Mommy-Daughter days

When I lived with my dad growing up, my dad's girlfriend, Celeta, (who I consider a second mom) and I used to have what we called "Urchin Day." My nickname was Urchin because I was a grubby dirty little urchin, running around all barefoot in the woods. Being the hippie free spirit woman that she was, Celeta was also my dad's other Urchin girl. So Celeta and I had birthdays exactly 20 years apart and 2 days and we were incredibly close. So we would have an "Urchin Day" in which she and I would go do something just the two of us to celebrate our birthdays and our "urchinhood." The one I remember most was when we went to OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry. I also remember the one where Celeta hit a deer, and killing it really affected her and made her sad. I think after she hit the deer, she was so sad that we either decided not to go that day, or maybe it was on the way home after the day was done. I'll have to ask her...

So I've carried on this tradition by having periodic "Mommy (or rather Mommee as I am known)-Daughter days." Today was one of those days. It had been a while, and we were overdue! We went first to get a spa pedicure, and then we went to see Made of Honor at the movie theatre. We did a little shopping and then had some snacks at the Barnes & Noble Cafe'.

Savie & I talked about my forming the Solomon Islands nonprofit and I told her how the Directors do not need to be any particular age, and she said she'd like to do that. So it's possible she may be on the Board of Directors. I think she would be really good at it, and it would be so cool to bring her over there and show her the Solomon Islands sooner rather than later. Course her dad may have a heart attack about the idea. First I'll need to go over there first and check it out. She's such a responsible and mature girl, and she cares so much about helping people. She's definitely not your typical teenage girl. Earlier this evening, I walked in and saw her working on the computer, and what was on the screen? A bunch of house blueprints!!! Go figure. Her new thing is she thinks she might want to be an architect... This is after years of wanting to be an emergency medical pediatric surgeon, which she decided on at age 8. (the pic to the right is Savie in Alaska, in Prince William Sound, when she was 2. How cute is she?!)

documentaries to change the world

I just finished watching Bowling for Columbine. To be honest, I've avoided watching it and other Michael Moore films thinking they may be a little bit extreme. I have to admit - as I have before - sometimes it is easier to bury one's head in the sand and ignore the issues rather than see them right in front of our eyes. But I'm glad I watched it, and I actually liked it and was impressed by it, and yet of course I was saddened and shocked by some of the statistics about how many murders occur in the U.S. compared to Canada, England, Australia, and other countries. It reinforced what I've spoken about publicly regarding the over-exaggeration of violence in TV news and newspaper reporting (I discussed this in my talk I gave at University of North Texas in April 2007, "Changing the World One Story at a Time" - which discusses objectivity in journalism among other things). If you haven't seen the doco, I recommend it. It did sort of reinforce my desire to move to Australia! I wish there was a way to reduce our culture of violence and fear here in the States, and that is certainly something I'll be praying for and about.

The reason I chose to watch Bowling for Columbine is that I'm watching documentaries as I start to get into documentary production myself. This one won an Oscar so I figured it's important to see! Michael Moore has achieved notoriety and success, and though I don't exactly plan to follow his methods, I want to see how he puts his docos together. I've spent time in the past few days researching funding for documentaries as well as forming a nonprofit to get grants and funding for the Solomon Islands project Sean and I are discussing. Forming one here in the U.S. would allow us to receive donations from here as well as apply for grants from U.S. organizations. Everything is still very tentative and new, but it's such a cool project and has so much going for it, and it's exciting to investigate all the possibilities.