December 2004 Archives
One word, thousands of lives. Being here so far away from the destruction it feels almost unreal.
The death toll ranges anywhere from 24,000 to 50,000.
Please consider giving to the disaster relief fund for the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia. Please keep in mind that in situations like this monetary donations are the most helpful.
A good place to donate directly is UNICEF.
There are reports that one of every 3 victims were children. Also children, so many of whom have been orphaned need the most help and care to survive.
If you would like to donate to a different organization go to the links below to see a list of the numerous organizations that are leading relief and fundraising efforts and will benefit from your donations.
http://www.cidi.org/incident/tsunami/
http://tsunamihelp.blogspot.com/
For relief in India I recommend donating to Asha for Education OR AID
both are teaming with grassroots organizations leading relief efforts in the Tamil Nadu region.
Architects/ designers can also consider donating to the rebuilding of the affected areas.
For regular updates, including first hand accounts go to:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/001814.html
What a week it has been and it is only thursday. The whole week we have had to run around putting out fires. Except on Sunday when I actually had to start one--the pilot light in the stove in our living room went out. And the way to light it wasn't obvious. I tried to avoid the issue but soon the cold was getting to be unbearable. After some tinkering with it I got it to work--heat in winter is indeed wonderful.
But before we knew it, it was Monday and the singular sounding drip that had plagued our shower had turned into a flood. We felt the agonies of being a homeowner with no landlord to call. It was the oldest problem in the world--a faulty washer. Changing it would have been easy if we could have gotten the tap off. Easier said than done. As I have found with a lot of things in life it is all about finding the right tools, the right equipment and ever so often it involves finding the right person. In this case, it was our downstairs neighbor Dave who also happens to be a contractor. I had left him a few notes, knocked on his door and had probably come across as a paranoid new home owner type. That was until he saw the flood. Anirvan and I were having trouble sleeping thinking about all the water that was going down the drain. But Dave came, he saw and he fixed. I guess we did kind of behave in a paranoid manner since we tried to make the leak go away by trying to twist the tap tighter and thus destroying the washer even more--stupid, stupid, stupid!
We slept well that night. Silence is heavenly.
But then it was Thursday--and I realized that I had lost my cell phone. So if you are reading this please do send me your phone numbers. The numbers are gone forever as is my cell phone. This did however make us get the "Family Plan" that we had been talking about for a while. I do miss my cute old cell phone though. Sigh. It will take a little bit of time for me to warm up to the shiny silver number I got this morning.
Friday, here I come!
Anirvan and I put up a Christmas tree last Saturday. It is a plastic tree but one of much import as it was the one that his family has had for almost 20 years! It was released from it's box after atleast 7 years. The most fun thing for me was watching Anirvan put it together and also too see the ornaments that he and his mom had made over the years. My favorite ones were the paper snow flakes. Nothing reminds me more of Christmas than Christmas lights--so I went and bought us some and I love how they look on our red living room walls.
Speaking of plastic trees. The best one I have seen is in the window of Builder's Book Source on 4th Street--it is made entirely out of plastic bags!
