If I Had Million Dollars (Barenaked Ladies)

Here's a fun song that always makes me smile:


Obviously very tongue in cheek, a la Barenaked Ladies' style. Some of the things they would buy "me" with a million dollars:
- A house
- Furniture for that house
- A K-car

Here are some things that are buyable for $1 million:
A Luvaglio London laptop
OR
A Ferrari Enzo
OR
A 19.15 carat diamond


Or, at GlobalGiving, you could:

Provide livestock to improve health and economic prosperity for 100 families still struggling after the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir
AND
Build a school for 300 poor kids in India who will otherwise end up on the streets
AND
Fund HIV education and sports programs for 5000 girls in Zambia
AND
Protect 180,000 square feet of rainforest and plant 6,000 trees in Australia
AND
Provide vaccinations to 5700 poor kids in China
AND
Build a school for indigenous children in Guatemala
AND
Teach 2,000 women refugees in Sudan about their rights
AND
Provide 3,600 former boy-soldiers in Afghanistan with education
AND
Support a year's worth of programming for Katrina kids at the Baton Rouge Boys & Girls Club

WHAT'S THE BETTER INVESTMENT OF A MILLION DOLLARS? YOU DECIDE.

Trying Again, This Time with a Theme

My last post in my now defunct old blog was entitled, "I don't get blogging." And to some degree I continue to feel that way. On one level the notion that anybody besides my mom really cares, much less would read, what I write about online seems the ultimate in self aggrandizement and narcissism. On the other hand, it is kinda fun to read other peoples' blogs when they are well written, have a unique angle or I learn something by reading them. And then there was the issue of my attention span - what would keep me interested enough to post regularly?

And on a flight home to DC from LA on Friday it hit me. Music. If there is anything that has consistently kept my interest for my conscious life it has been music. From singing in Oliver in 2nd grade, to pretending to be Laurie Partridge, playing organ on the back of my parents' couch, to locking the door and blasting Led Zeppelin, writing out the words to the Allman Brothers for my brother Chuck (all before the age of 18)...to listening to Pandora at work at GlobalGiving to making playlists for my Women's Foundation friends out of the 4,586 songs I currently have on my iPod. Music has been a constant, and joyful part of my life. Every day.

What struck me on that plane Friday? Why write? Why music? One reason was that Friday I had the total pleasure of meeting a woman who is a legend in American music - Carole Bayer Sager. When I was a teenager, her songs were the soundtrack to many of my days and nights - I must've listened to "Midnight Blue," sung by Melissa Manchester, about 200 times. And recently she was introduced to GlobalGiving and thinks what we are doing is great. So one of my colleagues and I visited with her over lunch at her home in LA. And over lunch among her platinum records, her guitars signed by Dylan, Springsteen and Sting, and her studio, I felt energized, alive, fired up.

And on the plane flying back, listening to a mix of music that spans my eclectic tastes, I decided that I could actually find something that would keep my attention - and maybe provide that frame for some musings that would be worth writing down. Who cares who reads them (other than mom), if it's a chance for me to think about, and reflect on, my favorite music.

Tomorrow, the first song in the playlist