Love that Small Kitchen Appliance

A small kitchen appliance isn’t usually on my list of things that I love. However, my crock-pot has a way of reminding me of the love from special people in my life.

I have read that our olfactory senses ignite memories. When I smell roses it reminds me of grade school. My great grandmother wore a perfume called Roses, Roses. But usually the smell of food does not evoke this strong of a memory for me.

I was making a pork roast in the crock-pot for southern style barbeque sandwiches when the aroma hit me. I explored my memory bank, then I took another long sniff and I remembered.

In 2001, Tim and I took a six-week motor home trip around the country. We drove to many of my speaking engagements. For several weeks we were parked in Tim’s dad’s neighbor’s driveway. Tim’s dad had a lung removed and needed our help. It was a working trip, so I would prepare dinner early in the morning. I would put a beef roast, pork chops or pinto beans in the crock-pot in his dad’s house.

One day I noticed his dad lumbering across the grass towards the motor home. I immediately ran to the door and asked if he was okay. He told me that he needed to get out of the house because of the crock-pot. I wondered what might be bugging him about it. He said it smelled so good that he couldn't stand to stay in there. It was making him hungry!

I had taken the crock-pot with me on the trip and really felt a connection to it. It finally wore out and I bought a new one. Some of my kitchen appliances I bond with and others I don’t. The new crock-pot that I have owned for the last several years hasn’t become one of my favorites. Yesterday, I bought a new crock-pot and wondered what I would do with the old one. Then I received an email through the website, Freecycle that someone needed a crock-pot. Voila!

Today’s gift was giving away my old crock-pot to someone who will be able to make even more love with it. Hopefully, she and it will bond and create many happy memories.

In Giving,

Robin

It Wasn’t All About Me

There are some things in life that I have to do that just aren’t much fun. You may feel that dread when you have to go to the dentist or doctor. I can’t say that I look forward to it, but what I am even more reluctant about is getting my hair cut. Now, you may tell me to put on my “big girl” pants and get over it, but it isn’t that easy for me.

I’ve been the recipient of many bad experiences at the hair salon. One time when I was done I looked like Eddie Munster. I had a black point in the center of my forehead from an over zealous stylist that applied more hair color on my forehead than on my hair.

Once, when I was in junior high school, I wanted to be grown up and go get my hair cut with my friend, Susan, much to Mom’s chagrin. She knew all to well the traumatic grow-out process after my infamous “pixie” haircut. At that time she experienced about as many emotions from a teenage girl as she could stand.

My pixie haircut was so short that when my father came to get me, I stepped off the curb and reached for the door, but he drove off thinking some young girl was trying to get in his car. By the time he came back around the block, I was in tears and screamed for him to stop. He thought I looked so different that he didn’t recognize me.

On the fateful day, I watched Susan get her hair cut first. Then it was my turn. Unfortunately, the hairdresser didn’t wet my hair before he began cutting. It is a mistake to cut long, thick, curly hair without wetting it. After he finished, I looked in the mirror, and decided it wasn’t horrible. When I got home my mother took one look and gasped. I had knots of hair underneath the top layer of hair that he hadn’t combed out and there were huge chunks of my hair missing. My mother had to cut my hair to my shoulders just to salvage it. There are many other bad hair cut stories, too.

Needless to say, I have to mentally prepare myself for a haircut. I had an appointment at 9:00 a.m. this morning with a new stylist. When I arrived the receptionist told me that my appointment was not this morning. I looked at the text messages and saw that indeed it said 12:00 on her text to me, but my calendar had it at 9:00.

I had entered the calendar item on my phone when I was back east. My phone calendar outsmarted me and adjusted it for three hours earlier for the Pacific Time zone. So I called the stylist to reschedule for next week.

She said, “Today is a tough day for me. I am moving my mother into assisted living this weekend and it isn’t going very smoothly. Thank you for rescheduling and giving me this extra time to take care of my personal issues.”

Today’s gift was one that at the time I didn’t even know I was giving. Once I stopped thinking about poor me, I thought to give my new hairdresser the gift of time. She wouldn’t have cancelled my appointment, but desperately needed the time I gave to her.

Go figure . . . it wasn’t all about me after all!

In Giving,

Robin

We’ll Leave the Light on for You

Tom Bodett was working as a radio host for NPR’s All Things Considered show when an advertising agency thought he sounded like someone who would stay at a Motel 6. They hired Tom to record a commercial for them and he ad-libbed the famous line, “We’ll leave the light on for you.”

Most of us in the United States know what the tag line means, but to 50 million Africans (seven out of ten) who do not have electricity, they would probably not understand it. When I saw the plea on www.one.org (ONE) to help Africans get power for the first time, it resonated with me.

In my previous position with a higher education nonprofit, I helped the academic departments raise money for student projects. In 2010, Professor Dr. Slobodan Petrovic told me about Solar Hope. It is a nonprofit that he established to bring renewable energy to underdeveloped regions of the world by installing an incredible amount of renewable energy power in Africa by the year 2020. He took the first group of students to Tanzania in 2010.

According to the ONE website, energy access has enormous implications for basic quality of life, such as the ability of a pregnant woman facing a difficult labor in the middle of the night to be treated at a hospital with lights and functioning equipment. It provides refrigeration for childhood vaccines, allows students to study after dark and lights street lamps that help make it safer for girls to walk to school in the early morning hours. It is essential for irrigating crops, powering up small businesses, and creating jobs.

During their first trip to Africa, the students and Dr. Petrovic installed donated solar panels in a small village that had never had power before. Many villagers owned cell phones, but they had to walk 20 to 30 miles to the nearest village to recharge them. The students spent several weeks working among the villagers and bonding with them. The students had their lives changed as much by the experience, as the villagers did by getting power for the first time.

To celebrate the last night in the village, the students showed a movie that they had brought with them from home. There was sheer amazement on the faces of villagers as they watched their very first movie ever.

The ONE website describes a bill that is in the House of Representatives designed to bring electricity to 50 million Africans for the first time. It provides $7 billion from the government and is matched with $9 billion from the private sector. As of today, they have 97,894 signatures of their 100,000 goal to support passage of the bill.

For today’s gift, I added my name to the petition to let our representatives know that it’s time to electrify Africa. And then they won’t need Tom Bodett to leave the light on for them, they can do it themselves.

In Giving,

Robin

The Luck of the Duck

One of my client’s has a bookshelf full of trolls with colorful hair, big ears and bulging eyes. They range in size from miniature gumball machine prizes and pencil toppers to dolls over one foot tall. His favorite one has orange hair.

One day his employees, knowing that he could take a joke, kidnapped the carrot-top troll. He good-naturedly asked whoever took it, to please return it. The next morning lying on his desk was a ransom note. On it was written that his buddy, the new office mascot, had been kidnapped. Attached to the note was a photo of the troll standing beside the Empire State Building.

Everyone in the office played along with the joke. The company has offices worldwide and when someone was going on a business trip, they would take the troll with them. Soon pictures of it in pubs in Germany and with Big Ben in England were sent back to the manager. The troll had a busy travel schedule. Sometimes one person would hand it off in the airport so that it could make the journey to the next location. After a full year of travel, it was finally returned with many colorful stories about this well-travelled troll.

Adopting a mascot connects a group of people by giving them a common prank to play. Tim’s brother, sisters and their spouses have an unusual item that could be considered the family mascot.

Their mother had a “good luck duck” that was soft, yellow and white. One time she put it in Catharine’s suitcase as she was leaving to return home. Catharine then decided that this duck would be gifted to the next sibling or parent who came to visit her, unbeknownst to them.

Catharine is sneaky when she passes it off to someone else. At the end of one visit, I carefully propped the duck on her bed pillow with a “gotcha” note after our suitcases were safely in the car. At the last minute, Catharine ran back into the house, saying something about her purse. Lo and behold, when I returned home and opened my suitcase, the duck greeted me!

We have continued the tradition for over ten years, even after Tim’s mother passed away. We have not seen the duck since we sent it in a Christmas package to his older sister. But last week the duck reared its little beak when Tim was opening his birthday presents in West Virginia.

For today’s gift, we slipped the duck into his brother’s suitcase. It is a fun way to keep the in-laws and out-laws connected across the miles. Who knows where the duck may reappear. We always look forward to creative ways to return the “luck of the duck” to an unsuspecting family member.

In Giving,

Robin

The Night the Lights Went Out in Washington, D.C.

We went to sleep last night without knowing what would happen in the halls of Congress. Newscasters looked at every angle of the impending crisis, airing video clips of quips and quotes from Republicans and Democrats on Capital Hill. The bottom line that echoed through the media was, “The United States Government will likely shut down at midnight tonight unless an agreement is reached on the budget and Obama Care.”

Of course, like many other people, I wondered why they can’t just get along with each other and compromise. Normally, I would have been like the chicken in the story about the difference between the chicken and the pig when it comes to breakfast. The chicken (eggs) is simply involved in breakfast, but the pig (sausage) is definitely committed. In this situation, I had an attitude more like the pig’s.

The government closing down may mean the possibility of mail not being delivered, post offices closed, people not receiving their social security check and possibly many days off for government workers, with no end in sight.

Also concerning to me was that I was planning to be on an airplane the next morning. Granted the airlines are private industry and should not be affected, but would airports be closed because of lack of TSA security or air traffic controllers? Frantic searching on the Internet last night still did not reveal an answer.

When I jumped out of bed this morning, I immediately turned on the television news. It was a fact. The U.S. Government shut down at midnight last night. I hurriedly turned on my phone to see that there was a voice mail from the airline. I felt that sinking feeling in my stomach as I dialed my mailbox. Ahh, good news! It was only a gate change in the airport. My flight was on time and on schedule!

For today’s gift, as I went through security, I made a point to thank each and every one of the TSA agents for coming to work today. At first, they were rather shocked at my acknowledgement, but then loosened up. One security agent said, “I don’t know if I’ll get my VA check, but I’m here.” Another said in jest, “Of course, I could be laying on the beach, but why wouldn’t I want to be at work instead?” Another told me that TSA is considered emergency service and they are required to work. She said, “Although, we don’t know if we will get paid.”

My crisis was averted, but for many other people it could be a long and tenuous time. Some folks may be forced to take unpaid time off and some may not receive their critical government checks. Though I was spared the night the lights went out in D.C., let’s hope our lawmakers quit being chickens and commit like the pigs to solving the problem.

In Giving,

Robin