- is really interesting. If you’re not poverty stricken and homeless, you’re really just talking about more stuff. A good reminder. There are some tear jerker stories in this one that really warmed my heart.
We have started feeding our little ones solid foods and my little T-Man had a terrible diaper rash- the very first one, so I was up to my eyeballs in rash cream. I love Mayron’s diaper cream but we also had to go in for the heavy stuff and use Boudreaux’s Maximum Butt Paste. It did the trick.
And lastly, Michigan managed to hang on to the Little Brown Jug this weekend in its yearly matchup against Minnestota. Go Blue!
Former showgirl, forever travel junkie, sometime sommelier, and mom to twin bebes. This little blog is a mixed bag of tasting notes, travels, tales of motherhood, and current musings. Thank you for stopping by. Cin Cin! (photo by Amy Dickerson for Anthology Magazine)
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