Mindful Giving - Day Seventeen

Friday, August 17, 2012

Today was bittersweet. I drove 30 miles to the charming town where I help each year with a fun fundraiser to attend a meeting about its future form.  I love the noprofit that benefits from this event, or, more accurately, I love the wonderful people who work and volunteer for this nonprofit. The organization itself has had more and more serious issues with the way it conducts it business, and the way it raises and distributes its money. Over five years, it has gone from being a locally-based, good feeling place to having the ethos of a national corporation with all the attending disinterest in its employees and careful guarding of its bottom line. Unfortunately, it is NOT a corporation, thus has nothing to sell to keep itself afloat if it continues to disenchant its loyal volunteer and donor base as effectively as it has in the last few actions I've witnessed.

The outcome of the meeting was that the event will be put on hiatus for several years, and, most likely, discontinued. As I said, I'm sad about that. On the other hand, it's been going on for 20 years and the core organizers are tired. It's probably a good time to let it go. It does take a great deal of time and energy that can go elsewhere. I know it's been a part of my life, and my family's, for the last seven years. My daughters have been helping at this event every June from the time they were eight and five years old. In fact the first thing B said when I told her was, "Does that mean we won't see P there any more?" referring to one of their little friends who is the grandson of the chair. "I guess not," I said. "We'll just have to write to them and stay in touch."

This woman, who chairs the event and was its original creator, just had a birthday this week. She's 83 years old and a great-grandmother who I have witnessed putting in countless hours and errands on behalf of the mission and the event. She deserves recognition and praise. Whether the nonprofit did the right thing or not, I was determined to celebrate her birthday. This is a woman who is constantly giving to others, even if she can be a bit of a bear. I've always liked her, admired her, and gotten along with her well. Which is why I always get the consultant job!! She has everything she could ever need, and then some. But she happened to mention a few months ago that because she has a summer birthday one of her favorite celebration foods has always been ripe watermelon.

For today's gift, I made a special trip to the store and bought a watermelon and a pot of yellow flowers, her favorite color. I even carried the watermelon into the bathroom with me and washed all the dirt off of it, which got me a few very odd looks! Then I stuck a sparkly silver bow on it, and drove over to her cottage. I left the watermelon, the flowers, and a birthday card outside her front door for her to find. I know she'll love the surprise -- and the gesture!!

Observations on Mindful Giving

I'm just more than halfway through my 29 days of Giving with intention and design. For a couple of days now, I've been trying to find the time to jot down some of the impressions that this experience has made on me.

Overall, I truly enjoy this deliberate attention to giving. What I've found is that I give quite frequently and easily in my life anyway. There have only been a few days where I have even had to put much effort into the act of generosity. In fact, I've sort of disqualified certain types of giving, just because I do them so habitually. Giving to my daughters and to my husband, particularly along the lines of specially cooked meals, caring chores, and small objects, are an almost daily experience. Yes, it technically is giving if I make a stack of pancakes or run to a special store to pick up a graphing notebook, but it is so much a part of my normal life that it seems like it doesn't count. So I've only written about it the few times that I gave with extra attention to the giving. Likewise with my friends. I tend to give some portion of time to my friends almost every day. That's great, and I've been pleased to see just how easily I do connect with others in my life.

One part of the challenge was to pay attention to what type of giving felt the most difficult to me. As I've said, I find most types of giving fairly easy. I really don't mind giving money. Even in larger amounts of $10 or $20, or even higher, I usually feel pretty comfortable handing money over to someone who needs it. And I'm constantly giving people stuff. I love to buy things that I think people will like or enjoy. If there's something in my home that I no longer use, I'm delighted to give it to someone else. I do have some material things that I have emotional attachment to, of course. I might not so easily hand over my wedding ring, say, or the first toy I bought my daughter. But money and stuff is usually no problem

I'm also pretty comfortable giving time. My time is truly my most precious possession. I am very aware of that. I only have so much of it, and it tends to be spoken for. It also, along with my skills, is the main thing I can sell to make money and support my family. Nonetheless, I have a well-engrained practice of giving my time and attention to people who ask for it. I automatically re-shuffle my tasks and make space to chat with friends, host playdates, have dinners and meet friends for lunch or coffee if they need some connection. And my daughters get my full attention whenever they request it. This works well for me, as it really nourishes relationships and brings the benfits of solid friendships to my life.

I've only found two things that I really don't enjoy giving. One is talking on the phone. The other is giving to the homeless. Both of these types of giving are more conflicted for me. They bring up mixed emotions that dilute the pure impetus of the generosity. Talking on the phone is something that I associate with difficult parts of my past. It also feels very draining to me. That doesn't mean I never like talking on the phone. Sometimes I do. Sometimes the immediate voice-to-voice connection with a friend is great. But usually, I find that communicating by phone takes a big chunk of time, often more thatn I can free up. It tends  to be physically uncomfortable to me, and I get bored that I am unable to do other chores or work while talking, yet I am not getting that same level of connection that I would get in face to face conversation. It's like a limbo land, to me. I much prefer setting aside a chunk of time to meet, where at least I get the benefit of going out somewhere interesting, and dressing up, driving, and eating something unusual. The phone just saps my energy.

Same thing with giving to the homeless. I usually don't feel right giving money to people that may be helping them to hurt themselves. And I don't like the somewhat compulsory feel of being asked for money. There's a whole range of factors that come into play. Do I feel safe or threatened? Do I feel harrassed? Often the homeless ask is an interruption of what I was doing, either conversing or working, and I don't like that. But I don't like the small, petty, insecure feelings that I get when I say no either. So the whole situation sets me up to feel awkward. There are more emotional layers to it for me as well. I've had several friends who were on the edge of terrible homelessness, so when I see itenerant people I tend to feel a lot of sympathy. But mixed with that sympathy is an awareness, even an anger almost, that these people have had some degree of choice in getting to the postion they are in. And then I just feel so much anger that as a culture and whole society that we don't have a better way of helping those who struggle with mental illness, or addiction, or both, and that they have to be reduced to wandering, begging, and scraping by. Mixed with that is still some class prejudice and feelings of ego. So that whole potent, nonresolved set of feeling tends to come up. Although I often will give money to the homeless, still I feel less than good about the giving transaction.

My reflections so far: I don't do well with those two types of giving; otherwise, I find the practice to be delightful and invigorating. It's a challenge to see how many new ways of giving and different recipients I can come up with.

More New Pets

Yesterday, we made a 189 mile round trip to Northern LA and picked up our new rats. Phoebe, Riley, and Bailey made the long drive home with us with no problems. They are all super-tame and friendly, and they seem to really like their new cage. (Which they should -- it's pretty much the best and biggest rat cage on the market.)

B and I have already been up and playing with them this morning. Phoebe is just over a year old, so she is big and comfortable with people. She liked climbing around on me and checking out the couch. She especially liked earning Cheerios as treats! I'm already working with her to recognize a certain sound as meaning "treat time" and on coming back to me at the sound of her name.

Bailey is a lovely, light brown with a slightly darker face. She is super active and climbs all over the cage and the backs of the furniture. She's an explorer.

Riley is white with a close-cropped fuzzy Rex coat and a light tan head. She looks like she's going to get Siamese color on her nose. She's a bit shy and unsure, and likes to be cuddled or to hide under a blanket. It was funny when she and Bailey were wrestling around, just like little puppies.

I let Phoebe have a few licks of my hot tea off of my spoon. S just watched the whole procedure with an expression of mixed bemusement and disgust. "Okay," he said. "You know that's the Rat spoon from now on right? Don't put it back with the others."

Silly man. I'll just wash it in our new dishwasher!

Mindful Giving - Day Sixteen

From January to June, I had an enjoyable and lucrative position as a consultant to a fundraising event. I feel a sense of loyalty and affection for this organization but sadly I can’t afford to work for them for free. Also, they have been continually re-organizing lately, and their latest round of leaders leave a lot to be desired. They’ve made some really bad decisions – like firing one of the most well-liked development people and being insensitive to donor concerns – that have wound up really alienating their base of support. It’s almost like they are trying to do poorly, for some mysterious reason.


For certain, it was clear to me that the leadership no longer supports this event. So today, we had a meeting to discuss its future, and the committee’s decision was to put it “on hiatus” indefinitely. I’m sad that I won’t work on this event any more. I really enjoyed it this year. I’m sad that the other volunteers who have shown so much support and dedication won’t have the legacy of a successful event.

In support of the continuity of the event, and out of affection for the main organizers, I had been working off-contract, for free, for the last few months. There have been odds and ends that came up and needed to be dealt with, included setting up and organizing today’s meeting. So yesterday I spent more than two hours typing minutes, sending emails, and generally providing energy to this organization. Today I gave four hours of my time to drive out, take notes, and give my input. It was my gift to the possibility of continued success. From June ‘til now, I have completed another 10% of hours at no cost – a sizable gift.

Although I am sad to see this go, I know that this is the way of life. Something ends, and something else comes along to replace it. I know that putting positive energy out comes back in unexpected ways. For me personally, I think the connections I’ve made may lead to other things. If not, they’ve given me closeness and involvement with the people I cared about in this nonprofit well after I had had to leave it behind for practical reasons. Now, all of the people I loved at this place are gone – they’ve retired, been downsized, moved along, or in one devastating case, self-imploded in a spectacular debacle of fraud and deception that left everyone dazed for months.

Without better leadership in place, I don’t think there’s much I can do to build excitement and motivation about the mission or the work, never mind the funding of it. It’s sad, but there it is. Even at the national organization level, good energy brings more good energy and bad energy tends to muck everything up.

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Yesterday, I cleaned out the area under the sink. I threw some junk away and reorganized the paint/art supplies and dish soap we keep there. Today, I scrubbed out the sink window box. I made a severe misjudgment in the war against the ants. I thought that if I put some ant traps up there, they would take the poison away and decrease in number. The opposite occurred. Apparently the traps were the ant version of awesome nightclubs. About 1000 ants crammed into each little one by two inch plastic box, making it completely black, and then called all their friends to tell them how awesome it was. So 5000 more ants were circling each trap, trying to find a way in. Just like a bad night in LA. So while I was scrubbing up all those ants, I cleaned the rest of the counter as well.

Customer Service?

August 17, 2012 3:48 pm


AT&T is my internet provider. Since I haven’t had cable service ever since Time Warner illegally accessed my checking account, AT&T is pretty much my only way to get the web connection I need. I got a notice from them recently that they had decided to “upgrade” our area. I was pretty much given two choices: “upgrade” and choose a new billing structure, or give up the internet. Uh, gee, let’s see. I need the internet for my work… I guess I’ll upgrade.

So it involves self-installing some new equipment and a disruption to our web service. AT&T chose today at precisely 8 pm to change us over. That’s what they said: 8 pm. Not a window of time. Not from 8 am to 5 pm on August 17. Nope, 8 pm precisely. Be at home to install the equipment then, their letter said. I promptly handed all of that over to my husband with a shrug and a disclaimer – this is too much for me – you deal with it, okay? Okay. So he’s planning to be here tonight to get my computer back online.

AT&T sent me two letters, three emails, a huge package and called me to remind me about this plan. Then, today, during an important meeting, I get a random call. When I check the voice mail, it’s Ramando. “Hi. I’m your AT&T service tech. I just wanted to tell you that I need you to plug in your router.” I actually thought maybe it was a scam. How can I plug in my router? I’m AT WORK!!! It’s hours before the scheduled time.

Fucking AT&T. I get home and sure enough, there’s another message on my answering machine, and I have NO INTERNET CONNECTION. Arrghhhhhhh… I had follow-up work to do; I had a deadline I was trying to meet. I call Ramando at the number on my cell, and he’s like, Oh, yeah, I switched it over already. Plug all your stuff in.

Like it’s not two pages of instructions and four pieces of equipment. Like I can stop the WRITING I am doing to fiddle with cords and connections. Really, AT&T???? Really?? Keep it up and I’ll ditch your whole service and only work in public!

Mindful Giving - Day Fifteen

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

My days tend to be very full. I'm always adjusting the balance to get a mix of child-free errands and child-free work into the daylight hours. When I have so much to do, it's particularly hard for me to stop and just indulge in idle time. But I had put off a pedicure for weeks longer than I should. And I'm a yoga teacher -- the appearance of my feet does matter. It's practically a job requirement for me to have cute toes.

So off I went, thinking that if I stuck to a simple pedicure,  I could be out in less than an hour and still have time to hit the three errands I needed to before minimum day pick up time ended my autonomy.

At first, it didn't look promising. As I pulled up to the shop, it said Closed until 11. Ugh, I thought, I can't wait for another half hour and I can't come back later. Then I saw the owner inside. Well, I'll just try the door. Maybe she's ready to start even though I'm a bit early.

Sure enough, she didn't want to turn down the business. While she worked, we chatted about her new ownership. Even though she had only been there a few months, she jumped at the chance to buy out the shop when the previous owner wanted a break. With fresh purple paint on the walls, tons of nail designs on display, and some new procedures, this young Latina was ready to make a go of it. We were just discussing how many customers she would average a day -- five to six on a good day, two if it was slow -- and how hard it is when someone shows up when she's already booked as a big brown SUV pulled up outside.

An African-American woman in a gorgeous tan and brown striped dress strode into the shop. She was beautifully dressed with her braids pulled back in a ponytail, amber and brown beads around her wrists, and a series of gold chains matching the gold belt she wore.

"Ahh. You're busy. How long for a quick polish change?" she asked.

"Fifteen minutes. I'm almost done here," the owner answered.

"I can't wait. I've got to be at work." She shook her head ruefully. "Dang. This is the third shop I've been in and all of them have only one person working." She turned to go. "It's my birthday and I have to get my polish done."

The owner looked uncomfortably at me as the woman left. "See, that hurts my business a lot."

I looked at the woman, obviously disappointed and frustrated, standing by her car and texting. I looked at the owner and made a decision. "Oh, go ahead, " I said. "It's her birthday. Just do her polish now. I'll wait."

"Really?" said the owner, her face lighting up.

"REALLY?" said the woman, coming back in and choosing a bright gold glitter polish. "Thank you SOO much. There's going to be this birthday thing at work, and I can't be late, and I need to look good. Thanks!!"

And that's how I wound up sitting  there for an extra 40 minutes, my feet dunked in rapidly cooling water, watching the worst reality television show I've ever seen, and having a long conversation about various forms of infidelity with my two new female friends. It pushed back all my errands to the next day.

But at least I gave someone a bit of care and hopefully a much better birthday.

Mindful Giving - Day Fourteen

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

P dumped C in June. It's been terribly hard on her. His reasons, though, were sound ones, and that makes the whole situation even more regrettable. All along the troubled course of their courtship, S and I have been warm to P and clear that, regardless of his relationship status with C, we would like to remain friends with him.

The last few months we haven't been in touch much. It's a bit awkward with C so heartbroken and desperate to be in contact with her lost love. I knew that if I reached out to him, she would want to know about it, and I didn't want to get stuck in the middle, or become some sort of information broker. I've been able to be a good nonjudgmental support to C because I do understand how desperate and unbalanced lost love can make you, and it's been important to me to be a steadying force in her life at this time.

Nonetheless, they started contacting each other again last week. They emailed, they texted, they saw each other to talk. So when I got a text from P inviting me to lunch, I knew it was time to reconnect. He's had a terrible time of it too, and I've felt bad that we couldn't be there more for him this summer.

So my gift today was allowing P to buy me some Thai food. :) And sincerely listening to his concerns and reflecting back to him some of his mixed emotions as he grapples with whether or not he wants to re-enter a relationship with my dear friend.

He knew that I would talk to her about it all of course. Not only is he okay with that, I suspect he's counting on it. You don't take your ex's best friend out to lunch while hoping for great secrecy. I did promise him that if he told me anything in confidence that I would keep it that way, but thankfully he didn't. So that's an effort I don't have to make.

The whole situation is tough. I see her side and I see his side. There's no one clear "right" answer; maybe they'll get back together, maybe they won't. Maybe it will be good for him to try again with her; maybe he's better off just growing and moving on. I have my bias of course, of which they're both aware. I think they're both fantastic people so I'd like to see them work it out and be happy together. Enough of this suffering. Plus we can all hang out together! But no outside observer ever knows the real dynamics of the relationship between two people. Only the two of them know what will serve their needs best.

My second gift of the day was to call C and talk it all over with her. P was the one who texted her that we would have lunch, so I knew that he wanted me to talk to her. I even told him what I would say. It's what my friend needs to hear over and over: that he clearly still loves her, that he wants to try but he's scared of being hurt, that they need to take it slow, that she needs to respect his process and not rush him, that she still needs time to sort herself out, and, most of all, NOT TO SCREW IT ALL UP AGAIN with a guy who clearly can never truly care about her or meet her long term needs.

I don't love talking on the phone, so giving up first one hour and then another was a true effort on my part. But I hope that however it works out, they will both be able to wind up being happy.