Let us plant the seed and watch it grow

I am so sorry for that lyric- if you don't recognize it, I won't be the one to earworm you with it- but it's what fits the situation perfectly. I'm also timorous about even getting into this whole thing here, because (a) it's pushy and weepy and all that, and (b) there's a lot of the story I've learned in confidence that I can't share. Still, it needs to be done, and I will deeply appreciate anyone who listens, even more anyone who helps.

( So there's this friend of ours who works at the church.... )

Finished? Didn't read it? Don't matter. I couldn't tell you half the story anyway. Suffice it that we have a friend in real life who needs help, and I am determined to do something about it.

Behold: Something About It.

Here's where your seeds can fall on "good soil." On March 27, we will attend the fundraiser for X, and will donate all proceeds received in response to this call to action. Additionally, Eleanor and I will match those donations, dollar-for-dollar, up to a total of an additional $500 that you put in by that date.  In turn, the Lutherans will match (or at least say they will match) everything we donate a third time round. Once I know that total, I will go back to our congregation and challenge them to match IT.

( A few disclaimers and whatnots: )

Thank you for whatever, if ever, you do, and know that I appreciate you even just reading and thinking about this.

"What do you MEAN you won't deliver 8,000 pizzas?"

I just passed along a snarky comment about my former days in the Peoples Republic of Ithaca, in response to Eleanor referencing buying some old-school whole milk from down yonder at Farmers & Artisans. A Googling brought me to this entry, from a blog titled Ithaca is Doomed, which makes fun of the relatively few McMansions that sprouted down around Cayuga's waters in recent years, compared to their proliferation in other parts of the country:

Where I used to live, though, Northern Virginia, I watched the gradual invasion of McMansions from the late 80’s to the heights of the real estate bubble. It was a gradual phenomenon at first, as one neighbor would buy a piece of prime country land, land that used to be a dairy farm or corn field, and build a garish monstrosity. Soon, neighbors were trying to outdo one another in a game of détente. Once the developers caught on to the trend, you might drive by a forest during your morning commute, and on the way home, it would be there—the access road and the ridiculous sign for “Bumfuck Egypt Estates Farms” or some pseudo English horseshit like “Kensington Manor.” In a week, what used to be viable farm land or forest would be chock a block with Chinese drywalled McMansions, their granite countertops leaking out their radioactive isotopes into the American dream addled brains of their inhabitants, the ones who’d paid for them with “interest only loans.”

This description immediately reminded me of the most garish local example of the phenomenon. It's a few miles northeast of here, where the English affectation he describes is butted right up against its Italian cousin:



Yup. Pygmalion meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.