A Small Act

Humphrey Oguda, 1967-2011

This is Humphrey.

It wasn't like him to be on this side of the camera, but his close friend Stuart, who was my partner from 2003 to 2008, is also a camera guy.

Stuart snapped this photo quick on the stoop of our house, just before he and Humphrey set forth on one of their UrbanEx journeys around DC.

The two met years before in Manhattan. Humphrey was a recent grad of Bowdoin College slinging music at Tower Records (remember those?). Stuart was a young lion on Wall Street. Their friendship spanned more than 10 years.

I only got to hang out with Humphrey a handful of times, but his was a great and radiant presence.

His death was brief and senseless: taken with a fever while visiting friends, he died of flu symptoms in the blink of a shutter, three days before his birthday last year.

His life was brief too, but rich and full. He had dozens of friends and wide interests from economics to politics to wine to photography.

Yet when I went looking for Humphrey's web site today, only a year after his death, I found the domain resold to another photographer. Now there are only a few remaining signal fires burning for him on the Internet: a cogent comment on Kenya's bloody rivalries here, a loving tribute from his family here.

As his online footprints disappear, I am looking for a new way to keep Humphrey in my life.

A few weeks ago--before last year's loss of Humphrey had yet resurfaced--I purchased and watched A Small Act, a film by Jennifer Arnold about the work of the Hilde Back Education Fund. The founder of the fund is Chris Mburu, a Kenyan man who benefitted from a foreign benefactor's contributions to his education and went on to become a human rights lawyer for the United Nations. Made with great care, the film tells a profound story simply. It is as much a film about beauty's persistence and the importance of human connection as it is about education and progress.

The Fund's international partner is the Creative Visions Foundation, an organization that would very much appeal to Humphrey's sense of how simply by seeing the world around us, we can do our part to enliven and heal it.

We have such small gestures to offer. We have to do what we can, holding up our little palmfuls of hope and trust in the memory of people who have touched our lives, made them better, worked in some small way to enlighten our corner of the world. Humphrey was such a person for me.

I have devoted $44 per month--just shy of the full $55 monthly contribution suggested--to help defray the Hilde Back Education Fund's costs for sending bright, capable kids to high school and onward. I chose the figure because I need to get used to such a (for me) sizable monthly donation, and because Humphrey missed his 44th birthday. I feel confident that before 11 years pass--well before that--I can afford to do more.

Please stop and donate to the Creative Visions Foundation, or the Hilde Back Education Fund, or any cause that means a lot to you. Such a small act, and such a profound difference it can make.

Saving Money Without Saving Face

Crying while saving.

Shame had a field day at my house this week.

I had a couple of windfalls early in the week, and  I was feeling flush already by Monday.

So I guess I got carried away and started doing crazy things. Like eating lunch.

I'm ashamed, but not a bit sorry. Because I'm learning to make shame pay.

My new thing is to match, dollar for dollar, every splurge I make. Until the money runs out, it's working. I call it Match Your Shame.

About a third of my weekly savings goal is already in place every week, which helps get me in the zone. This is money that I have pre-programmed to go to a couple of charitable organizations or toward bills over and above the minimum. So I start every week with a lift and a nice jolt of energy, which I think we'd all agree even the strongest among us could use.

So I am already close to the first $1,000, or 1/26th of my enormous two-year goal. Not a penny of it is true savings, sadly. It's all going straight to the cards.

Still. I am almost certain this is how one famous financier got her start.

Drop me a line and tell me your saving secrets. I'm feeling pretty good about money these days. 

Strip Down Saturday: Composting Your Treif for Shekels

Seriously. This was a life event for me. via my FB, via Liz Seymour.

As I get deeper into vermiculture, I discover that a lot of the "don'ts" for casual composters are in fact  possible "do's" for those who really mind their piles.

And if there is nothing else you know about me yet, you know I am a cheap bohemian who minds her piles.

So in the interest of Strip Down Saturday, I hereby offer you one of the most remarkable Stumbles* of my still-young worm-herding career: You Can Compost a Bagel. And practically any other bread you like.

*(Actually, it was a Google, but who's counting?)

I know I will be rubbing some rugosa the wrong way with this. Gardeners have very wee senses of humor about what goes in the midden. Check this RAD THREAD on GardenWeb if you don't believe me.

But if you've done your homework about worms (not much, I assure you--I myself suck at take-home assignments), you can give composting worms any bread you like. Plus tons of paper waste if you know what to screen out. If you are truly paying attention you can even compost the Gospel non-acceptables like dairy and meat under other composting systems.

As with many things in life, it's not what you worm with, it's how you worm. Or something.

Anyway, I'm off to see just how many of the Scary Things Never to Compost are actually recyclable in my little bins.

Yeah. Bins plural now. I have four.

I'm not even getting warmed up yet. I am still just attaining Bagel level.

[information and original photo of the future glimpsed through a bagel hole are via Liz Seymour's blog. Although not updated since 2008, it remains as fresh and amazing as when I first stumbled on it...uh, a few days ago.]

Free Friday: Freerice 2.0

Better, faster, stronger: That's Freerice 2.0, the simple game that combines learning and giving with a social network and competitive tracking for added fun. I first wrote about Freerice in July 2010 during the earliest weeks of CheapBohemian. Little did I know that the site was only two months away from a major upgrade.

In the past two years since Freerice's relaunch, players helped donate about 23 billion grains of rice worldwide, or just over 7,000 pounds.

Freerice was the brainchild of inventor John Breen, who created it as a learning tool for his kids. When the site went public in October 2007, it gave away 830 grains of rice on its first day. Soon it gained in popularity--and notoriety because its simple premise seemed too good to be true. Eventually, Snopes itself had to lay the rumors to rest: Freerice really is perhaps the only free lunch around.

Now part of the UN World Food Programme, Freerice is always available to you with no strings attached. Advertising click-throughs pay for the site's success, so take note of the site's corporate supporters and feel free to click through.

You're in good company. As of January 3, Freerice registered its millionth user.

Poetry Thursday: E. Ethelbert Miller

It's been my pleasure to meet and work with amazing people because I am a writer and teacher.

My students, for starters.

And among the grown-ups, one of the greatest is E. Ethelbert Miller, a gentle and intense force for poetry, education, and justice in Washington, D.C. and the nation.

This past week I found myself invited to Ethelbert's home, the purpose of which visit was to view The Big Heads, two fantastic charcoal portraits of Ethelbert made by artist Pete Petrine many years ago, and most recently displayed as part of a celebration of Ethelbert's career and life at Project 60 in 2010, sponsored by Gelman Library at The George Washington University.

Now the Big Heads are seeking a permanent home and, well, Ethelbert asked me if we could put our heads together about it. Can't say more at the moment.

So on a cool January evening, John and I took Miss Mo* to check out The Big Heads. Also present at this auspicious occasion was Rebbe, a gimlet-tempered Tuxedo cat who holds his own in any social setting, but excels on the front porch.

While Mona blithely wrote at the dining room table of the poet, we talked about a lot of stuff.

That's artist talk for "a lot of stuff."

Talking about a lot of stuff with Ethelbert Miller is about the best way to talk about stuff, hands down. And in honor of his great skills at stuff-about-talking, I here dedicate today's Poetry Thursday to one of his great and most compact poems, packed with good stuff, "What Does E Stand For?"

What Does E Stand For?

Everything

Each eye exists embracing exceptional emerald evenings 

Evolution explains Eden's evil 

Earth's ecology equates exploitation evaporation 

Errors ending evergreen elms 

Escort elephants eagles elks eastward 

Enlightenment echoes Ezra Ezekiel 

Enlist Esther Eugene Ethan Edward Ellington 

Enough English explanation ecco 

Exit eternity 

Elucidate Ethelbert elucidate 

E evokes every ecstatic emotion

From How We Sleep On the Nights We Don't Make Love by E. Ethelbert Miller, published by Curbstone Press. Copyright © 2004 by E. Ethelbert Miller. Reprinted by the Academy of American Poets by permission of Curbstone Press. Provided here in the spirit of fair use and creative common.s All rights reserved by the poet.

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*heretofore dubbed Lady Day by Ethelbert,  for reasons unknown but greatly appreciated. She is spirited, beautiful, tells the unvarnished truth as she sees it, and even sings beautifully; but I don't think she otherwise compares closely to the only other Lady Day I know.  From now on, here on CB and in conversations with Ethelbert, Lady Day she shall be.