charley's blog

I just spent the morning with my friend Ken. He’s leaving tomorrow for Uganda, where he’ll spend the next five weeks or so with two teams of amazing people, who will be there to help Loving One by One do what they do so well. He’s leaving without me.

Over the next five weeks, 50 or so people in two separate teams will help with medical and other needs in some of the world’s poorest areas. They’ll ride around on a bus driven by Henry, the World’s Greatest (i.e., craziest) Driver, and they’ll get up every morning and spend each day changing people’s lives. This time, they’ll do all that without me.

Some days, these amazing people will find children who can’t walk because of damage to their legs or spine, probably due to malnutrition. They’ll be able to meet these kids, talk with them, and possibly help some of them. They’ll meet people who are dying in the hospital from HIV or malaria, or severe burn injuries, and they’ll get to be some of the last friendly people many of these people will talk to before die. They may also find one or two children who have lost their parents and need a place to live, and they’ll be part of giving those children a new family.

I’m not making any of this up – all those things happened last July while I was in Uganda, and all those things are somewhat typical when a LOBO team comes into the area to help.

But this time, they’re leaving without me. I can’t do the trip this year, and I’m kind of bummed about that. The schedule of the Uganda trip this year doesn’t work for me.

So I’m thinking and planning and praying for next year. Like many people who have traveled with Loving One by One to Uganda, I can’t imagine not going again, soon. So next year is the goal. Being at Ken’s house these past several days, seeing all the bags packed and watching another trip come together in the final stages, made me both excited and frustrated. Excited for what’s about to happen in Uganda, and frustrated because it’s going to happen without me this time.

Some of you, when you read this this, will think this is exciting and you’ll be happy about a new team going to Uganda, but that’s it. And that’s fine. But others will read this and think, “That’s how I feel. Another team is leaving, and I’m not on it, and I feel like they’re leaving without me, too.”

So do me a favor. If you’re in that second category and you feel like I do, that you’re being left behind this time, contact me and let’s think about the possibility of going together next year. Don’t let them leave without us again.

Just so you’ll all know I have the ability to blog about other things besides Waking Up In Africa (now available from Amazon, in print and Kindle, get yours now), I’m going to make an extra effort to write more normal life stuff for a while. By my definition, “a while” means “until I need to say more about the book (now available on Amazon, in print and Kindle, get yours now).

A few days ago, Tuesday in fact, I had a day where almost everyone I dealt with argued with me or went our of their way to make me miserable. Now if you’re one of the people I interacted with on Tuesday, and you DIDN’T argue with me or make my life miserable, relax. I used the word “almost” in front of the word “everyone.” If you don’t recall making me miserable this past Tuesday, you’re probably OK.

I realize I’ve said more than once, on this very blog, that I need to be careful not to complain about my work. One, because I have some pretty fun work I get to do. Two, because a lot of people don’t like their jobs, and I do. Three, a lot of people don’t even have jobs. And four, having spent time last year among impoverished people who would give anything just to go to ANY kind of school, the fact that I get to teach music in two pretty cool schools is a huge bonus. I realize all that.

Yet, Tuesday was a day of unusual complaining, arguing and generally griping at me for everything. And there is almost nothing in the world I hate more than complaining. I hate doing it, I hate hearing it, and I especially hate it when it’s directed at me by kids in school. I do my best to ignore a lot of it, and if I respond, I do my best to respond professionally. Then, sometimes I don’t exactly do my best.

So I’m not going to try to reiterate for you all that was said toward me, or to me about others, on Complaint Tuesday. I’ll leave that to your imagination – you can try to imagine  being in a room with classes of various ages of children, with the majority having some beef about something, which they’ve determined is your fault. I won’t go into details.

I will, however, tell you about the best part of the day, the part that made me laugh out loud and made me thankful for what I do. A little girl was taking her piano lesson with me in the middle-late afternoon. This is a great kid – always in a good mood, funny, enthusiastic, and all that good stuff. She also really struggles with playing the piano. It doesn’t come easy for her. She has a lot of other talents, but the piano is really hard for her.

When a student (a young student) gets a song done, I put a sticker in his/her book. They all think that’s cool, and they get excited about getting the stickers. This girl has been struggling for several weeks on a few songs, and on Tuesday they were better, but not quite sticker-worthy yet. I couldn’t give them to her. And she was OK with that, because she’s pretty much eternally cheerful.

Then we turned the page, to another song she was assigned. And she said to me, “OK, I hope you’ve got those stickers handy, because I’m about to rock your world with this song!!”

And she did – not only with the way she played the song, but also with the way she was working hard, not griping, and giving her best. And the way she was not complaining about how hard the songs were. I wanted to give her the whole sheet of stickers.

It’s always a cool thing how, even on Complaint Tuesday, just one comment from the right person, at the right moment can erase all of it. So if Tuesdays are going to turn out to be the Weekly Day of Complaints, I’m really glad I have this kid scheduled for Tuesday afternoons.

You may want to try to get someone like that in your life.

The book, “Waking Up In Africa” is now available in the print edition, as well as for the Kindle and Nook e-book formats. Can I get a WHOOOOOO?

Thanks to all of you who have been so encouraging, and waiting so patiently while we’ve really milked all these announcements. It’s all finally done. After months of writing, rewriting and revising, editing, revising some more, and finally reformatting and formatting some more, it’s now actually a readable thing, with actual turn-able pages and everything.

As for iBooks, it’s coming, but not yet. I’ll let you know.  (Update on May 6… as of today, it is now available in the iBookstore, for all your iStuff. So when I said “I’ll let you know,” I wasn’t kidding).

So here’s how you can get the thing.  Click on the link (below) for the edition you want, and it’ll take you to a page where you can order it. Then click a few more things, and you’ll either have it instantly on your Kindle or Nook, or you’ll have it in your mail box in a few days.

The print edition as well as the Kindle edition are available from Amazon.

Or, if you prefer to use the Barnes & Noble Nook Reader, you can order it here.

**All net proceeds from Waking Up in Africa will go to Loving One by One Ministries, to further the work they are doing in Uganda.

One last thing. If you get the book and like it, please help spread the word about it. If you can think of friends who would like it, send them the link and brag about it, or be generous and buy them a copy. And if you feel so inclined, write a good review on the page where you ordered. There are a few reviews for the Kindle version (thank you).

If the book were for my benefit, I’d be self-conscious about asking you to help market it. But with all proceeds going to Loving One by One, I don’t feel bad at all about asking for your help. I hope you get it, read it, read it again, refer it to your friends, buy it for your friends, write reviews – but more than that, I hope you get as excited about the work of Loving One by One as I am, and consider supporting them and/or going on a Uganda trip with them.

And once again, may I say, finally….. WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Ha! Now there’s a title for you. This is a post about how to drive in parking lots. Don’t worry; I’m probably not literally going to kill anyone for driving badly in a parking lot. If I were, I’d have done it a long time ago. Or maybe even today, but my parking lot experience motivated me to write this instead. So everyone is fine.

Here are a few tips for you, you bad parking lot driver:

1.   You know those octagonal red signs that say stop? It would really, really help me a lot if you’d, oh I don’t know – STOP when you come to one of those. Just to be clear, “octagonal” means “8-sided.” If you don’t want to take the time to count the sides and just the word “STOP” on a red sign isn’t convincing enough for you, just look for a red sign that would otherwise be round, but was likely hit many times by drivers like you. That will be a stop sign. Stop at it.

2.  In America, we drive on the right side of the streets. So helpfully, at some point someone came up with the idea that we should do the same thing in parking lots, too. If a car (possibly driven by me) is coming toward you, move your car to the right.

3.  If you are driving a large SUV or van and you see a space near your store, but that space is too small for you, you’re going to have to settle down and get over your excitement, and find another space. I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is. You only have yourself to blame for driving such a large vehicle.

I’m not saying I have anything against large vehicles. I do, however, have something against large vehicles that try to get into small parking spaces, and in the process put themselves at weird angles, half-in and half-out of the space, still blocking the area so other drivers like me can’t get by, and who keep making attempt after attempt to get into that small space, not thinking about how you’re going to get your large doors opened once you get into the space, if in fact by some act of God you manage to get your boat in there.

So if the above paragraph describes your experience, and you notice a gray Pathfinder suddenly backing up and finding another space, far away from you, and then notice a guy in the store giving you the stinkeye, it may be time to either A) get a smaller car, B) shop someplace else, or C) find a way to not be in the parking lot when I’m planning to be there.

Not that I’m bitter about anything specific, of course.

My daughter, The Lovely Miss Courtney, really likes weather. Ever since she was very
young, she liked it when we scrolled past The Weather Channel, and she thought it was cool to see what the weather was like in other places. Plus, when I say she likes weather, I mean she likes “weather.” Although we live in Southern Calif (which is the same thing as Southern California for those who may have thought “Calif” was actually a different place), and it is often sunny here, I have to say no one appreciates a good rainstorm more than Courtney.

So this afternoon, I began thinking about what it would be like if Courtney were the weatherman. Before I make this list, don’t bug me about writing “weatherman” instead of meteorologist or weather person or any of that other PC stuff. If someone, male or female, tells you the weather on the news, that person is a weatherman because that’s the way it’s always been.

If Courtney Were the Weatherman…

“Sunshine, Lollypops and Rainbows” would be an actual scientific description of tomorrow’s forecast;

“75% Chance of Rain” would sound more like “75% Chance of Rain – Whoo hoo;”

“Record High Temperatures” would sound more like “It’s Like a Billion Degrees Out There,” or “It feels like we just moved to the sun;”

On windy days, for dramatic effect, she would deliver her forecast leaning in a 45-degree position, indicating how strong the wind is;

On rainy days, she would either call in her forecast from home, or bring in a substitute weatherman, because she would be at home wrapped in a blanket;

She wouldn’t say stupid things like “How will tomorrow’s storm affect your morning commute? Find out at 11,” and instead she’d say things like “You should know by now that people drive like idiots in the rain, so plan for it. I personally will be staying home with a blanket.”

**Note – the above post was written with The Lovely Miss Courtney’s permission.

When I log onto the internet and go to my home page (iGoogle), there are a few news sources that show me important news. Which is really what you want from a news site. One of the sites whose headlines pop up for me is CNN, and every day, sometimes several times a day, there’s a yellow box that says “BREAKING NEWS.” Then inside the yellow box, there’s some important piece of information which the CNN people feel is earth-shaking enough to put into a yellow box.

Sometimes it’s literally earth-shaking, like an earthquake somewhere in the world. That seems yellow-box worthy. Sometimes it’s related to the presidential election, like last week when Santorum dropped out of the race. Although not exactly “news” to most people, since he wasn’t even close to succeeding, the fact that he finally figured that out was “news” I guess, in a way.

Then a couple of days ago, there was another special yellow breaking news item – Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are now engaged. Go back and read that last sentence again, and ask yourself, “Is this really a yellow box kind of thing?” Did you do that? It’s OK, I’ll wait…

I think there should be different colors for “breaking news” items. Yellow for things that are actually crucial, like a big earthquake or a bunch of tornadoes. Maybe green for things like “we saw this coming a few months ago, but it’s good that Santorum has finally realized it.” 

And maybe purple or pink for things like “Brad and Angelina… who are they again? Oh yeah… hey, I thought they were already married… and we care about this because…???”