Thursday, December 11, 2008

a few Holiday wishes and gifts ( December update)

This year I did bought one gift that is not going to go to any family member but to unknown teenage girl ...I just wished there was more from which to give -financially speaking - because there are plenty of opportunities for giving.

Obviously I wasn't the only one ,
there are many others : some I met in person, some I met through their blogs:

Juliet has a very neat and generous book giveaway here.
Andrei sent you (all of you that is) a love message ... at the bootom there are little dettachable notes one can gift away .They are stating "I love you (Pay it forward)"
and the poster says:
"I had seen once a poster on the Internet. It was just like this one: telling everybody because certainly there was the wish to hear it again :
I love you.
NO?"

And your opportunity to give:

One Laptop per Child has its annually Give one, Get One Laptop... The primitive laptop will cost you $399, and it is a great gift for your grade school relations (1), while a twin laptop will be gifted to a child from a developing country. A cool fact for anarchists: the laptops' operating system is Linux. Thus you will promote an open source operating system in a developing market and given each developing market's potential for leapfrogging , you will give a direct blow to Microsoft's monopoly.

Susan (our black eyed Susan) has an Amazon gift list, more details on her blog.

Nu sta deoparte, an initiative that supports the treatment and recovery of Romanian children with Autism, Asperger, PDD and other developmental disorders. It does not have any recent open auctions (I see now that I had neglected them for too long ), but they are still in need of support and translations.


As for one of my special Christmas wishes: does any one know how to say Ranasinghe? I like her poetry more and more so I'd like to be able to pronounce her last name too.

And my gift for you (fragments from Origami by Anne Ranasinghe) :

This poem
is written on very fine paper
fold it
into small birds
and let them fly down the face of the mountain
and maybe the wind
will carry them back to me

or make an origami boat
set it afloat in the clear cold spring
...........................................................
and maybe the sea
will carry it back to me


PS: (1) given that this a non-profit initiative, customer service is provided by volunteers so please check the Amazon ratings before purchasing and expecting HP level service...

PPS I'd like to keep this gift list open (so please if you want to add to it just drop me a comment)...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful poem and perfectly appropriate to your wonderful gift list.

S.L. Corsua said...

Your generous spirit shows and shines. ;) A perfect complement to your love for poetry.

By the way, I made a Google search for Anne Ranasinghe. Here's a short Wikipedia entry. A further search on her surname reveals that it is pronounced RAH-nah-SING-ah. Hope that helps, dear. Cheers.

Ana said...

Paul:thanks.
SL
I googled her too, but could not find any details on how it is pronounced. So, many, many thanks...

Anonymous said...

Annamari, this is beautiful. I love your generous, giving spirit. The poem is amazing, too!

Is there an address for sending money to the Romanian fund? Is there an amount that must be sent? I only have twenty bucks after payday, but I'd love to contribute.

Please excuse me if I'm not reading carefully enough...I'll go back and read again and look at the links more closely. I'm sure my question will be answered:)

Thanks for linking me and for your thoughtful comments. I'll get your link up at my site tonight. It's a pleasure to meet you.

Ana said...

Julie,
they have an e-mail where you can submit an inquiry about how to make a donation :
donatii@autism.ro
but even if you are unable to send any money I am sure they do appreciate the thought.
And if there is not much left this time - we always feel obliged to buy gifts for this one or that one of our relations - they are always running one program or another so help is always needed..

You are by far more generous than I - I am still holding to my last $20 ...

Crafty Green Poet said...

lovely generosity for the season, thanks for the link

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Annamari. I will check it out. Wouldn't it be nice to be rich and just give tons of money away to needy people? Heavy sigh on that one. Thanks for the info. S.L. says it well. Your generous spirit shines:)

Ana said...

Juliet,
I shall be the one thanking -you are the one giving.but you're welcome...

Julie,

sometimes i feel that my 2 pennies are worth much more than the rich man's gold coin...