Begging to be bald

I don’t usually feel guilty begging for a charity.
I try to choose my causes wisely.
I do extensive research into where the money is going, how it will be used, and how much exactly will go toward “do-gooding.”
This time around, I’ve been quieter.
I sent out a simple e-mail. I didn’t even hit up everyone in my address book.
I’ve been building up gently to the big day when I shave my head for the second time.
I’m not the organizer of this year’s St. Baldrick’s event in Liberty, and that’s certainly playing a role. As much as I want to scream it from the rooftops, I’m cautious about stealing the thunder of the wonderful folks who are doing the really hard work to get the March 15 event off the ground.
Having done the 2005 event (with a lot of help from Jonathan), I know what their days are like.
I’m grateful, to tell you the truth, that I can do my part in this year’s St. Baldrick’s without shouldering the burden of event organizing.
My support of the cause has not wavered in the past two years, but life as a mom, a reporter, the owner of a photography business . . . well, it’s no wonder it’s hard to find volunteers for the fire department, the ambulance corps and the hundreds of other groups doing good here in Sullivan County.
We are all exhausted.
Those of us who “do” cannot fathom doing more, but chances are, we’re the ones who will say “yes” and “yes” and “yes” each time we’re asked.
A few weeks ago, I was told I didn’t know what it was like to be a real volunteer, and I wondered, how do you measure a “real” volunteer?
Is it in the number of hours set aside? The number of pancake breakfast dishes bused? The number of times you’ve missed the bedtime story and the last tuck in of the night?
Maybe it’s in the amount of money raised, I pondered.
But I can’t say that the teenager who raises $100 is less than the adult who raised $1,000.
How about the poor person who dug in their pockets and gave up that last $10 bill put up on a bulletin board beside the rich guy who gave $150?
No contest really.
Do we write off the person who donates their time instead of their cash? How about switching the tables – chastise the lady who whipped out her checkbook but couldn’t find a baby-sitter for meeting nights?
The swipe at my volunteer “credentials” may have as much to do with my reluctance to badger people this year as my it does with deference to the heroes of the day.
Am I giving up? Certainly not – the Easter Bunny will have a fair sight more hair than me this year.
Instead, I’m hanging back, and letting the money flow into the coffers of the organization I’ve chosen to support, one I’m convinced will one day save hundreds of thousands of families from the horrors of childhood cancer.
If they don’t donate, I won’t get angry – because I can’t judge their situation.
And if they decide to send me a check or log online to www.stbaldricks.com to donate “on my head,” well then, all the better.
It’s their choice if they want to change the world. I’m just here to help.

Want to donate on my head?

I'm slowly building up to the big day when I shave my mop once again (the pic. is of the July 2006 head shaving for St. Baldrick's). . . so help me help prevent children's cancer . . . donate to the St. Baldrick's Foundation, and I'll be going bald on March 15!!!
https://www.stbaldricks.org/get_involved/donate.html?ParticipantKey=200823778

Hannah Montana, or… where my mothering went wrong

Hannah Montana, Hannah Montana on the yogurt!”
I would have ignored the voice squealing to my right in the dairy section of ShopRite if it hadn’t sounded strikingly like that of my daughter.
My 21⁄2-year-old daughter.
My 21⁄2-year-old daughter whose unmasked glee had produced sounds of the type I make only after trying on 27 different pairs of jeans and finally hitting pay dirt.
When I find those that simultaneously suck in the gut and minimize the butt . . . only then do my eyes adopt that slightly glazed expression, my lower lip drooping as I let out a long sigh of satisfaction.
I couldn’t fathom how finding a Disney Channel “star” on the box of her drinkable yogurts had done this to my toddler.
Where did I go wrong?
Did I introduce rice cereal too early, not swaddle her properly as a newborn?
How has my daughter joined the ranks of squealing girls everywhere before she can even brush her own teeth?
Hannah – for those of you living under a rock – is the alter ego of Miley Cyrus, daughter of “Mr. Achy Breaky Makey me Barfy” Billy Ray Cyrus.
Minus the mullet, he’s now on the Disney Channel playing dad to his real-life little girl, who has a secret life as a teen pop star.
Confused? So was I.
The first time I tuned in with Jillian, I had to watch two episodes before I figured out brunette Miley donned a blonde wig and became Hannah.
Here’s what really gets me: I didn’t exactly hate the show.
Nor do I exactly despise the Cyrus duo’s poppy “Ready, Set, Don’t Go” that’s been playing ad infinitum on XM.
That doesn’t, mind you, mean I’ve fallen under the spell of smiley Miley.
Like a younger version of Rachael Ray, her bubbly personality brings out the grump in me.
A refreshing change of scenery from the train wreck of the Spears’ girls, but still well in tween territory.
And, it seems, toddler territory.
I have, at least, gotten to the bottom of the mystery.
Pulling up to the pumps at the gas station in Jeffersonville a few weeks ago, I unlocked Jillian’s door so she could say hi to her “girls,” the sisters who get off the bus and smother her with attention.
Pulling at the hem of her bubblegum pink t-shirt, the elder of my baby-sitter’s granddaughters showed off the big portrait of Hannah she was sporting.
“We’re going to the Hannah Montana concert,” she squealed.
Yes, squealed. Aha.
Coupled with Hannah on yogurt, Hannah on cereal boxes, and Hannah on Nintendo, I’m not surprised Montana mania has gotten its hooks into my little girl.
Add in those darling Disney princesses and I’ve got to hand it to old Uncle Walt… the mouse still reigns supreme.

Our office's best friend

You could say the Democrat’s gone to the dogs.
That’s what I love about it.
I look forward to my Thursdays in the office now.
Tucked in my little corner of the office, I sit on the edge of my seat, my ears perked.
I hear a “click, click, click” on the stairs, and I’m out of my chair in one graceful movement.
“Dale is here!”
I round the corner, and he comes barreling at me, his oversized ears flapping in the breeze whipped up in the frenzy.
Since the melding of the Democrat and Towne Crier offices, we’ve welcomed with open arms our new colleagues but none so much as Dale.
He’s part of a parcel deal – coming with his “mommy,” Crier copy editor Ely White, who we’d enjoy spending the day with under any circumstances.
The fact that she comes with her 7-year-old Corgi in tow just sweetens the deal.
He is, by all accounts, the office love machine – and the very best kind at that.
Although his loyalties lie firmly at Ely’s feet, he doesn’t discriminate between the dozens who wander through his office on a deadline day.
He offers a hand lick to our editor on a trip to the water cooler, lets our photo editor ruffle the fur between his ears.

Best of all, he lets me blow off steam after a phone call from a particularly nasty reader by lying on the floor at my side while I give him a full body “doggie massage.”
A quick trip online proved what my publisher has no doubt found in the last few months – productivity is up at the one in five American companies that allow pets in the workplace.
The American Pet Product Manufacturers Association survey completed two years ago shows absenteeism is down, creativity is up and managers and employees are getting along better.
It’s hard not to laugh together over a little nose nudging your shin as you’re pulling at your hair, trying to crack the ice off the writer’s block in your brain.
There’s all the more reason to get pages laid out and shipped off to the printer when there waits in the room down the hall a little ball of fur just waiting for someone to play.
He’s become – by far – the most powerful member of the newspaper staff.
Getting down on the floor, I’ve been pushed backward by this pup who stands no higher than my knee (if you’re counting to the tips of his ears).
Putting his paws on my chest, he knows just the angle he needs to drop me on my back on the floor so he can proceed to lick my face, while I’m struck with a case of the giggles my editor warns sounds maniacal.
He knew he found a friend for life the day I walked in with the box of treats I’d picked up just for him on a Friday night grocery trip – saved almost a whole week for Dale day at the Democrat.
I’m rationing my box over time.
If I send Ely back a dog who’s had too many biscuits, she might leave him home.
I’m afraid I’d come unleashed!

It’s not private in the spotlight - or on the sidelines

I never thought I’d come to the defense of a team from Boston.
But since the New England Patriots technically play their games in Foxborough, Mass., I’m making a concession for them.
So they’re in trouble for taping the New York Jets’ signals on the sidelines.
Apparently it’s against league rules.
I get that.
Naughty Patriots.
Shame, shame, shame.
But here’s my question – how do you put a kibosh on taking note of a public act?
This is where I smash my journalist hat on my head, fitting it around my true blue New York Yankees cap.
We’ve all got our rights to privacy – whether they’re spelled out in the Constitution in so many words or not.
But step outside the doors of your home, my friend, and they go out the window.
If it’s not in private, it’s public.
Am I being too simple?
Maybe.
So let me spell it out for you.
If you attend a public meeting of a board - say your local town council meeting – and you decide to speak your mind, you just forfeited your right to privacy.
Because everything said during a public meeting is… well… public.
I can (and often will) write it in the newspaper. And if you refuse to give me your name, it’s not necessarily going to stop me.
A meeting isn’t a one-on-one with me. You didn’t request we go “off the record.”
And you had the chutzpah to speak in public – so you’d better be ready for your name to go with your words.
Am I being unreasonable? Nosy? Sensational? Insensitive?
Nope. I’m doing my job.
Don’t like it? Keep your thoughts private – and I will too.
So how about the photography part in all this?
After all, the Patriots were taking images of the sidelines signaling, albeit against the rules.
The National Football League may reign supreme inside a stadium, but out here in the real world, the rules are dictated by the Supreme Court.
As far as they’re concerned, if your kid is standing in the middle of a craft fair munching on a donut, I can take his picture.
You can’t take my camera.
If you have something on your property visible from the middle of a municipally-owned road, I can snap away.
Really, there’s no difference between what I can do and what the average Joe can do on his trip to Disneyland, camera slung around his neck.
Ever watched your vacation videos and noticed the lady on the next towel over on the beach was showing a bit more flesh than most of us would deem prudent?
Ever poured through your wedding photos and seen a married groomsman in flagrante delicto with the not-so-married maid of honor?
Shame, shame, shame.
Too bad the NFL can’t save them now.
But they could do us a little favor.
If you don’t want anyone to know you said it, don’t say it.
If you don’t want anyone to see it, don’t show it.
If you don’t think you can – then just stay home.