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A local professional musician, music teacher, school teacher, and also my friend, organized-by dint of her presence, her wide-ranging friendships, her musical acumen-a concert of more than 120 musicians and singers of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. The conductor came from over three hours away, the instrumentalists and singers all came from towns as ( Read more... )

For more than a year now, Wee1 has been looking for hands-on volunteering opportunities on an ongoing basis. She really, really wanted to do something for the children's hospital, but they didn't have anything for her. No else did either. There's a complete dearth of opportunities for the young. Then today, we found a place that helps children 0-3 ( Read more... )

Back to School is in full swing at our neighborhood Target when I stopped by today to pick up some supplies for donation ( Read more... )

Half the year has gone by. Time to visit the goals I made in December, I thought. Took the handy-dandy list and started reading top down and got depressed right away. Not doing, not doing, not doing. Then I said, hang on, let's start bottom up. Doing, doing, doing. Ah! I was tackling the low-hanging fruit but not the tough stuff ( Read more... )

Bill and Melinda Gates jointly gave the 2014 commencement address at Stanford University. They talked about optimism in the face of utter despair, innovation in the face of things that break your heart, chance to effect change in the face of people whom you instinctively turn away from because things seem so hopeless. Do something, they said. ( Read more... )

Put 45 women in one house for lunch and mayhem ensues, noise levels rival music concerts, dishes rival each other is deliciousness, and laughter punctuates every conversation. The reason ostensibly was to get together to learn healthy recipes and medical information about the disease we were getting ready to walk for. Our group of women has walked ( Read more... )

Yesterday afternoon, off Wee1 and I went to the industrial town of Kent to the warehouse of Northwest Harvest Food Bank. There, we met 48 other likeminded women, all of us wearing neon pink T-shirts with our logo on them: Pink Panters ( Read more... )

Good going, SAP! The German software company hopes that by 2020, "1% of its global workforce would be people with autism." Of course, it is capitalism-directed and not purely altruistic, but what an opportunity for people with certain types of autism to use their intelligence and their gifts to make a productive life for themselves. SAP executive ( Read more... )

Marvelous piece of narrative fiction by David Remnick in The New Yorker three days ago about one patient's pre-Sandy experience at the NYU Hospital, subsequent rescue during Sandy, and post-storm recovery and next steps at Columbia Hospital ( Read more... )