“Oh, Say Can You See…”

On April 4, I read a disturbing article in the Boston Globe titled, “Over 91,000 infants abused or neglected in 2006, study says.” As a mother of two, and someone who believes that children are the most precious commodity on the planet, it is difficult for me to fathom this. “A total of 905,000 children younger than 18 were reported to have been abused that year, including 91,278 who had not reached their first birthday,” according to the analysis published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Week Report. Abuse killed 499 children in 2006 before their first birthday. Ok, I gotta stop. You get the picture.

Scene to Red Sox Opening Day 2008

Believe me, I’m just as proud as the next person about our home team. The entire organization is top notch. But do you know how much a World Series ring costs? My understand is that it is $2K.

How many rings do they make? For argument sake, let’s say between 50 - 100. A very simple calculation brings me to $100,000 - $200,000. I am pretty sure that the Department of Social Services could use that money to monitor their cases and help stop and prevent this unconscionable child abuse in the US. I am also pretty sure that whomever receives a ring, puts it in a drawer. Granted, the Red Sox organization is a philanthropic ballclub. They give their time and money to Boys & Girls Club, Make a Wish, and so forth. But this seems to be a no-brainer. If Mr. Epstein reads this and says, “Why pick on me?” “Heck,” I would say, “I am happy to pick on other ball clubs or businesses that produce extravagant things, which elicit excitement for about 30 minutes and then are forgotten.”

My point? We can talk all day long about “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” but talk is cheap. In this day and age of such crises as child abuse, towns in dire need of funds to keep school libraries open and enough teachers in the classrooms, senior citizens who cannot afford their homes, healthcare (‘nuf said), would it be so bad to open our eyes to the bigger picture and rethink how we are spending money?

It's Spring! Celebrate!

Every year, despite the weather, the calendar turns to March 20. But I don’t have to look at a calendar. I can tell it’s spring in a few other ways. The first is that my kids’ clothes get too small. My son will happily wear pants until they come up to his knees. My daughter is a different story. The minute an article of clothing feels the slightest bit tight, it goes to the pile for Big Brother Big Sister (http://www.bbbsa.org/) or a friend’s little girl. Sometimes I do have to nudge her along to get rid of some favorite shirts that come up to her belly. The next thing that comes out of her mouth is, “We gotta go shopping.” That’s ok by me if it means they are growing and healthy. In fact, they each went up a shoe size and a clothing size since the beginning of the school year. Hoorah!

The other event that happens at the beginning of spring is baseball spring training. We are Red Sox fans (http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=bos). My kids love David Ortiz, or as we fondly call him in Beantown, Big Pappie. It is hard to believe we are back into the baseball swing, so to speak. We are all healed from the end of the Patriot’s season and are fortunately still involved with the new and improved Celtics. The Bruins. Well, I don’t know about hockey so much.

And another big event that happens in the spring is gardening. I heard the most interesting and wonderful story on NPR. Go to www.npr.org/talkingplants and then down to the March 22 story titled, “Tips from an Amazon Gardener.” (See photo at left).

It is about the knowledge and practice of raising plants by a woman named Dona Raimunda, who lives in the Amazon. Some might call her eccentric. I call her fascinating. Take a few moments and learn some interesting facts about raising plants. In my experience of growing a veggie garden, I have found that less is more. Don’t crowd plants. Manure is cool.

No point, but I wish you a Happy Spring!