charity

when i'm daydreaming about being extremely wealthy, one of the things i always think would be cool to do is to just randomly give people money. i would over tip, i would say "keep the change", and i would pay for other people's checks at restaurants.
i think about when i was in college and how if i found $5.00 in a pair of jeans then i got all excited. i just read stinkypaw's post on what she is doing for the homeless in her city and it got me to thinking...
how much do i need to have before i can do this? really? i am NOT extremely wealthy but we do okay. i own designer bags and drive a nice vehicle (when it gets repaired from the deer hit). i have spent money on stupid things. i have "wasted" money. how much do i have to have before i can feel charitable?
i donate Body Shop and tie dyes to local benefits and i buy girl scout cookies. i purchase raffle tickets to help out the latest cancer victim's medical bills and i give my clothes (the ones that don't sell on my garage sale) to the Salvation Army.
all of those things offer me something in return...so is it really charity?

i'm going to start truly GIVING. last night i gave my pizza delivery guy a $16.00 tip. he is a young guy who is always friendly. it felt good to say "keep the change" and to see the smile on his face. i realize that $16 isn't going to pay off any of his bills but hopefully it made him feel appreciated.
i'm also going to take a page from stinkypaws book and stop by our local food pantry to find out what items they need and i'm going to GIVE it to them.

finally, last night i was at my in-laws house with my six year old. monkey's parents are in St. Lucia visiting his sister and brother in law (the one who just finished the sailing race). they had purchased all new bedding and curtains, painted the walls, and cleaned the drapes and carpets while they were gone. so she asked me and gab's other two sisters to stop by and kind of put things back together for them as a Christmas present. i got there early with Mazzy and she was helping me make the bed and she said to me:
"mom, you know what i love about this time of year?" and I said "presents?" and she said "nope, it's people helping each other."

WTF!!

seriously, i got over 25 spam emails today. did anyone else experience an increase in spam today? m*f*ers.

a boat race

Monkey has a sister who is married to a British doctor, Andrew. They live in Scotland and do things like sail on the open sea.
Andrew and his father and a couple of other guys recently set sail from the Canary Islands headed to St. Lucia with about 250 other boats as part of the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) race.

Each boat has daily logs and some submit photos. It is very interesting to me and I check the log frequently to see what's going on with them. The little blurbs often are of funny things that have happened on board or of particularly rough seas and the aftermath. A couple of boats helped aid in rescues at sea of other boats (not part of the race) who needed help.

Today I read about a crew who were fishing and had a giant tuna on the line. It dived suddenly and they couldn't figure out what was going on until they reeled it in and found that while it was on the line it was being attacked by a shark. Wow, here is a photo of the missing tail fin and the giant bite taken out of it.

If you're interested in reading more, please check it out.