Writing. Life.

Oops

Upon reading what I just posted below, I realized two things. One, being creative with colors and type is best left to those who actually know what they're doing. And, two, that I forgot to tell those of you generous enough to donate that you'll need to email me to let me know if you'd like me to list your blog link or logo. Needless to say, you may remain anonymous if you like.

Just found out that we can blog while on the trip! So you can follow along here as we find ourselves, well, we have no idea where yet, because part of the challenge is that they don't tell you where you're going until you're on the plane, which means no one has any way to prepare. We do know we'll be in China on April 12th because we had to get a visa in advance. We have to take photos of everywhere we go to prove that we've done the scavenge, so we'll have lots of great photos to share!

Remember, all donations are fully tax-deductible and you can specify which charity you'd like to support. Whether or not you're able, or inclined, to donate, Mia and I would be thrilled if you would write a post about this, with a link to the info on our website,  click here.  My first linkee (God bless her witty, lovely self!) is Paige of Life Goes On I Think, who's quite the world traveler herself.

A Rather Mad Adventure

So, Mom, the the daughter said, what's our Next Big Thing? Well, mom replied, let's start with a wish list: we love to travel, we're suckers for adrenaline and novelty, we have loved reaching out and helping others. Tall order, mother. Yeah, so?

I'm in a cafe few weeks later and notice the front page of the USA TODAY Travel section. There's an article about The Global Scavenger Hunt. Ten countries, four continents, 23 days, all to raise money for global charities. If wish lists are prayers, God heard ours.

I hurried outside to Paul, practically yelling, "This is it! Mia and I have to do this!" I called Mia right on the sidewalk. That day, we went on The Global Scavenger Hunt website, applied, had our personal interview and then waited and hoped.... and got accepted!

We'll be one of twenty teams of two circling the globe this April, solving riddles, tromping through jungles, ruins and bazaars, relying on the kindness and pity of strangers, avoiding embarrassment and tourista whenever possible. It'll be exhausting, exhilarating and worth every moment and dime, because we'll be helping those in desperate need through KIVA.org, Unicef, Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, and many more amazing organizations. This isn't a reality show, there's no money to win. This is how we can all pay it forward.

I hate to be a pain in anyone's butt, but I'll gladly do it to help kids who are sold into sexual slavery, an impoverished widow trying to learn a trade or kids with AIDS. We're asking each and every one of you, your friends, your company, your relatives and neighbors to please join us in helping those less fortunate. 100% of every donation goes to charity and it's fully tax-deductible! No donation is too small! Please go to our website to see how each of us can make a difference in the world - and it takes so little!

We've not been able to put bloggers or any commercial entity on our book's website or this blog, but we can list donors' blog links and company logos. So do some good for others and for yourself by donating!

Mia's NY Times Op Ed on Britney Spears

My daughter, Mia, just had her first article published last week, in the Op Ed page of the NY Times. While I was, of course, very proud of her for such a big accomplishment, I was just as proud that she took on such an important, if politically incorrect, topic - our refusal to involuntarily commit those who are in need of it, not just to protect them from themselves, but to protect others from them.

To be naive, ignorant or complacent about the capacity of the mentally ill to cause irrepairable damage to themselves and others is to be blind to the obvious at best, dangerous at worst. Such blind devotion to "civil liberties" is to condemn untold numbers of the mentally ill and addicts, to a life of misery, illness, lack of proper medication, of early death, or repeated rape (does the ACLU think mentally ill and/or addicted women get raped any less on the streets than they did in mental institutions or rehab?) And they condemn others, like Kathryn Faughey and far too many innocent students, to death.

Should countless lives be sacrificed at the alter of political correctness? Insisting on civil liberties for all is great in theory, often dreadful in practice. Liberty should not be for all. When we, as a nation, can't see the danger, the sheer stupidity, of taking away the right of a parent to keep their minor child alive (as happened to me,) or of allowing the criminally insane to live amongst us until they actually murder someone, or of pedophiles to go free and receive therapy on our nickel, well, then heaven help us all. Because the legal system doesn't. And not enough of us seem to be insisting it does.

A Lesson from a Little Brown Dog

It's Christmas Eve on a hilltop in rural north Georgia and I'm standing under the moon listening to carolers in a hay-wagon. It's about 20 degrees, dogs and kids are squealing and running underfoot, the horse is eating the hay off the hay-wagon, the caroler's props and Tupperware drums are constantly being readjusted, the sheet music keeps flapping in and out of the flashlight's beam and a dog to my right was growling loudly along with the singers. I turn to pat him. Him turns out to be someone's toddler.

It was a delightful chaos, as were the thoughts racing around in my head. Mia and I had just signed on to be one of twenty teams going on an around-the-world-a-thon to raise money for charity. I was about to turn fifty-one and wanted to start the second half of my life off with a bang. I also wanted to take an adventure of a different kind with my daughter, one that would be a little more like heaven and a lot less like the hell we chronicled. It took me about three minutes after being accepted into the competition to start obsessing over how to study sixty countries, figure out what to pack, whether or not I need shots for yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis, etc., etc., etc.

Which, of course, meant that I was neither in calm contemplation of the upcoming Global Scavenger Hunt, nor fully present at the holiday merry-making. Until I noticed little Fifi standing in front of my face, looking for all the world like a sturdy little honey-baked ham on legs. She was as serene and present as the moon, a mighty little guru in her simply there-ness.