Turtle Boat Meetings

They say that looking forward to something is as good as doing it. My three daughters and I are planning a 12 day trip around Colorado and Utah this summer, and the planning meetings have so far been as enjoyable for me as I know the trip will be.

Last summer, two of my daughters and I made a 12 day road trip from Cheyenne, Wyoming down through Colorado and New Mexico and ending in El Paso, Texas. The pandemic conditions meant a lot of things were closed, and my anxiety levels were pretty high. I’m glad we did it, though, because my 18 year old daughter had just missed out on all the fun of a senior year of high school. What better things to distract her with than Mountain Ghosts and Desert Aliens, which was the theme of our trip.

This year’s theme is, somewhat inexplicably, Turtle Boat. I think it’s the name of a restaurant we have in the itinerary? Maybe. It’s definitely the name of the highly detailed Google Sheets tool we have been using to plan the trip. There’s a tab for each component of the trip, from the Attractions we want to see and do, the Places we will sleep, the Restaurants where we will eat (one is called Turtle Boat, I believe)and the Homework we have after each meeting. At one point there was a separate sheet just for deciding which Airbnb we would stay in while visiting Denver.

My oldest daughter is the author of the Google sheets document. She’s a planner and an organizer. My middle daughter keeps track of our homework assignments and our meeting dates. She also likes order and harmony. I’m probably the worst at doing my homework on time, and I’m definitely not the most organized person. My youngest has to be cajoled into paying attention in meetings by the middle child, because she’s addicted to Twitter these days, but she definitely does all her homework. Even if she found an Ice Cave for us to get excited about that has no ice in it whatsoever. 😉

We meet on FaceTime in the late afternoon/evenings for meetings that are on my calendar for an hour but generally last for 2-3. As someone who hates meetings and despises Zoom, how can I love Turtle Boat FaceTime so much?

Last summer, Ariel had planned the trip mostly herself. I loved that all I had to do was go along for the ride. As someone with way too much responsibility going on in my professional life, I really love just going with the flow in my personal life, when I can. I would ask Ariel, “what are we doing tomorrow,” and she had all the details at her fingertips. Ah, bliss. I’m really looking forward to this summer’s trip being the same.

We are wrapping up the final details (and it’s only the end of May). We’ve got all of our Airbnb’s lined up, most dinner reservations made and attractions tickets bought, flights booked, and rental car reserved.

I’m gonna have to come up with new reasons to convene Turtle Boat meetings through June and early July because the planning is almost as fun as the trip itself.

Unmasking the Anti-Masker problem

As a liberal I’ve been frustrated for years by the “problems” some people on the other side are always telling me are so bad. Like the war on Christmas, prayer in schools being prohibited, the left not supporting veterans, voter fraud, someone taking all their guns away etc etc. 

“These things are not really problems,” I’ve railed and railed. But my protests were in vain because the people who believe these are huge problems, believe this very strongly. They don’t need evidence. They’ve create compelling narratives that have become evidence in itself. It’s an insidious cycle. 

And just when I was becoming desensitized enough that all these fake problems weren’t making me so crazy, the pandemic started, and I’ve had to watch the left do the exact same kind of thing. Specifically with the whole “anti-masker” issue. I say this isn’t really an issue. Pretty much everyone is freaking wearing a mask, I insist. But those who believe in the anti-masker problem do not need evidence proving it is a huge problem. They point to someone they saw in the grocery store whose mask slipped below their nose and insist this is a conspiracy of epic proportions. Or they share a meme on Facebook and there you have it. 

Many people firmly believe that cases are rising because of all the anti-maskers. They laugh derisively, contemptuously at me when I ask where is the evidence of this. They scream from their social media platforms WEAR A MASK (where they are more than likely preaching to the choir if this was actually a huge issue since unfriending anyone who doesn’t feel the same way has become a much bigger problem in general than anti-maskers). 

I want to be clear that I wear a mask wherever I go. I support trying to stop the spread of respiratory droplets in any way we can. And I believe most people are like me. Do we love wearing masks? No. Do some people on the right use the mask issue as a piece in their narrative to “prove” that the left wants to “control them?” Sure. But they’re still wearing masks in the grocery store, and in restaurants and anywhere else it’s required. 

I know this won’t convince anyone who believes anti-masking is a huge problem. Nothing I’ve ever said before about fake huge problems has ever changed anyone’s mind. Just for writing this, I’ll be accused of being a secret Republican or of not caring that thousands are dying of the virus or of just being stupid and/or uninformed. But I’m willing to bet when we look back on this it’ll be as evident as hindsight usually is that the virus didn’t spread because of a huge anti-masker movement. 

So, what’s my point? I guess it just frustrates the hell out of me that when we focus so much energy on fake problems, real problems get ignored. And we have a lot of real problems. If everyone started screaming about a real problem from their social media platforms the way they do about masks, maybe we could bring serious attention to an issue that needs serious attention. Maybe we could replace WEAR A MASK! with something like- 

EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE! 

or

NO ONE SHOULD LIVE IN POVERTY! 

INCREASE MINIMUM WAGE NOW! 

TAX REFORM IS WAY OVERDUE! 

STOP GERRYMANDERING! 

WE NEED TERM LIMITS! 

If we could vote on a new slogan, my personal favorites would include—

PUT KIDS FIRST!

FIND COMMON GROUND! 

LEARN HOW OUR GOVERNMENT WORKS! 

Food for thought Update to this post: 

One of my favorite reporters did a post on a recent event at our Alamodome in which he reported that 10 citations were given to people not wearing masks and 7 more people left or were removed without citations during the event. The capacity ceiling for the event was 11,000, so if 17 people were unmasked, that’s less than 1% of 1% unmasked (at capacity), but unless the place was practically empty and these 17 people represented a large majority in attendance, the numbers still don’t add up to a huge anti-masker problem. I know people with excel spreadsheets could whip up a “projection” of how many people these 17 could potentially infect, but since everyone else was masked, it still doesn’t add up to a huge problem. The bigger issue here should really be this: With city ordinances in place prohibiting groups of 10 or more indoors or outdoors, why in the world did this event even occur?! 

Christmas Joy

The year I started this blog I did posts on how much I love holidays and decorating and posted copiously about Halloween and even did a Thanksgiving post. But somehow I missed posting about all my Christmas decorations, and that’s where it all started. 😍

So here is a tour of my house all decorated for Christmas. 

First, the trees. For years I had a real tree in the “formal” living room and a small “Kid’s Tree” upstairs in the loft that had all their decorations from school. But a couple years ago I went fake. It was the best decision ever. I love not having to go search for a tree or having to clean up pine needles afterwards. And once I got one fake tree and saw how easy and fabulous that was, the next thing I knew I had 3: one for each living area, including the upstairs library/loft. 

The "main" tree in the formal living room

The tree in the living room

The loft/library tree

I can even see two trees from the kitchen. #love

Our outside decorations seem to change every year - except for the string across the top of the house that my neighbor puts up for me every year. 

The front yard

Me and Zoe in the front yard

My Villages have grown to 2 over the years.  I love making new scenes every year.  I would make villages in every room if this stuff wasn't so expensive. I could do another blog post about all the cute village houses and figures.  

The Foyer Village

The Loft Village

I even decorate the bathrooms. Honestly, these are the most fun rooms in the house to do. They’re so small that you can make a big decorative splash pretty easily. A holiday shower curtain is too fun.  I love these even more than my Halloween ones.  

Here are a few other pictures, or maybe more than a few.  This brings me joy.  

The china cabinet

The cedar chest

The dining room

The Kitchen

My bedroom

The loft

The fireplace

Santa's Coat Rack

More pictures

More knick-knacks

This is a picture of the room I keep all the decorations in when they are not up.  It is the 6th (and largest) bedroom in the house.

Halloween and Thanksgiving on the right, Christmas on the left.  There are also boxes in here for Easter, July 4th, St Patrick's Day, Fiesta, Summer and probably others I am forgetting. 


MERRY CHRISTMAS I cant wait for all the 70% off sales after the holidays so I can buy more.  #joy

Tiktok Therapy: A very Joyful Rant

For so long I resisted Tiktok. I suspected it would turn out be as unnecessary as Snapchat is, the most overrated text messaging app of all time. When my daughter would look at it on it on her phone it seemed filled with inane videos of nothing. I made fun of it. Oops.  

Because boy, was I so totally wrong. Completely. Tiktok is my favorite entertainment app ever. And now that I’m a convert, daughter Zoë has graciously avoided saying “I told you so” even once. She’s the epitome of the caring, tolerant Gen Z generation all the way. 

 

I can’t remember why I finally downloaded the app. I wish I could. I heard someone recently say they downloaded it around the time Trump was threatening to ban it just so they could have it (in case). That may have contributed, but I feel like I’d already been scrolling through videos at that point. But it really doesn’t matter because I became hooked pretty much instantly. Ultimately, I think there is one major primary reason I decided to get it: because social media (in fact pretty much all media) had become unbearable for me leading into the election. I was looking for a happy, mindless escape, and I found it! 

I felt like I did when FB first came out and I connected with all my old friends and family who lived far away. It was fabulous back then (not filled with negativity and conspiracies and judgement and superiority like now). During the election when I would sit down at the end of the day and tune into Facebook or Twitter to see what my friends were up to all I could really see were politics. Trump-this and Trump-that, pandemic-horror-story-here and pandemic-horror-story-there (and how it was some leader's fault, usually Trump). This was NOT what I needed after a day at work.  I don't watch much TV and while I read a lot of books in my free time, I needed something less hard.  ;)  

 

The first videos I saw on Tiktok were what Zoë later told me are “Dance Tiktok.” I was mesmerized. I found it highly entertaining. The more I “liked” these videos, the more poured into my feed. Young people energetically dancing - and teaching others how to dance (so much moon walking!) restored my faith in Gen Z, a group I was worried didn’t know how to dance at all. Again - I could not have been more wrong. 

 

Most of the dancers were men. Good looking men. I think this is what led to to more and more attractive men in my “for you “ feed. Is there a Really-nice-looking-guy Tiktok? I think I’m in it. This probably also led me to “Dating over 50” Tiktok which is laugh-out-loud hilarious. Men and women sharing dating horror stories with humor and intelligence. I just love it. 

 

Next came Cat Tiktok. There is nothing more soothing (to me) than watching a cute baby kitten that had been abandoned, rescued by the video creator drinking from a bottle for the first time for 60 long, satisfying seconds. Oh em gee, squeal, like, share, coo, scroll to the next video. Repeat.  Ingenious Cat Tiktok is also pretty enjoyable.  

 

It didn’t stop with just cats though. Anything furry and cute is good fun too. The videos where someone teaches a small animal like a squirrel to do things on command. What?! More more more please! 

 

I also love these Tiktoks: 

• Easy recipe Tiktok
• Gift wrapping Tiktok 
• North American husband (lololol)
• Joke routine lip syncs 
• Make up Tiktok- I don’t even need to try them - it’s enough to live vicariously through their epic art 
• Hair cutting/curling/styling - ditto
• Unemployed wine guy 
• Life hacks (I-saw-it-on-Tiktok Tiktok) like how to put on a duvet cover, which was mind blowing at my age (How-did-I-not-know-this-already Tiktok)

I even found a secret Santa gift on Tiktok of a prank meowing cat that was so fun to see play out at my work place. I also love the videos where the creator highlights something totally random that I totally agree with like this one.  

 

So my Tiktok review is this: The creativity! The humor! The intelligence! The clever and entertaining shit people come up with is just amazing. I can mindlessly scroll through Tiktok without a care in the world for hours laughing (days if I let myself), just fucking delighted. 

 

Thank you, Tiktok creators. You have restored my faith in social media.

 

Double Your Money in in the Richmond Challenge for Big Brothers Big Sisters

 “We should love each other – that means caring for our neighbors. Where those in mourning are comforted, where the hungry are fed, where the poor hear good news. Our foundation strives to give energy to those angels among us who are actively caring for such neighbors.” 

– Jack & Laura Richmond

               Founding board member, Harriette Furino, me, Julio Manso, former Little Brother and 2015 Board Chair with Jack and Laura Richmond

In 1984, I was a high school senior.  I didn’t know it, but so was Wade Richmond, the 18 year old son of Jack and Laura Richmond of the Richmond Family Foundation.  I never knew Wade and only learned about his tragic passing when I first met Jack Richmond in 2014.

We were in the midst of a capital campaign at Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Texas in 2014, and I was introduced to Jack by our campaign consultant.  While waiting for him in his conference room at that first meeting, I read Wade’s story, and although 30 years had passed, I was struck with sadness that I had gone on to live a full life after high school, while Wade had not. He died from a seizure at the age of 18.  

So when Jack asked us during that meeting if we wanted to participate in the $100,000 Richmond Foundation matching Grant Challenge the following year in 2015, I was deeply honored to accept. I knew that I was going to be raising money not only for the children in our program, but for Wade – to continue his legacy of support for the angels among us.  

As a parent, I can’t think of anything worse than losing a child.  Jack and Laura Richmond lost their beloved son on the cusp of Wade’s adulthood. I was truly inspired by how they moved forward after that heartbreak, to form the Richmond Family Foundation in 1998, and then the Wade Richmond Foundation a few years later.  They turned their tragedy into a world of opportunity for thousands of children and families served by all the nonprofits who have benefited from their matching challenge grants since 1998.  

We raised over $100,000 for the 2015 challenge, and one of the proudest moments of our capital campaign for me was when Jack and Laura came out to our old building downtown to present us with a check.*  We finished our capital campaign the following year and moved in to our Mentoring Center in October 2016.  Since then we have been able to implement all the program enhancements we told Jack about that first day in his conference room.  

Jack passed away earlier this year, right before COVID hit, but in 2019 he had once again invited us to participate in his Challenge, for August 2020.  And it turns out that if there was ever a year that Big Brothers Big Sisters needed a $100,000 matching grant – it would be this one. 

Fundraising has taken a big hit in COVID.  Big Brothers Big Sisters has had to cancel all of its annual fundraising events, and revenue is down in every budget category.  We are anticipating a year end deficit of anywhere between 10-21% of projected 2020 revenue. 

One of the ways we hope to close this gap is through the Richmond Matching Campaign in August 2020.  During August, we will be asking everyone to donate to this campaign, and their money will be doubled by the foundation!

Also happening in August is our new fundraising event: Car Wash for Kids Sake.  Anyone who donates to this event in August will also have their donation doubled. You can visit our website to learn about the Richmond Challenge or here to find out more about the Car Wash. 

We are determined to meet our matching goal and receive another one of these.  

*Everyone knows my favorite thing is a check presentation and I look forward to the one we will be having in September 2020 after all our supporters help us make our $100,000 match. I will miss Jack’s proud smiling face at that one though.  May he rest in peace. 

BONUS JACK STORY:  

Below is a picture of Big Brothers Big Sisters Chief Development Director, Hawthorne Farr with Jack at one of Jack's infamous Luby’s Kiwanis meetings.  Hawthorne and I were always happy to speak at these meetings whenever  Jack called. He was a true servant.

 

Reopening Our Volunteer Recruitment Efforts

When we reopen our offices on June 8th, Big Brothers Big Sisters of South Texas will have been closed for 85 days. That’s nearly a quarter of the year! A quarter of the year that we have been unable to provide over half of our services.  We are excited to get back to work, but a little worried about what the new normal looks like.  In the month of April we received only 18 inquires from potential volunteers (which is down from our monthly average of 100).  

Our program depends on volunteers for our mentoring services. There are over 1,200 mentors currently matched with youth in our program, but there are also hundreds more in the queue to receive a mentor.  We have worked really hard over the past 2 years to decrease the time a child waits before being matched to a Big Brother or Big Sister, and we don’t want the pandemic to impact this wait time any more than it has already.

We just launched a campaign to recruit 100 mentors from the military ranks over the 100 days of summer.  Information on that campaign can be found here.  A big thanks goes out to retired Air Force 4 star General ED Rice for his help on that campaign.  A video message from the general can be found in the link. 

We recruit Bigs from all walks of life, though, so you don’t have to be in the military to mentor.  Please help us spread the word that we need volunteers now more than ever!  The pandemic has given us all a reminder of how much we need human connections, and the Big Brothers Big Sisters program is all about facilitating relationships for kids who need support and guidance to navigate all the challenges life throws at them. 

This is a link to the Big brothers Big Sisters training calendar – we have both virtual and in-person information sessions happening weekly where anyone can learn more about being a mentor.  Take a look.  

A curbside social distancing concert series in my neighborhood

Pre-concert snack tradition with Zoe 

I'm sitting in the lawn chair I brought to the front yard of my friend's Kelly & Billy Haynie's house (social distancing of course) inspired to write about how awesome it's been that the “After Hours Band” has been playing free neighborhood concerts every Thursday night during the pandemic. 

It’s a balmy night with a slight breeze. Cars line their street. This is my 4th time out, but I think it’s Thursday #7 for the band. There are lightening bugs in the trees, and kids running around with flashlights, weaving in and out of the little family and friend groups scattered across sidewalks and adjacent lawns. Lots of people are on lawn chairs, others on the curb, a few have brought Styrofoam coolers. There’s a dancing couple, 2 teenagers on a couch that’s clearly been dragged out for this special curbside concert, and a lighted stand holding someone’s smart phone recording everything on Facebook Live for those who can’t venture out. The band greets everyone who tunes in, physically and digitally. They’re clearly having a good time. We are too. Thanks, guys. You are everything America needs today.

The music is good, the instruments and speakers are set up carefully and effectively in the doorway of Bill and Kelly’s house. There are 5 band members and a sound guy, and Kelly is the Band Manager (official or unofficial I’m not sure, but Billy says she’s in charge). ;)

They cover lots of songs that are definitely of my generation, but my 18 year old daughter sings along to most of them. Here are ones I remember:

• Lots of Eagles, which I love, like “Take it Easy,” what a great song 
• Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way,” 
• Tom Perry’s “Breakdown,” 
• Many Elvis tunes (Blue Suede Shoes, Don’t Be Cruel)
• Johnny Cash (Folsom Prison Blues), and 
• Eddie Rabbit (I can't remember which song they played, but it was enjoyable.)

Zoë got very excited about “I Wanna be Sedated,” by The Remones, and the songs most likely to inspire couples to take to the street-dance-floor were “Amarillo by Morning,” or my personal theme song these days, “I’m Much Too Young (to feel this damn old).”  The band also usually plays “The Break-Up Song,” which has special meaning to them from when they started playing together, and “Suspicious Minds," Kelly’s favorite (I love that one too).

Every once in a while, an audience member goes up to guest sing. Tonight, someone did a wonderful, spirited rendition of “When Will I Be Loved,” by Linda Ronstadt. Last week, Zoë sang "Desperado," by the Eagles, another one of my favorites. 

They usually play from 6:30 or 7 til 8:30 or 9. It’s still light out when they start singing, but as the sun sets, the sky dims and the lights come on in the trees. It's beautiful. Tonight, even the pizza delivery guy slowed down to listen as he drove carefully down the street.  

Personally, I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. Pandemic or no pandemic. 

This is just a small tribute to the After Hours Band: Thanks for coming out to play, to make our week a little better in these crazy times. I hope you enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed you. You guys are the best! 

See Video we took of the band here: https://vimeo.com/422645480

More on the band here: https://linktr.ee/afterhoursbandsa