New Beginnings

I'm back from my brief trip away last week. (See prior posts as they are filled in.)
Work has been busy - prepping for the arrival of my Taiwanese vendor who I'll work with and entertain starting Monday of next week.

What does a girl do for fun?
Get trained to start volunteering for God's Love We Deliver down on 6th Avenue.

Tonight I dashed from work to their office and listened and learned all about how GLWD started and how it's worked for over 20 years. Really an amazing organization providing 15,000+ meals a week for those with debilitating diseases and their dependants.

Take a look at their 20th Anniversary video. They are always looking for more volunteers! Come join me in the kitchen!!


From here I walked up and across Houston to meet Radhika for a bite at the newly relocated downtown location of Rice. Good food at a good price! We shared an order of veggie dumplings and a caraff of wine. I enjoyed a chicken tamatillo tamale and some Jerk Chicken with brown rice. Radhika enjoyed her Thai Curry with black rice. We finished the meal by sharing 3 homemade cookie-ice cream sandwiches. Yummm! A good reccomendation for dinner Radhika - THANKS!

What A FUN Valentine's Day!

After some meetings and work through the day, I popped down to 6th Avenue & Spring Street to volunteer with "God's Love We Deliver®." I'd signed up through OneBrick.org while I was in China so I wouldn't be sitting around alone at home on Valentine's Day. Good choice!

I really enjoyed my few hours there. I frosted 30+ sheet cakes and chopped a ton of celery. There were around 25-30 volunteers there chopping, packing, frosting, cleaning and prepping food to be cooked or delivered tomorrow -- 1600 meals -- to those in need (HIV/AIDS, MS etc -- any debilitating disease.) I may go through training and join the volunteer pool as a regular. It was really well done! Their volunteer coordinator didn't mind that I travel as much as I do either - yeah!!

From here I dashed back uptown to 32nd Street between 5th Avenue & Broadway to join 11 friends (Henri at left and Lisa at right) - both old and new - at TODAI, an all-you-can eat Sushi and Japanese Seafood buffet. (Yes, they had meats too!)
We all stuffed ourselves with the tasty choices and ended with banana & chocolate filled crepes! Yuuuuum!


At $27.95 per person, I thin kit was quite reasonable! (Those who got beers only paid $4.50/beer -- which is CHEAP in NYC!!)
Next - on to Henri's friend's Karaoke party downtown at Bar Bleu/ under Cafe Deville, the restaurant on the corner of 13th and 3rd Avenue. 4 of us joined Henri...all of the men dissapeared for one reason or another. It was a nice way to spend a little time getting to know Patrizia and Chiara, Patrizia having arrived in NYC only a week ago!



The fellow doing the Karaoke DJing, Adam, had quite a good selection (14,000+ songs)...everything from the Rat Pack to Annie Lenox to 70s Funk. We all sang songs -- I even sang one with the DJ at his request. (To bad the arrangement was completely nutty!)
We even squeezed in a spot of dancing!!!

Now it's home to wrap up some notes for tomorrow's morning meeting!

Thanks all for a wonderful Valentine's Day!!! Hmmm...so now what shall we do for President's Day?

WOW

In a break to clear my head I popped over to avaD's blog and saw this:

'Popular singer Sarah McLachlan stars in this video, which highlights with graphics and music the normal cost of producing a contemporary video and some alternate ways that money could be spent. For instance, the hair and makeup expenses for a video shoot would cost about $5,000 for a day in Los Angeles. Or, that money could provide a year of schooling for 145 girls in Afghanistan. By the way, this video cost $15 and the bulk of the normal expenses was spent on schools, orphanages and meals in several developing countries.'

Watch the video:


WOW. Thanks for posting it avaD. Double Wow.
I always have this feeling that I should be, could be, doing more. Doing SOMETHING...

More info found at Karmatube.com.