Most important comes the news that Barbara Seranella who so recently was so ill and had two, count 'em two, liver transplants is OUT of the ICU. This is pretty awesome, I say. She's of course still hospitalized, and will be for a while and still not visitable (I KNOW that's not a word) but she should be detached from various tubes and machines pertty damn soon. Slightly deeper breath everyone.

Of less importance is the happy factoid that I seem once again to be OFF crutches and back to using my cane, although oy vey, I hurt. But the massive difference helps psychologically (look, I can carry my own coffee cup! Huzzah!) as well as physically, oh my GOD my shoulders. Be vewy quiet, we don't want them noticing.

And on the good vibes ticket, some of you might notice that up there, on the list of links I have one that reads "free books". That brings you to "the Literacy Site" which is a "click for free" charity site. Money collected goes to "First Book" a national organization that provides books to children; its aim is to see that kids who do not have a book to call their own get them. I found them a few years ago while looking for a cool way to celebrate my mother's 75th birthday because, well hell, one of the many things I like about my mother is that she always encouraged me to read. She got them to give me an adult library card when it wasn't usually okay to do that. We used to read poetry to each other, we had books. The other sites, which are all linked, are equally cool; they include donation sites to save the rainforest, feed animals in shelters, help fund mammograms for women who can't afford them, feed hungry people all over the world, and support children's health in a number of ways, which again includes one of my favorite organizations, the Prosthetics Outreach Foundation.

So the other day I went shopping on the sites and one of the things I got was 10 of those stretchy "cause" bracelets you see - usually on kids under the age of um, 52. I think the trend was begun by Lance Armstrong for his foundation. I wear three of them; one for Lance, the yellow "LiveSTRONG" one; one for breast cancer research (it's cool, it's from the Athena water company, which exists SOLELY as a fundraiser - a sort of Paul Newman "Newman's Own" writ very small, and they're based in Seattle and Athena was apparently started by a woman I went to college with). The blue bracelet is from the Moyer Foundation and is a tsunami relief fundraiser; Jamie Moyer's a Seattle Mariner's pitcher, does huge good stuff in the community an around the world and I trusted where he'd use it. The money from the big $2 purchase supports Asiana Education Development which does stuff like build schools and provide homes for kids affected by poverty and now the tsunami.

So some time before Bouchercon, I'll be getting ten orange stretchy bracelets from the "literacy site". You can't buy one bracelet; they come in sets of ten, or 100, or cases of 1000 I guess. If you're at Bouchercon and want one, come find me. They're free or a buck. If you're NOT at Bcon and you want one, email me. I'll mail one to you for a buck and postage, which probably is less than 50 cents. They're not my fave color, but they say "Open books open minds" and they help bring books to children who might not otherwise own a single book.

Anyone else got a cool cause? I might want the bracelet (only if the bracelet's been bought directly though - there's too much reselling and the profits aren't going to the right places). I've always worn my politics on my lapel and still do - now I get to be a big spender with my left arm.