American Idol, Fresh Market, Walking


I was moved by the performance of Josh Groban and the African Children’s Choir (http://www.africanchildrenschoir.com/) on American Idol. They sang “You Lift Me Up”. This was the Idol gives back show where they were raising money to help needy children all over the world. It was an excellent fundraiser with many truly emotional moments. I liked the Children’s Choir because they acted like kids. They were obviously told to smile and enunciate because many of the kids were taking it to the extreme. They were not well disciplined about looking forward and acting right. They were looking around at everything – but when they were supposed to sing they were on their marks and sounded great. Today, Friday, Ellen had Josh and the kids repeat their performance and it was just as moving even out of the context of the Idol fundraiser.


We went to Fresh Market this morning. After seeing Idol this week with all the need in the world, particularly the amount of starvation that exists, the Fresh Market presents a shocking contrast. Nothing but the best in produce, meats, prepared foods, breads, and deserts. Walking through the store with all this abundance just felt wrong. I always am amazed at the high quality and quantity of food at the Fresh Markets. I’ve never seen anybody really doing a full shopping trip in one. Mainly it is walking around gawking at the great stuff and looking for something you can afford – did I mention they are expensive? We did get some fruit and a dried cranberry/ pistachio nut mix. Penny assures me that if we were in the store at the right time it is wall-to-wall people buying for their stay at the condos.


Later, as I took my walk through the neighborhood I was taking note of the number of boats, swimming pools and just the sheer number of cars people own. We truly have it good. We are safe, secure and very well fed.


I did make a donation to Idol Gives Back I wonder if this will be an annual event or a one-shot deal. We’ve seen the one shot deals before. We Are The World, Feed The World, etc. A lot of money is raised, many people are helped but the problem never goes away. At least this is money and effort going to combat a real problem rather than an imagined one like global warming.