The Kindness of Strangers (2)

Stories about kindness bestowed by strangers always get to me. :)
Here's a lovely one about a man who rode his bicycle across the United States, and, to me, experienced a miracle every day:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18463814




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Happiness Is Contagious!!!!!

You can't tell, but this cat is smiling! Update your facebook profile pictures, everyone, and show me those pearly whites!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/12/05/happiness.social.network/index.html

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Thank You

For my Dad---who loves this song. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1CjbcqhGyU

What to Do With All Those Leftovers!!

Now this, this is a GREAT IDEA!!!!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97360726

Call Food Runners, and they will pick up your leftover food and redistribute it to the hungry.

I have so much Pirate's Booty (long story--I bought a ton of it at Costco to bring to my brother in Munich, where it is not sold, and then realized that I had no room for it in the suitcase) that I should call these guys.

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Really Cool Way to Celebrate Thanksgiving

I have thought about doing this before but was too afraid of the kinds of responses I'd get.
These gracious people actually posted an ad on Craigslist, inviting people in need to their home for Thanksgiving. So cool.

http://www.kjct8.com/Global/story.asp?S=9418137


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Happy Thanksgiving!

The One Good Thing Blog was started last Thanksgiving to highlight all the good that is in this world; and it's been so fun to work on this project.
When I think about all that I have to be thankful for this year, these items on the blog are really just the tip of the iceberg; the love and care and laughter that my friends and family have brought this year, especially this, which has turned out to be the most difficult of years, is just astounding and overwhelmingly powerful. You got me through this with your love and friendship and humor.
So here's a good thing that's cracked me up on YouTube this year; with the perfect song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOkQszGd8A


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No Cookies in the Library!!

For my nieces! Wish me luck getting thru the rest of this semester.
When I am a librarian, I will have cookies in my library. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJlkplvYdgA

FIghting off Communism--With Song

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1024/p15s01-algn.html#



Click on the video--the singing is authentic--not dubbed, and it will give you goosebumps.

Halloween Party Treats

Do you have too much candy left from Halloween?
You can donate it to Second Harvest or other local food banks:
http://www.2ndharvest.net/

You could also use some of it to make yummy desserts, such as this Snickers Sauce, which was included in this NPR article:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96179573&ps=bb1




Snickers Sauce
8 snack-size Snickers bars
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts



In a small heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, combine chopped Snickers, heavy cream and brown sugar. Reduce heat to medium-low and allow sauce to gently bubble for about 5 minutes, or until thick and gooey, stirring occasionally. The sauce should adhere to the back of a spoon. Stir in the peanuts. Remove pan from heat.

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Romantic Tuesday

Today's romantic story is from StoryCorps. Apparently it's one of the first ones they recorded. Has anyone out there read: "Listening is An Act of Love?"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3844820


You'll need kleenex for part 2:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5230164

Saving the World--One child at a time

16 kids and counting! This is happy news on how a family is making a difference in this world by adopting children and providing a happy home for them:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0616/p18s01-lifp.html

Here If You Need Me

Kate Braestrup, the author of one of my favorite books, "Here If You Need Me", was interviewed on 'The Cambridge Forum' this afternoon. I couldn't find the exact show online, but here's another interview with her. She's really hilarious, yet also loving and caring.

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/braestrup/

SAME---So All May Eat

My sister Kathleen tipped me off on this One Good Thing: A cafe in Denver which serves organic meals and asks people to pay what they think the meal was worth. If they cannot afford to pay, they are asked to donate an hour of service in the restaurant. This way, everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, has a chance to eat good, healthy food.

http://www.soallmayeat.org/about.html

We have a roving reporter, Paco, on the ground in Denver who is going to check out the cafe and post a review here soon, so stay tuned. :)

Have a wonderful fourth of July!!

Old Man Lemur

Read here about what zookeepers are doing to keep their senior-citizen animals healthy. Most of these critters would have died at younger ages in their natural habitat, so there are new health challenges the veterinarians face. His little mustache is adorable!

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Stop and Smell the Roses

I wish it was as easy to practice what Laurie Granieri preaches here, but it's a good reminder to us all to keep in mind that there is more to life than only work--even if you adore what you do.

Happy Father's Day!!!!

This lovely story about a loving Dad's cookies reminds me of my own Dad. He also has had a lot of hobbies throughout the years:

aquariast

pilot

astronomer

bicyclist

orator

computer programmer

whole wheat bread baker

pizza dough maker

tomato and potato gardener

Happy Father's Day!!!

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Wine and Music Pairings

Read hear (the pun is in honor of my friend Bene's birthday) about pairing wine with....music.
The claim is that the taste changes based on the music one is listening to while tasting. This seems like a great idea for a party!



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100 Things You Want to Do Before You Die

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSYFTZrABMg



What would be on your list?

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Make Yourself Happier in the Next Hour

Here's a blog post regarding how to make yourself happier within the next hour!

The Bard and Pink Floyd

It doesn't get more romantic than the Sonnet No. 18 and David Gilmour.

I have a line from this sonnet engraved onto the back of my iPod.

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Click here for the 'plain English' version, for those of you, as I, didn't major in literature. :)

Drinking for Charity

Saturday's theme is wine, so let's check out this cool idea from Humanitas Wines: a portion of your wine purchases can be donated to such causes as the San Francisco Food Bank or the San Diego Habitat for Humanity. What a great way to ship a gift to a friend, where they can enjoy both the wine and the fact that a charitible donation was given on their behalf!

Humanitas Wines



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Truly Amazing

Click here to see and hear a childrens' choir and symphony perform baroque music in a remote Bolivian town.

And read more here about how music is transforming the lives and giving hope to some of the most disadvantaged children in Bolivia's most rural towns.

It's Romantic Tuesday--Again!!

La Vita Nuova

In that book which is
My memory...
On the first page
That is the chapter when
I first met you
Appear the words...
Here begins a new life

- Dante Alighieri



One good thing I found for romantic Tuesday ties back to an excellent book I am currently reading: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.
According to Wikipedia:
"What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the first years of the 14th century through the works of Dante Alighieri, who mixed southern Italian languages, especially Sicilian, with his native Tuscan in his epic poems known collectively as the Commedia, to which Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed the title Divina. Dante's much-loved works were read throughout Italy and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language and, thus, the dialect of Tuscany became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy."
I get it--from the poem above I can see why everyone reads Dante.

Walking the Labyrinth

One good thing today: It was a graceful walk.

http://www.gracecathedral.org/labyrinth/

A Guest Blogger

My friend Christina, from Oregon, is our guest blogger today. :) Thanks, Christina for One Good Thing!!

I, too, met a person recently that I feel in a chance meeting changed how I look at life. He was a 90 year old man eating alone and when I acknowledged him he moved his things over and joined me for breakfast. We had wonderful conversation and I feel like I will always invite someone eating alone to share my table. This man had so much courage just to make the effort to get out because he wanted to have a moment with human interaction, even if it was at a distance. If you take the time to slow down and listen, there is alot being said that we don't often get to hear but is the stuff a good life is made up of.

Romantic Tuesdays

Tuesday's posts are supposed to be about romance, although I must admit I am not always consistent. :) I love Omar's quote at the end of this article.


Iraq-born Omar Fekeiki, who endangered his life by working as a correspondent for the Washington Post in Baghdad (and was profiled in The Chronicle in October), was one of two student graduation speakers chosen by fellow students at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Fekeiki, 29, described how his fellow classmates had become his family.
And then, from the podium, he called up the person closest to him right now, 30-year-old Ban Hameed, whom he'd met eight years ago when they were both college students in Baghdad. She made her way to the platform, looking embarrassed. "I was afraid she would pass out," said Fekeiki on Monday.
In the past year, what had been a close friendship had turned into a close romance. Fekeiki told the audience he had one more thing to say, and then told her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. They embraced, she sobbed and he gave her a ring. Although this came as a surprise to her, he had been reasonably sure she'd say yes. "I'm a good reporter," he said Monday. "I did research before I did it."
They plan to marry in April.

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by Leah Garchik of the San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Making Things Right

During World War II, the US Government forced thousands of Japanese Americans into internment camps. Read here about a woman who was forced to leave her pre-med program at University of Washington to live in a camp.

Even though it took over 65 years, Ruby Inouye received an honorary degree from University of Washington this weekend, as did the other Japanese American students that were sent to the camps.

In the meantime, Ruby went on to medical school and opened up her own medical practice in Washington State.

Ruby had the choice to either wait for the institutions that failed her to make things right, or to just move on and live her life the best way she possibly could, and make her life right for herself. I love that Ruby didn't give up her dream and went on to be the first Japanese American woman in our country to open a medical practice.

I Want To Be A Librarian

In honor of the semester ending on Wednesday and now being 14% of the way finished with Library School, check out this music video regarding librarians:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne_WXP7lUWM



This starts off slow, but it's really funny. Especially that the librarians are able to lure the guy into the Closed Reserve with the promise of looking at a "Time" magazine.

Note: for those of you looking at this at work, don't worry, this is not an adult video. :)

A Belated Mother's Day Post

Calvin Trillin published a tribute to his wife in The New Yorker in March of 2006. This piece was later published as a book called: "About Alice". To me, this piece defines what it means to be an exemplary person.
Here is a link to the entire piece, and the quote below that changed my view of everything:


"Alice always said that parents had a huge influence on children when it came to what she called "the big things." Essentially, she meant values. In a letter to the girls, she once included among the messages we'd been trying to send them "to worry about being kind and generous to other people, to be honest with yourself and with others, to find meaning in the work you do, not to over-value financial success." Although we never discussed it in these terms, I think she believed in the transformative power of pure, undiluted love. Once, for the program at the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp gala, some volunteer counsellors contributed short passages about their experiences at camp, and Alice wrote about one of the campers, a sunny little girl she called L. At camp, Alice had a tendency to gravitate toward the child who needed the most help, and L. was one of those. "Last summer, the camper I got closest to, L., was a magical child who was severely disabled," Alice wrote. "She had two genetic diseases, one which kept her from growing and one which kept her from digesting any food. She had to be fed through a tube at night and she had so much difficulty walking that I drove her around in a golf cart a lot. We both liked that. One day, when we were playing duck-duck-goose, I was sitting behind her and she asked me to hold her mail for her while she took her turn to be chased around the circle. It took her a while to make the circuit, and I had time to see that on top of the pile was a note from her mom. Then I did something truly awful, which I'm reluctant now to reveal. I decided to read the note. I simply had to know what this child's parents could have done to make her so spectacular, to make her the most optimistic, most enthusiastic, most hopeful human being I had ever encountered. I snuck a quick look at the note, and my eyes fell on this sentence: 'If God had given us all of the children in the world to choose from, L., we would only have chosen you.' Before L. got back to her place in the circle, I showed the note to Bud, who was sitting next to me. 'Quick. Read this,' I whispered. 'It's the secret of life.' ""

For M and P, and A, B, C, J, P, and S (you know who you are)

"...the game trackers at Londolozi spotted a baby elephant who'd been born with horribly deformed hind legs. The trackers who first saw the baby figured it was lion chow, but that particular herd of elephants reacted in a way no one had ever seen and no one expected. The herd had begun to walk in an unusual horseshoe formation , with the little elephant...in the center. When they reached an obstacle [the elephant] couldn't clear, the other elephants would lift her with their trunks..."

Thank you.

quote above is from the book "Steering by Starlight", by Martha Beck.

A New Friend

Today, I made a new friend!
My company is participating in a partnership with the US State Department in a program which will: "provide young women in business and law an opportunity to practice their skills and gain experience to help them grow as professionals and advocate for an improved investment climate and legal reforms."
One of the young women chosen for this fellowship, a lawyer, started working in my department today, and what a joy it has been to meet her and talk with her about her country (Tunisia--which is in Northern Africa) and her experiences in her homeland as well as her impressions as a newcomer to the United States.
I taught her a new term today: 'packrat' and she taught me the nicer French term for it--which I cannot spell, but has something to do with squirrelling things away. :)
This is a fantastic program to give young women a chance to experience first hand our culture, as well as to gain real work experience here in the US. And I personally am just fascinated to learn more about a new culture, and so happy to have made a new friend.
http://mepi.state.gov/outreach/index.htm

A Long Life of Love and Wonder

Anna Wise, aged 96, discussed her courtship and marriage with her husband of 57 years.

The best part of this two-and-a-half minute interview is at the end. She says something that sounds a bit like poetry:



"... It's amazing the things

that people can live through

when they have to.

So you get through it.

You get through almost anything.

And you live to be 96.

And sometimes you wonder why.

But then when you look up at the blue sky you think:

'It's gonna be allright.' "

The Taco Truck

For many of us in California, the Taco Truck, or the Thai Truck, is our saving grace after a long morning.
Even a squeamish eater like me has been converted over the years to crave the Roach Coach's blissful goodness at lunch.
Los Angeles is trying to ban these trucks from parking in one place for more than an hour. This story is sad, but also, for those of you who live in Los Angeles, there is hope. Check out this website where you can get more information on the issue and sign a petition to save these moveable feasts:
saveourtacotrucks.org

....and, we're back!

Taking 9 credit hours of classes while working full time has put me waaaay behind on blogging.
For one good thing today, any guesses on who wrote this?

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men—go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families—re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.