Author Archives: owonderful

I want my money back.

WARNING: Flames may erupt from your computer as you read this. You may want to have a fire extinguisher handy.

My children have all gone to a tiny elementary school located in an idyllic rural setting. It sits across from a horse farm dotted with hay bales and a cluster of outbuildings with red tin roofs that glow in the sun. Every morning a staff member is posted at the door to enthusiastically and warmly greet by name every single child who walks through those doors. For the fifth straight year in a row, the school has been given the coveted Governor’s Award for Academic Excellence. There’s a lot to love about this school. And I have loved it for years. And because I’ve appreciated it so much, I’ve written check after check to the PTO, I’ve bought countless rolls of wrapping paper I didn’t need, wreaths I didn’t want…And I’ve given my time.

Since my youngest child was a baby in my arms I’ve been helping to lead an after school program as part of the PTO’s line up of enrichment classes. When I interviewed for my current full time job I made it clear that I would have to leave early on Friday afternoons in order to continue working with this program that I believe is so important. Though teachers for the other enrichment classes are paid, and the classes offered for fee, my fellow co-leaders and I have never asked for or received payment for our services, and we have always offered the class for free. Why would we take money and charge for a class that teaches kids that they can make a difference in the world through their own actions? Over the years we’ve raked leaves around our schools, visited nursing homes, helped set up homeless shelters, raised funds for earthquake-devastated Haiti, and much much more.

For our fall session, we always lead our school-wide  Make a Difference Day project. Last year we gathered enough supplies to make over 90 hygiene kits for the Robert Ford Haitian Orphanage and School Foundation. Dr. Ford, a local pediatrician who now runs the foundation set up by his father, came to talk to the kids. Here are a few of the things we learned:

-The orphanage grew from 50 to over 70 after the earthquake in January 2010.

-Every child is given 2 meals a day, which is 1 more than the average child in the community receives.

-The orphans have never seen running water in their lives. They walk considerable distances to a well to fill a bucket of water, which they’ll use over the course of a day.

-Many walk 2 hours to get to school.

-There are 16 year old 1st graders, who never had the opportunity to go to school until the school attached to the orphanage was built.

The kids listened to Dr. Ford with rapt attention. To them, he was a larger than life hero. Afterwards they clamored for his autograph.

Dr. Ford personally delivered the kits to Haiti and took pictures of the kids receiving their hygiene kits so that our own kids could see what they had been able to accomplish:

This year we asked Dr. Ford what we could to help support the orphanage again. He asked us to have a summer clothing drive for the children, and so this has been our school wide Make a Difference Day project for this year. While Dr. Ford was able to bring the hygiene kits with him on one of his visits, it would not be feasible to bring boxes and boxes of clothing. (By the way, he and all of the volunteers pay for their own flights to and from Haiti. The Foundation operates with absolutely NO overhead). In addition to asking for clothing, we’ve been asking for donations that would help defray shipping costs as well as add to our yearlong drive to raise $800: enough to support one orphan for a whole year.

When I learned that our PTO began the year (before fundraising) with over $47,000, I decided to request $500 to help fund the school’s Make a Difference Day project. My initial request was denied because of objections that were raised to the project itself:

-It could take 6 months for the clothes to arrive, or they might never arrive. (It would take less than three weeks. Even if it did take 6 months: it’s Haiti. It’s always summer there and sadly, there will always be orphans who need to be clothed).

-They’d rather just have the money. (Dr. Ford asked us not for money, but for clothes. As my co-leader said, “It’s not as if they can go to the Port-au-Prince BabyGap to buy clothes for the kids!”)

-And the worst in my book: we want the money to stay here, for OUR children.  (Aside from the fact that this is a selfish sentiment – I’m sorry, it just IS, Make a Difference Day IS for our kids. We are teaching them that we are all connected and responsible for one another. We are teaching them that they can make a difference in the world. Engagement in service activity reaps benefits for the receivers AND the GIVERS: students who do service work perform better academically, have better self-esteem, and develop leadership skills).

The PTO bylaws state that funding requests over $500 are no longer solely decided upon by the executive board, but have to be put to a general vote. So, I decided I’d ask for $600 this time around. I asked friends who would be willing to vote for this to come to the next meeting (Tuesday night) to pass this proposal. Many people agreed that this was a worthwhile way to spend some of the money that we’ve ALL paid into our groaning coffers.

On Friday I got a call from the PTO president saying that she had heard from a few parents that they objected to PTO money being sent to Haiti. (OK. I accept that people have different points of view). But her next statement left me completely flabbergasted. She said that she had spoken with the principal, who agreed that this issue would be too divisive, so it would be inappropriate to use PTO funds for this purpose. Uh….have I woken up in North Korea? NO discussion? NO vote? Bylaws Schmylaws?! Maybe we should cancel the presidential elections? I hear they’ve been fairly divisive. As my new peep asked (I’m telling you, she just gets better and better!), “Too divisive? Are they afraid we’re going to throw cookies and deviled eggs at each other?!”

“We’ll support another fundraiser for this purpose,” the PTO president offered. This is NOT the answer. I’m not alone in thinking that it is grotesque to continue to fundraise like crazy when we BEGAN the year with over $47,000. Why SHOULD I put more of my time and money into an organization that doesn’t pay it back out?! And while we’re at it: Why don’t we fully cover the cost of the annual 5th grade beach trip? Why don’t we fully cover costs for Destination Imagination teams? Why don’t we buy a new coffee maker for a teacher or replace a ratty classroom rug – other funding requests that have been denied. Why don’t we cover the cost of  our school’s Make a Difference Day project? My husband figured out that if the money we had at the beginning of the year (before fundraising, remember!) was measured in distance from Charlottesville to D.C., the amount I would have requested if I had been permitted, would be the distance from WalMart to the airport (or 1.5 miles).

And you know what’s really galling? Our service group originated the idea of a “Kids Night Out” to help Haiti in 2010. When it turned out to be a wildly successful fundraiser, the PTO appropriated it for their own profit.

I want my money back. And I want to be compensated for all the time I’ve spent leading this enrichment class for the PTO. That should be at least $600 right there. I’m not going to buy so much as a cookie at a PTO bake sale until things change around here. We’ve ALL paid into PTO funds year after year, and we ALL have a right to decide how that money gets spent. I KNOW that there are parents who have put in AT LEAST the amount I’m asking for who would be glad to have that money go to help the orphanage in Haiti. So PTO, although I’d much rather sit in my pjs on my couch Tuesday night, and I’m the kind of person who avoids conflict as much as possible, you better believe that I’ll be at the meeting. It will be intensely uncomfortable for me, and I think it will probably be intensely uncomfortable for you too. But enough is enough.

I’ll let you know what happens after the meeting tomorrow night…


New Neighbors

There’s “junks”:

And then there’s “junks”:

As it turns out, there’s a high price to pay for collecting “junks.” Until recently, we had a cleaning lady who would come every other week to help us avoid landing on an episode of “Hoarders.” A couple weeks ago she fired us, because our house was too messy to clean. Needless to say, I’ve been a little down about this. But I perked right up after an email exchange I had with a new neighbor who moved into the house up the hill from us. I’m very excited about our neighbors, because: a) the dad volunteered (with only a modicum of arm-twisting) to coach the soccer team that both our daughters play on and b) the mom is my kind of peeps…The following email exchange regarding their daughter’s birthday party is how I know:

Me:

Hello!

I’m so sorry for the late RSVP! We’ve had to cancel our trip to Arlington, so T can definitely come to C’s party. Thanks so much for the invitation!

My new peep:

Great – thanks Adrienne! We will look forward to seeing T.

May I ask an embarrassing question? We sent out the invites & I can’t remember what time I put down for the party…any day now I will be eligible for them to pull the plug because I will have achieved brain death.

Me:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!! I can’t tell you how delighted I am to learn that I’M NOT ALONE in this vortex of chaos and confusion! I don’t remember at the moment, but I’m sure I can tell you when I get home and excavate the invitation out from under the piles and piles of junk on our kitchen counter!

I was telling your husband at soccer practice yesterday that until last week we had a cleaning lady who came to clean every other week. Last week she came and left without cleaning, because it was TOO MESSY!

My new peep:

OH NO!!! It’s a dire moment when one is rejected by the cleaning person. 

Glad to meet another person who believes in the archaeological approach to filing!

A dire moment indeed…

I’m pretty sure my new neighbor and I are going to be good friends!

(Oh, and check your local listings for our family’s upcoming episode of “Hoarders”).

Junks I Collect No. 2: Kokeshi Dolls

These handmade dolls originated a couple hundred years ago during the Edo period in the northeast part of Japan. They were first made and sold to tourists visiting the hot springs. Traditional dolls are made of wood and are very simple in shape. Rather than having articulated limbs, Kokeshi have arms that are always painted on. While the oldest dolls are made of plain wood, modern ones like these, called “creative Kokeshi,” are typically very colorful:

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The Japanese Tea Garden

Just a couple more San Francisco posts…

The Japanese Tea Garden is one of my favorite places on earth.

The garden was originally created as a temporary exhibit for the California Midwinter International Exposition in 1894. At the conclusion of the expo, landscape architect Baron Makoto Hagiwara offered to create a permanent garden. He lovingly oversaw the garden’s design and building and became its official caretaker until his death in 1925. He and his family took up residence in the garden and he devoted all of his own personal wealth into expanding and developing it into a place of exquisite perfection. In 1942 Hagiwara’s family, who had continued to maintain the garden after his death, was forcibly relocated to an internment camp. They were never allowed to return to their home again.

You can have tea and snacks in the garden’s teahouse, where weekly tea ceremonies are performed. (The teahouse is the low building on the left.

There’s a gift shop right next door to the teahouse full of beautiful displays. These are chopstick rests:

 

The teeny tiny little Japanese woman in the shop must have taken ten minutes to wrap up my purchases with all sorts of embellishments. Tomorrow, I’ll show you what’s inside!

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O wonderful

I’ve been thinking very hard about this next post for two weeks now. I’ve mentally tried out various combinations of words and expressions, and have come up short every time.  How could I possibly express in words what this day was like?

If you’ve been following along you’ll know that a couple weekends ago I went with my parents and sisters to San Francisco for my cousin’s wedding. My parents were delighted to have an opportunity to go back to the church where they were married. The little apartment underneath the belfry of the church was their first home together, and the place where my two sisters spent the first four or five years of their lives. My sisters and I were caught up in their excitement about this trip down memory lane and were all too glad to accompany them. We thought we would just go to the church and take some pictures in front of it, but my dad announced that we would be going to the service there on Sunday. We grumbled a little amongst ourselves, but as it turned out, it was the highlight of an ineffably beautiful weekend for all of us.

During the cab ride my normally taciturn dad regaled the bored, but polite driver with the nature of our pilgrimage. Here are my parents, having just gotten out of the cab:

Here they are, just seconds later. In his excitement, my dad leaped and bounded up the stairs like a gazelle. “Ummm, Dad? Don’t forget about Mom, the woman you’re sharing this beautiful experience with…”:

He started gladhanding the slightly overwhelmed ushers and telling them all about how he and my mom had gotten married here and had lived here almost 50 years ago. He was positively beaming.

To fully appreciate this moment, you have to know that we sometimes refer to my dad (AFFECTIONATELY) as the Easter Island Head, because of his impassive demeanor and reticent nature.

Here he is in his natural state:

Here he is about to break out into a smile:

And here he is with a rare, full-on grin:

After the service we met the minister:


The caretaker offered to show us the little apartment under the belfry where my parents and sisters first lived:And then it was time for more pictures:

So what was it like to see my parents holding hands in front of the church where they were married and lived almost fifty years ago? Just look at my dad:

Crossroads

Crossroads

Next week I’ll finish my San Francisco posts. I’m especially excited to share the photos of our visit to the church where my parents were married and began their life together in the tiny apartment under the belfry almost half a century ago.

For now, I’m going to celebrate my birthday by giving you a gift: a link to a poem I recently discovered. Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend.

The Wedding

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The bride and groomImage

My dad gave the benedictory prayer.Image

It was the perfect day for a wedding in beautiful Belvedere. I love how happy the new couple looks in this photo as they leave the church.Image

The cutie-pie ringbearer with his dad, my cousin.Image

It was great to see so many of my dear cousins. Image

That’s my sister in the middle!

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I’ve got a zillion cousins…Image

…and aunts. The aunt to the left of my mother is the mother of the groom. See my mother’s sister on the right? The delicate and distinguished lady in the grey hanbok with the freakishly large camera apparatus? We had knock-down drag-out beat downs all night long for camera angles. (It was no contest. She won every time, of course. Every. Single. Time.).

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The mother of the groom wears a blue hanbok. The mother of the bride wears pink.Image

And now for the “pae baek,” the traditional Korean wedding ceremony…The couple offers tea or wine and chestnuts and dates to their elders. Image

The elders offer their blessings and impart words of wisdom. They also slip them wads of cash in little white envelopes!Image

The elders throw chestnuts and dates and the couple tries to catch as many as they can in a cloth. The chestnuts represent the boys and the dates represent the girls they’ll have. The bride caught 15 chestnuts and 8 dates. I heard a Korean ajumma say, “You better get busy!!!”Image

Another set of elders (the uncles and aunties) take their turn. They receive their bow.Image

My mom tells them, “Don’t fight…And just have two boys and two girls.”(Really? Is that all)?!Image

The couple shares a drink…Image

and a date!Image

The groom gives the bride a piggyback ride around the table. (There’s my auntie with her gigantic camera)! Sometimes the groom will also give a piggyback ride to his mother and maybe even his grandmother as a symbol that he will be responsible for all of them. Image

The wooden ducks on the table represent faithfulness, because ducks mate for life.ImageImage

My little nephews hung out with my cousin’s son during the cocktail hour:

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My niece and my mom…

And then it was time for the reception:

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My nephew “R”:  “Call me!”

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Korean wedding buffet. Kimchi, jap jae, sushi, rice…Image

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It was lovely.

The Palace, the Countess, Seaweed, etc.

This past weekend we stayed at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco:

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There is always a lush arrangement of roses in the center of the lobby:

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It’s famous for its Garden Court:

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…where we had breakfast every morning:

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The hotel is also famous for this Maxfield Parrish painting “The Pied Piper,” which hangs above the bar in its more casual restaurant:

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We thought the Palace suited the Countess perfectly:

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She did too:

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We had lunch before the wedding at Fisherman’s Wharf.

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Our restaurant overlooked this:Image

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The Countess ordered crab:

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It was fairly large.

Kind of like this one:

We took a walk around the pier:

We saw the famous sea lions of Pier 39:

And finally, in keeping with the ocean theme, I give you…….seaweed:

How can you not love a city where the 7-11 has roasted seaweed snacks right by the cash register?

Tomorrow: pictures of the wedding.

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Coming Home

Coming home after a beautiful weekend can be such a drag. The line for security at SFO snaked for miles. When I finally got to the front of the line, they made me go to the naked body scanner booth and stand in an undignified position so that some poor, poor TSA officer got an eyeful after my weekend of overindulgence. I was assigned a middle seat because I checked in so late. I hate the middle seat. There was no longer any room for my luggage in the overhead compartment above my seat, so I had to put it in another compartment towards the back of the plane. It was a long, looooong flight. I’d already pored through the SkyMall catalog and airline magazine on the way to California and hadn’t brought anything else to read for the trip back. I’d already watched the movies on my westbound flight. (Aren’t they supposed to show different ones on the eastbound flight)?!  I hadn’t had time to eat or even buy lunch so I was forced to buy the airline’s “Tapas” box, which was mostly crackers and stuff to put on top of them. I was seated between two very suave, svelte young men who looked like they exercised fervently and ate only every other day. They didn’t so much as ask for water when the flight attendants came by. I felt really sheepish eating my very loud, messy crackers and pungent bag of olives squeezed between these two. The whole front of my black sweater got covered in cracker crumbs. Then Suave Man #1 sitting on the aisle inconsiderately fell asleep for HOURS. I was absolutely desperate to go to the bathroom, but had to wait until he woke up so I could go. After that, even though I was parched I had to severely restrict my liquid intake so as to avoid the same issue for the next three hours. Even so, by the time we finally landed at Dulles, I was desperate to go to the bathroom again. As soon as we came to a halt, the pilot announced that because of a bomb threat, the terminal was closed and he had no idea when we’d be allowed to get off the plane. When we were allowed to get off, it was like a vicious rugby scrum. I had to wait for everyone to disembark so I could retrieve my suitcase. Then I had to take the grandiosely named “mobile lounge” to another terminal where I had to continue running both up and down Escher-like escalators to finally get to my gate to catch my connecting flight home on one of those scary rattly toy propeller planes.

It was a minute past midnight when this tired puppy finally rolled into the driveway.

But here’s what was waiting for me on the other end:

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And it was a beautiful weekend, one that was most definitely “out of all whooping.” I can’t wait to share pictures!

Take Me Back to San Francisco

I’m on a plane heading to San Francisco for my cousin’s wedding. Actually, while I will be going to the wedding, I’m really going for my parents, who are using this happy pretext to revisit the place where they began their own life together as a married couple.

In February 1963, my father was a student in San Francisco. Against all odds, he had managed to make his way to the U.S. to pursue the education that had cruelly eluded him during a childhood filled with adversity and suffering.

School was a luxury, a beautiful dream that was constantly interrupted, snatched away, and cut short by real nightmares:  air raids, forced labor by the Japanese occupiers, disease…The sudden and premature death of his father was disastrous for his family, already reeling under the privations brought about by the occupation. My father witnessed beloved siblings die from malnutrition – the very thought brings me to my knees. The family was able to scrape together enough money to pay for only one son’s school fees. The others had to help on the farm so that the family could survive.

When my father’s older brother saw how desperate he was to get an education, and though he would sorely miss his help on the farm, he gave him his blessing to leave home at the age of 13 in pursuit of his dream. My father would have to find a way to support himself through school. He still remembers his brother’s sacrifice with deep gratitude.

He walked for days to get to Seoul, where he found a job sweeping glass in a watch factory. He worked during the day, went to night school, and at the end of every long day, he would sweep clean a place on the factory floor where he would sleep. Eventually, he enrolled in a new college that had the lowest tuition he could find.

The school’s president was the scion of a family of Catholic martyrs: three generations of his family were wiped out on one day. His own father had physically survived the massacre, but was a ruined, broken man. The president had gone on to become the leader of a Christian underground resistance movement. He was repeatedly arrested and tortured by the Japanese for his activities and was always on the run. Fearing for her own safety, his wife would dress as a beggar and hide in the busy marketplace all day, returning home to their children only late at night. Eventually, he led a large group of hundreds of refugees to Manchuria, an arduous journey on foot during which his youngest child, an infant, died. When he was finally able to return to Korea, he founded the college.

My father became the president’s star student. He had a fierce hunger and passion for knowledge. He gorged himself on philosophy, history, languages. Emboldened by a degree finally under his belt, and encouraged by American G.I.s he met while doing his compulsory military service, he took and passed a test, which would allow him to continue his studies in the U.S.

Before he was about to graduate, my father went to the president’s office to tell him that he was getting married. The president congratulated him heartily, and it was only then that my dad revealed that he was going to marry his own daughter, my mother. The college was (and is) an institution where skirt hemlines are strictly monitored and relationships between the sexes are discouraged. How my dad worked up the nerve to court and get engaged to the president’s daughter behind his back is unfathomable to me. His placid, gentle demeanor belies steely, ballsy determination that has carried him throughout his life.

So in February 1963, my mother stepped off the plane in San Francisco to meet her soon-to-be husband. Their separation had been long. Her arrival had been delayed by a year when an x-ray revealed that she had had tuberculosis as a child. She spent the year listening to tapes, trying to learn English. She still sometimes mimics the stilted, heavily accented recordings that she would listen to over and over again: “I am a boy.” “I am a girl.”

It was a difficult first year for my mother. She cried every day because she was homesick and so far away from home. The birth of my oldest sister, and my second sister soon after, brought comfort and joy. As their family grew and they settled into their new country, my parents began to build a happy life together. Painful memories of the past receded as they made new memories: outings to the zoo with their daughters, the taste of sourdough bread, eating watermelon in their little apartment under the belfry of the Hamilton Square Baptist Church.

My mom and dad want to go visit the church that was their first home again. In fact, they’re dragging us all to the service there this Sunday. Because that’s what you do when you fly across a vast continent to spend a weekend in one of the coolest cities in the world. That’s right. You go to church…It’s going to be awesome!

Congratulations to my cousin and his soon-to-be wife. I hope you have a long, happy, and beautiful life together.

Congratulations and happy homecoming to my mom and dad, whose 50th wedding anniversary we’ll celebrate next year. I am so happy to be taking this journey with you.

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