pseudostoops

Once again, it was incredibly fun to do the comments-for-charity thing.  Thanks to all of you who left comments, The Women’s Treatment Center, Sweet Miss Giving’s, and The Night Ministry all received donations of more than $50 on the last day of 2009 (just in time to be included in this year’s books).  I also really enjoyed learning about some of your favorite charities- so for those of you who nominated an organization to be considered in the finalist poll, a big extra *mwah* to you!  Based on your votes in the finalist poll, Y0ung at Heart Pet Rescue, an organization that does the important work of helping “senior” pets find homes, also received a $50 donation from me.

It’s important to me to be able to spread the word about some of these great charities.  I would donate anyway, but I feel like donation + informing more people is even better.  So thanks for reading, for commenting, thanks to those of you who spread the word on your own blogs and on twitter.  This has become one of my favorite blog activities ever.  I’ll see you back here next year!

Happy New Year and a big sloppy hug from me,

pseudo

Well, everyone, this week was quieter on the internet than I had expected, but I’m delighted to see that we rallied and got some really good numbers for the hugely deserving organizations I featured Monday through Wednesday.

I’ve enjoyed reading about some of your favorite charities. There were a lot of really great organizations nominated! Below, you’ll find a brief description and a link to the five finalists, along with who nominated them. I’ll be taking votes from now through New Year’s Eve, and the organization that gets the most votes will receive a $50 donation. So get voting! And again, thank you all so much for playing along this week, and happy holidays.

1. The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation: Does community development work in Sudan (including building schools!), works with Sudanese folks in the U.S., and advocates on Sudan policy issues. Nominated by Marilyn.

2. Young at Heart Pet Rescue: Dedicated to the rescue and adoption of senior pets in the Chicago region. They help senior pets, who often are the first to get euthanized in shelters because they are the hardest to adopt. Nominated by Samantha.

3. Couch Potatoes for the Cure: Support Steph’s effort to raise money for gynecolocical cancer research and support the Campbell Family Institute at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.

4. Northern Virginia Theraputic Riding Program: Provides theraputic horse back riding lessons for people with disabilities, youth-at-risk, and veterans. Horseback riding has been proven to be hugely beneficial to at-risk populations and people with disabilities. Nominated by Becs.

5. REACH LA: Trains low-income youth of color from Metropolitan Los Angeles, and empowers them with skills to develop innovative program initiatives that lead to social change in their own peer community. Nominated by Yvette.

This is a great group of organizations. Check them out, make your decision, and cast your vote!

Okay, team, it’s time to get serious.  By now, many of you know the drill:  I’m giving 50 cents per comment to a different charity every day this week.  Then, tomorrow, I’m going to choose five finalists from the charities that you all nominate in the comments, and will set up a poll to see what organization should get a final $50 donation.  Full explanation is here.

The Internet has been really quiet this week, and I am NOT EVEN CLOSE to the absolute maximum donation I’d established in my head.  So I’m still accepting comments on Monday’s and Tuesday’s posts.  That means, if you are just joining us, that you can donate $1.50 to charity, for free, just by commenting on all three posts.  (Monday here, Tuesday here.)  Please forward widely, link to this if you’re so inclined, twitter it, etc.  I really like the idea of a huge number of people learning something about these organizations, and the organizations getting some small-but-significant donations in return.

Today’s featured organization is The Night Ministry, which I also featured last year.

The Night Ministry is a non-denominational organization providing a variety of services to people living in poverty, particularly homeless youth and adults. They have, among other things, a traveling health bus that gives free medical care on a regular schedule to homeless folks in several Chicago neighborhoods. They provide meals and counseling and a consistent, friendly face for youth living on the streets, and help them get off the streets.

In their words:

The Night Ministry serves a wide range of individuals who share circumstances of poverty and the inability to afford and access essential services. No matter their age, mainstream society often ignores or casts aside those we serve. The more isolated a person is, the less likely they are to access services.

Among those we serve are:
- homeless and runaway youth
- homeless adults
- working poor adults
- uninsured and underinsured individuals seeking medical assistance
- individuals who lack access to or distrust of traditional systems of healthcare
- children living in public housing who need a place to gather in safety
- individuals struggling with substance abuse and mental illness
- the chronically lonely
- others who have “fallen through the cracks” of our social service system.

So, help ‘em out! Start commenting! Share widely! Nominate your own favorite charitable organiations!

And, as always, thanks.

Day 2!  I love this time of year.  For those who are new, I’m featuring a different charitable organization every day this week, and giving them $25 plus 50 cents for each comment I receive on that post.  Plus, I’m asking you to tell me about some of your favorite charitable organizations- which will be in the running for an end-of-week $50 donation!  Full details here.

Today, I want to tell you about a cool little Chicago-based social enterprise called Sweet Miss Giving’s.

I know, I know, I was skeptical about the name, too, but this organization does amazing things.  It’s a social enterprise, which means that it’s a for-profit organization with a social mission.  Their mission is two-fold: two provide job training and skills to the homeless, and to provide financial support to men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDS.

From their website:

Sweet Miss Giving’s is a premier bakery and jobs program that offers rich, decadent baked goods while providing a new reason to feel good about sweet indulgences: over 50% of all profits go to help the formerly homeless and HIV/AIDS-affected men, women, and children of Chicago House.

So the way it works is this: they make, sell, and deliver delicious baked goods.  They do this by training and employing homeless folks who need job skills.  The super-cool thing about their choice to start a jobs-training program in the food service industry is that it helps people get marketable skills and necessary certifications that will make them employable lots of places, not just at Sweet Miss Giving’s.  Participants in the program get certified in things like food safety and kitchen management, which makes them strong candidates for positions in other commercial kitchens when they’re ready to move on.  Smart. Very Smart.

More from their website:

Sweet Miss Giving’s was founded by Rev. Stan Sloan, an Episcopal priest and long-time CEO of Chicago House, the first provider of AIDS housing in the Midwest.  Sweet Miss Giving’s is Stan’s vision for how to create a pathway to jobs for the homeless – while also helping to fund Chicago House’s support services… We are driven by our social mission. Over 50% of our profits go directly to Chicago House.  What’s more: our bakery doubles as a comprehensive jobs program.  At any given time, more than a dozen disabled adults are getting real-world training and experience in our kitchen – as bakers, delivery assistants, and packaging specialists.

So today you can support Sweet Miss Giving’s and its mission by commenting on this post.  (I’ll be sending the donations to Chicago House, SMG’s non-profit partner.)

But that’s not the only way you can help this super-cool organization.  Are you in the Chicago area?  Does your office ever order in from Corner Bakery or Starbucks?  Wouldn’t it be awesome if, for the same amount of money, you got treats that helped give people job training and also provided support for people living with HIV/AIDS?  Why don’t you suggest to your office manager that next time you order in, you do it from Sweet Miss Giving’s?  If you would like some of our materials to pass along to a colleague, you can contact Stephen at ssmith@sweetmissgivings.com or 312.255.8470.

Social enterprise is cool, isn’t it?  So let’s get commenting!

Thank you.

Somehow, impossibly, it is already almost Christmas. Holy cow. This week, I’m delighted to institute the second annual Giving My Money Away (GMMA) extravaganza here at pseudostoops. I started this last year, and if this year goes even half as well as last year did, I’ll be delighted.

Here’s how this works: I’m inviting audience participation in my end-of-year charitible giving. This year, I am going to feature three organizations that do amazing and important work in the community. These are organizations I know either personally or professionally, that are perhaps not as well-known as some of the bigger charitable causes.

Some of the organizations I’m featuring this week will be repeats from last year, because a year later, the economy isn’t any better and these organizations need help more than ever. In times like these, organizations that provide much-needed services are hit particularly hard, since the need increases dramatically at the same time donations taper off to a trickle. I’ll also be featuring one new organization that wasn’t part of last year’s group.

I’m hoping that I can spread the word on some places that are quietly doing very cool work. I’ll tell you a little about the organization and its mission, give you a link to more info, and then YOU will determine the amount of the donation I make.

Here’s how it’s going to work:

1. I’ll put up a post featuring the organization.

2. I’ll guarantee a minimum $25 donation to that organization.

3. For every comment I receive on that post, I’ll donate an additional $0.50. I have an absolute maximum in mind, but I’m hoping people amaze me with their participation and I have to really stretch my budget! (Hats off to RudeCactus, whose brilliant idea I totally stole last year, and again now.)

4. I will feature a different organization Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. When you leave your comments, I’m hoping that you will also tell me a little bit about one of your favorite charitible organizations, perhaps on that is on the smaller side and deserves a little support this holiday season. Name it in the comments, and provide a link if you have one.  (If you’re participating every day, you can name several different organizations, or just name the same one four times to show the depth of your love for them.) I’ll research each organization suggested in the comments, and will chose five finalists.

On Thursday (Christmas Eve) ‘ll select five organizations from the comments and set up a poll. The poll will be open for a week, and the organization that receives the most votes will receive a $50 donation. I’m excited to learn about the great organizations in your communities that are doing important work!

This was really fun last year, and I hope it is this year, too!

*****

Today’s totally deserving organization is one I also featured last year: The Women’s Treatment Center. I’m going to borrow liberally from what I wrote last year about this extraordinary place:

Located in Chicago, the Women’s Treatment Center is a residential drug treatment center for women that has childcare capacity, so women do not have to be separated from their children (who often have no other place to go) as they go through treatment. It’s one of the only drug treatment centers around that has a crisis nursery, which can provide round the clock infant care while a woman is in detox, so a woman does not have to make the impossible choice between entering rehab and making sure her infant is cared for. From their website:

Women with children often are denied residential drug abuse treatment services, because facilities lack childcare services. At TWTC, we provide mothers in treatment comprehensive, compassionate and high quality treatment services, as well as a safe environment in which to detox, without separating them from their children. Mothers at TWTC interact daily with their children, mending the bond broken by addiction. Pregnant women at TWTC have an opportunity to give birth to drug-free babies, providing these infants with a healthier start.

The Illinois state budget is a mess, and funding for the health and drug treatment programs like those provided at the Women’s Treatment Center has been cut dramatically. They need our help.

SO! Get to it! Comment below, then tell your friends, your family, your twitter stream your blog readers, etc etc. Last year we got 27 comments when I featured TWTC. Let’s blow that out of the water this year.

Thank you.

So it appears that I have inadvertently gone and gotten myself Joan Jett’s haircut, circa 1981.

I went to a new salon, where my adorable and super-fashionable friend Nacho gets her hair cut. That was my first mistake. Nacho is 400% more fashionable than me, so it stands to reason that the place where she gets her haircut would be very, very hip. Sure enough, the lovely girl who cut my hair had her dimples pierced (true story) and an outfit that was the perfect mix of 80s vintage and American Apparel. I was way out of my league, here.

“How can I make you happy?” she asked.

“I’m thinking that for winter I might try turning my side swept bangs into blunt bangs” I said.

“Awesome!” she said. “Do you like layers?”

“Um, yes? Kinda?” I replied. “The last haircut I got ended up looking really feathered and frizzy because the guy got kind of carried away with the layers, and I don’t like that. But yeah, I like layers.”

“Great!” she said.

A few snips later I had blunt bangs. Even while they were still wet and wavy I already liked them. I was mentally patting myself on the back for taking a successful hair risk when she started combing the rest of the hair on my head forward and cutting off rather alarming chunks.

“Um,” I said.

“Oh,” she said “this will just give you super subtle layering in the back. It’s going to look amazing.”

Since she’d already started, I thought “okay! subtle! I can do subtle!”

Then she started cutting all these teeny tiny pieces in the front, adjacent to the bangs, in what looked suspiciously like feathering. And then she got out the razor.

“I’m, um, not into too much razoring,” I noted.

“I’m hardly going to do any,” she said. “Just to give it some movement.” And then, like a weed whacker, her hands started moving so fast that I couldn’t really tell what was happening and then she turned me around and by the time it was all over….Joan Jett.

It’s a cute haircut, actually. I like it. It’s exactly the kind of cut I would see on someone else and think “I wish I could pull that off.” But having a haircut that is 400% more fashionable than you are seems like… a bad idea. I wear a lot of ill-fitting 5-year-old Banana Republic business casual pants, and when I’m not wearing those, I wear jeans and tshirts. My haircut is going to be embarrassed to be seen in my wardrobe.

Seriously, I can tell it’s already mortified by today’s outfit, which features neither leggings nor skinny jeans nor a long ironic boyfriend sweater:

‘

Plus side: shiny hair distracts from oddly mottled and sickly skin tone.

I need to learn this lesson: every time I try to get a dramatic haircut, I end up feeling silly. What I need, I think, is to find a salon where no one is cool, no one is hip, and there is zero chance that I will get caught up in the moment and think that I can pull off something trendy. To be clear: I really liked this salon. They were super friendly, reasonably priced, and clearly know what they are doing. In fact, it’s because they were so good that I managed to convicnce myself that I, too, could pull off a cute fun trendy look. Who do I think I am, someone who pierces my dimples? Come on, self. I clearly need to find a salon populated by 30-somethings who have nice boring swingy haircuts and wear v-neck sweaters. That salon would give me a perfect haircut, I bet. Any suggestions?

I am now entering week three of a minor throat tickle/headache/stuffiness scenario that is driving me absolutely batshit.  I’ll wake up feeling good in the morning, but by evening I have a headache and my throat feels meh and I’m all sniffly.  Is it possible to have an evenings-only cold?  Because if not, I have no explanation.  Perhaps I am allergic to…my winter coat? The HVAC system in my building? 4:12 p.m. sunsets?  Mysterious.

When I was teaching, and when I was in grad school, I would be sick every year at Christmas, without fail.  It was like my body held on as long as it could, but when it felt me relax into vacation- WHAMMO! Cold and flu, baby!  Enjoy your Christmas presents with a side of nyquil!

I’d really like that not to happen this year.  Perhaps since I don’t actually get any time off at the holidays, my body will not settle into vacation mode, and thus I will not get blindsided by some wretched pestilence?  (Now if that’s not a valient effort to find a silver lining in a schedule that has me working both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, I don’t know what is.)

In the meantime, answer me this.  Humidifier: fabulous tool for decongesting, or tremendous waste of money?  Inquiring minds want to know.

I’ve always eaten a lot of vegetables (recovering 10-year vegetarian over here), but recently I’ve been trying to eat more fruit.  I have a wicked sweet tooth, and I decided a few months ago that I should try, at least every once in a while, to satisfy it with a banana instead of a brownie.  This has been a qualified success, but has given rise to some very pressing questions about fruit.

• Bananas.  I’be been buying them in bunches of 5 and eating one sliced over my cereal every morning.  Several times now, as the week has progressed, instead of turning the normal mottled yellow and black as the fruit ripens, the skins have taken on a uniform gray color.  They look kind of sickly, and it seems like the fruit inside doesn’t seem to ripen as much.  What gives?  Banana blight?  Are the bananas still okay to eat?  (More specifically: am I going to die from the one I ate just now?)
• Apples.  For a while, I was bringing apples to work to replace my usual mid-morning snack of rice cakes with peanut butter.  But I noticed that often, when I ate an apple on a near-empty stomach, I would get a rush of intense and terrifically unpleasant nausea 5 to 10 minutes later.  (The first time it happened, I actually emailed a friend in a panic, thinking that such sudden onset nausea must mean I was pregnant.  True story.  (I’m not.  Pregnant.  Phew.)) Am I the only one who experiences this?  Do I have strange sort of temporary apple allergy, or is this a normal apple thing?
• Grapefruit.  So delicious, yet so labor intensive.  I’m considering buying a grapefruit knife.  Should I?

Now, let’s see if I can keep this up on the long winter slog through citrusville until the stone fruits come into season again.  Outlook not so good.

Not to sound ungrateful or anything, but:

Our holiday work lunch is today.  It’s at one of those silly downtown clubs that’s like an urban country club but without the golf and tennis.  You know, the kind with a “reading room” and a squash court and like forty-seven bars?  The kind that only let women in starting like 15 years ago and which still requires jackets and forbids denim?  They’re odd places.

So today, which is CASUAL FRIDAY, on which I could USUALLY BE ALLOWED TO WEAR JEANS, I have to dress in a suit so that I can go to a silly downtown club to be served a dry club sandwich and a warm diet coke.  Ho ho ho indeed.

Grumble.