Melese and I are very happy to announce that AMY is the winner of the Converse sneakers! WaHoo! And further evidence that the blogosphere is full of kind and generous people, Amy is going to use them to help others.
Amy is the proud mama of an adorable three year old named Lila. Lila was adopted form Nepal. Amy brought my attention to a terrible situation happening in Vietnam right now.
Some of you may know that I had asked Mary Louise Parker to host our Fundraiser. I bombarded her with incessant requests sent her an e-mail. Unfortunately she was in NY on April 17th, and everyone was stuck with me as the host. Mary Louise is the beautiful and talented star of the show Weeds. She has a daughter from Ethiopia, and does a lot of work for WWO, Jane Aronson's charity.
Converse has designed a special shoe for Mary Louise, a Weeds shoe. Mary Louise has donated these shoes to me. I want to give them to you. I would have listed them in the online auction if I had had them by then, but I didn't. I know that the majority of the readers of this blog have already donated to the school and library in Ethiopia, and I don't want to ask for donations, or raffle tickets, or anything like that again. I want someone to win them. Someone with biggish feet. They are a men's size 8 or a woman's size 10. They are signed by Mary Louise and have a cool Weeds season 7 logo on the heel. Even if they are not your size, they are cool and you could give them as a gift like she did, and like I'm about to.
You don't need to have made a donation to the school or library to win. You just have to leave a comment. Season 7 airs on Monday night, I will pick a winner by random integer generator, or whatever that thing is, at 4:20 pm Monday. I will announce the winner on Tuesday morning. If you want more chances to win post on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, etc, and leave another comment saying that you did. (Isn't that what people do? Seems like a good idea I guess? Maybe MLP will see the contest and know how grateful I am and sign right up for hosting a future fundraiser? Yes please.)
Good luck! Just say yes to drugs! Er, I mean SHOES!
*If you feel too guilty about being in the running for cool shoes without having made a donation for the school you can always go here or here and enter guilt free. :)
Don't forget! If you donate to the school between now and Monday, Louise, will Match it! Leave a comment if you do, and you (and those who already contributed to the matching campaign) will be entered into a drawing to win M&m's favorite matching game:
Don't be afraid of that TESFA site. It looks like you have to buy the whole school when you go in to donate. (Imagine that credit card statement!) Just click in the number field and add your own amount.
We are up to $381 dollars to be matched! Louise will match up to 1k.
Amanda wins. 18 ugly cries. Some were uglier than others. Amanda I am donating 36 bones to EOR in your name. Thanks to the folks who said they would match the donation. Please e-mail me your address if I don't have it so you can get your sticker. Thanks for playing.
And yes, you may have noticed that I didn't have a single ugly cry on this man's 41st birthday...
Nor on this boy's very first birthday... I may have gotten a hold of myself. Temporarily.
I'll try to get a post up about the holidays. Right now I have the post-holiday blues.
There have been many things that have set me off during the holidays, things like my sister Kate meeting my children for the first time, things like my brother-in-law Mark meeting my children for the first time. There have been many moving things.
Ugly Cry #9 happened on a morning that started off like many other mornings. Steven was home. We got up. I started to get Melese's breakfast ready. Meazi went into her closet to get dressed. (We continue to let Meazi wear whatever she wants. I think that these are battles that we don't need to fight, as long as she is warm enough).
She came out in her princessa dress-up clothes. She likes to wear them to breakfast sometimes. I had been looking through our huge binder of cds for some Christmas music to play on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day. We started having a dance party. Steven would pick a cd, then Meazi would pick a cd. I danced with Melese, Steven danced with Meazi. I went to the other room to change Melese and heard Meazi exclaim,"Daddy! I like it! I like that Johhny Clegg!" Steven put on what is definitely the world's gayest music, Erasure. They danced like crazy.
Meazi likes a lot of the music that we have. She is a fan of Van the Man (hence her interest in the saxophone) and Michael Franti. She loves the song Shaking the Tree by Peter Gabriel and Youssou N'Dour. She could do without the Jackson Browne. She loves Beyonce and Gigi. Our dance party continued for some time.
Meazi paged through the binder. She found two cds, one with a big #1 on it, and the other with a big #2 on it. It was this album. The first song Angelika Suspended began. Meazi said, "Huppy," to Steven, which means she'd like to be picked up. He picked her up and they danced. She was still wearing that pink dress-up dress. I was holding Melese and we danced too. Within minutes Meazi was fast asleep on Steven's chest. Steven continued to dance while singing to her softly. Song after song played. This is a beautiful album. They stayed like that for over an hour. Finally Steven moved to the rocker, we played the second cd, and she continued to sleep on him.
I am not sure which part of this made me cry. I was happy just to be able to hold my son and feel his breathing. Maybe it was the violin? Steven and I had actually seen this band in NYC one hundred years ago when we were just dating. I was thinking about that too. I think that what struck me the most was that the last time I had seen Meazi fall asleep on Steven like that was the night we took the kids back to the guest house with us in Ethiopia. Meazi cried and cried that night. Her sobs were the most distressing and heart-wrenching sounds that I had ever heard. Steven just held her for hours. He was stuck in a kind of awkward sitting position on the bed. He just held her tightly as all of that grief, and fear, and loss, came pouring out of her. After hours of crying, she finally fell asleep. He continued to hold her.
This dancing, in our living room, was the first time since then that I have seen him holding her while she slept. It was the dancing, and the breakfast, and the laughter, that made her sleepy this time. Her face was so peaceful, her arms stayed clasped around his shoulders.
I wept happy tears that I was a mother, and that I had children to dance with, these children, and that Meazi loves her daddy, and that Meazi loves Van Morrison, and that Steven and I were still a couple. I wept happy tears that she was fed, and clothed, and healthy. But I was also crying because I know that her story will not change. What has happened to her will not change. She will always be that girl on that uncomfortable bed, in a room not her own, in that guest house, sobbing.
She has changed, but she is the same.
She will always be a girl who has lost everything, and I will always be her mother.
And so I wept.
This is the only version I could find of the song. It is someone's homemade video. I suggest closing your eyes, and just listening to it. The whole album is gorgeous.
The winner of the ugly cry contest will receive the following prizes...
The Keats Collection and a small jar of Habesha honey.
A donation made in their name to Ethiopian Orphan Relief- The amount to be the number of ugly cries X two (i.e 2o cries equals 40 bucks). (Thanks for the suggestion Paige).
The first five people who leave a comment promising to match the donation will receive one of these:
Wanna guess how many Ugly Cries of Happiness I have this Holiday Season?
This one happened while decorating the tree. My mom was with us, and I unwrapped a tin ornament that she had given us on our wedding day. I was there with my children, my husband, and my mom-the ugly cry was inevitable.
So we'll have to come up with a good prize. The person who predicts the number of cries will win.
Rules:
Steven will keep track, although some of them happen when he is at work.
It has to be really ugly, no sniffles or single teardrops allowed.
Remember too, to include all ugly cries since Thanksgiving in your total.
