Sugar, He Brings Me Sugar.....

Tori and her band were smoking hot on Friday night, folks! And yes, totally worth the 140 mile round trip journey in hectic bay area traffic. Tori was having this performance taped for a DVD, so everything was slick, cameras everywhere, fancy lights, etc.
Tori performed one of my all time favorite tunes, Sugar. I found a live version of Sugar from a few years back, it's totally rocking. I hope you will give it a whirl.

..."I know your noodle can hold a lot of information, but don't you think you can remember how many sugars a girl takes in her tea after nine months?"

In other news, I'm just a busy gal, sewing away and trying to get all the things done that need to be done before India. Just 10 more days, people, can you believe it? Now normally, I just toss my toothbrush and the 3 red tshirts (haha, Karenji, yes they are coming along!) into a backpack, bubble wrap up some Sonoma shiraz for Maheshji, grab my passport, and I'm off.

This year is a totally different story folks. As you know, Mr Ratburn is comng along with me to India as we celebrate 20 years of "wedded bliss". I can't think of a better way to rejoice and tell the world, "look, we made it 20 years, and neither of us has killed the other!"

What this also means that Little Rita, who is staying with friends while we are in India, has to be bubble wrapped, packed and stuffed into a back pack as well. You know what I mean.

Now over in India, we have two new babies, so I am bringing a slew of gifts for them, the shiraz, some vintage dead tapes, two wind up human powered flashlights for my pals in Bedrock, India,(torches, they call 'em. How cute!) and a bunch of other gifts too.

After you've been to India a few times, you start to figure out that there are lots of things you can do, and lots of ways you can help to deal with some of the major problems that a country of 1.3 billion people must deal with. One of the things that I like to do, is to bring as much paper, pens and pencils as I can stuff into my backpack to give to the kids. I have learned that a lot of school kids are waiting to be the lucky recipient of a travelers expensive "school pen", and not the cheap pens that I hand out, but if I bring out those pens in a small village where you cannot go into a shop and buy a pen, they just arent available, I am quickly surrounded by children wanting those cheap "school pens".

I am so excited to tell you people that this year I walked into the local drug store in town, and the manager, who knows about my India travels, asked me if I still needed pens for my trip this year. When I said yes, he pointed to a grocery cart full of packages of cheap pens that had expired. (Did you know that pens have an expiration date on them? I did not know that!)

The store manager said to me, "take as many of these as you want, and pay me $1. plus tax, because I have to send them all back to the company."

I now have about 500 pens that I purchased for one dollar.

Then, as if that wasnt cool enough, I convinced the owner of our local print shop to donate some paper for the cause. They sell these adorable little note pads that they make in the back room from scrap paper, and I mentioned that the children would love those. The owner said the little notepads take some work and he has to pay labor for that, so I agreed to receive loose paper.

The following week, when I went back to pick up the paper, I was presented with a box full of those tiny little note pads, free of charge. Hey, I cant wait to teach the rascals how to make a flip book!

School pen, madam?

So there you have it, the generosity of others. What a cool thing!

Have a lovely day, people!

10India