Doing Their Bit (at no charge)

Grace and some friends from school formed a club called Global Girls. Its mission is pretty loose, but involves little tasks like saving the world.

They had a meeting yesterday where they made dolls by stuffing socks with cotton balls and then drawing on hair and faces. The plan is to give them to sick children at the hospital to make them feel better. Apparently, some of the Global Girls didn't like the faces they had drawn and wanted to chuck their dolls, but were dissuaded by the others. "Kids with cancer and their hair falling out won't care if the doll's eyes are too big," said one.

After much discussion, the group decided not to charge the kids anything for the dolls.

"The Most Moral Army in the World"

Judge for yourself.

I've Been Coup'd!

On April 13--about a MONTH away, mind you--I will embark upon my 3rd season of coaching Charlie's soccer team. Yesterday I got the team roster and a reminder that there will be a coach's meeting on March 31 and then after that to contact your team about the schedule, what they need to bring, etc.

For my assistant coach, I was assigned my least favorite person in the whole program. This guy has been a loud problem in every 4 v. 4 game. Last night he emails me saying that if I want him to send out the team email, he'd be happy to. Then 5 minutes later, and before he got my response, he sends out the email--complete with his declarations about what snack he's going to bring for the first session and other symbols of power.

On the one hand, it's very nice of him to jump in and do this stuff. On the other hand, there are very clear delineations about what the head coach does and what the assistant does. I'm afraid it's going to be a very long season.

Nice Reminders

We're now in our 10th year of being vegetarians, and every once in a while it's nice to be reminded about all the positive outcomes of passing on meat. Like when you're eating a slice of fake bacon that looks an awful lot like a used band-aid.

For Christmas I got Green Living which has a nice list (see below), but never mentions the benefits to the animals themselves. Chief among them being not being killed and eaten.

• You'd save more water by not eating a single pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year.
• Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fuel to drive 20 miles. It also causes the loss of five times its weigh in topsoil.
• More than a THIRD of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the US are used in animal production. [not wild about the term "production," frankly]
• Because of deforestation to create grazing land, each vegetarian saves an acre of trees per year.
• It takes 4.8 pounds of grain (fed to cattle) to produce one pound of beef.
• A pound of wheat can be grown with 60 pounds of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500-6,000 pounds.
• Reducing meat production by just 10% in the US would free enough grain to feed 60 million people.
• US factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste in 1996, which, the EPA reports, pollutes American waterways more than all other industrial sources combined.
• There are 20 billion head of livestock taking up space on the Earth, more than triple the number of people.

The Skimpy Outfits Hold No Sway

Charlie (along with Grace) has skated in the Hayden Ice Show, a pretty big deal in our town, the past 2 years. It's always held in May and features a couple dozen different groups made up of kids taking lessons at Hayden plus the world-ranked synchronized skating team, The Haydenettes, and one or two National Team skaters. Each group gets special costumes and has a choreographed routine. Super fun for the kids and mostly fun for the parents (until all the flesh in their bottoms gets smooshed away from sitting on bleachers for four hours).

The past two years he was in a group with other boys his age and had a blast. Two days ago, we found out that his group this year will include boys and girls. We wondered how he would take this news, but pretty much knew it wasn't going to be pretty.

Last night at dinner we broke it to him. The news was met with tears of outrage. Just about the funniest tears of outrage the other three of us had ever seen. I teased him saying there wouldn't be ANY boy-girl contact in the routine. Except maybe for that big kiss at the end. This prompted the following reaction:

Getting Around

Look at that chart (click the image to see it in full size). Can we all just please agree that the bicycle is the most amazing machine? Simple, efficient and able to transport you while transporting you.

The image came from GOOD magazine.

Two Months In

Now that February is in the books, I thought I'd report in on my resolution progress. You know, the resolution where I pledged not to buy myself anything in 2009. Again, I gave myself an out on digital music purchases, as they are not physically tangible objects that will clutter my house and one day, a landfill.

January went by like the frigid breeze it was. In February, however, my guitar tuner broke. I was resigned to using an old pitch pipe for the rest of the year when my wife came to the rescue. She reminded me that the tuner was used not only for my guitar playing, but also to tune Charlie's First Act guitar and Grace's violin. She painted a sonic portrait of 10 months of cat-screeching and said that a new tuner would be for them, not me.

I happily complied with a new $20 Korg tuner.

So, two months in and I'm pleased to report that I'm not suffering from any withdrawal symptoms. I can't even think of anything I want to buy. I must be Bernanke's worst nightmare.