Last month, I started this new club after reading an article in the New Yorker. The article was about this mega-church and the way the guy who created it keeps his members engaged is by assigning them to "small groups." These small groups meet, talk and pray weekly, and this creates a bond with the larger church that they're all affiliated with. What caught my attention was that the people in these small groups tend to be much more involved in the church and to do much more community service than those who are not in the groups. My immediate thought was: It sucks that this kind of thing only really exists in a religious setting.

Then, I decided to do something about that. So, I started a club called (somewhat jokingly) The Good Girls Club. I decided to keep it all women because I feel like it's easier for a single-sex group to bond, even when they are strangers. And I just like all-woman groups. I guess it's my personal bias. It's basically like a book club or a knitting club, but for community service. Right now, we meet twice a month: once to plan and once to do a community service activity. I have invited various female friends to join. There are about 6 people in The Good Girls right now, although the first two activities were only attended by two other members and me.

It's been really fun so far. Our first community service act was to go down to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and help sort and box up food on a Saturday morning. That was a very satisfying project, because it involved hard work and you could really see exactly how you were helping people. It also really brought home how serious the hunger problem is in Los Angeles.

Our second project was making Valentine's Day cards for a hospice care company. We ended up making 240 cards, mostly because my friend Natalie had this amazing assembly line that cranked out gorgeous handmade Valentines (which I foolishly forgot to photograph). But, all three of us worked hard, and it was fun to do some goofy arts and crafts for a good cause. The volunteer coordinator at the hospice was super-excited to get the cards, and she gave me a big hug when I dropped them off. Again, it was a very satisfying project.

So, in two months, we've done two good projects. I guess I'd like it if we could do more, but we're all very busy women who are very focused on our careers and friends and relationships, so I think one project a month may be all we can handle for a while.

I'm not sure what we'll do as our March project, but I am excited to figure it out. I'll post about it once we've decided.

Recently, I heard something on the radio that reinforced a feeling I have daily at work: bottled water is bad. At my work, there is a seemingly endless supply of bottled water and people drink it non-stop. I have no problem with everyone drinking water, but I just wish they would bring a reuseable container to drink it out of. It seems so wasteful to go through 2 or 3 bottles of water a day when you can just refill your container from the big water dispenser anytime. I used to just reuse a disposable bottle for a week or so (and write my name on the cap), but even that seemed dumb. So now I bring in a nice $2 reuseable water bottle I bought. Then, this week I heard a story on the radio that let me know the bottled water issue is worse than I thought.

Apparently, bottled water is the 2nd most popular beverage in the U.S., after soda. This strikes me as somewhat crazy because in most places in this country, tap water is perfectly fine. Where I grew up, in San Antonio, tap water was delicious. Here in LA, it's sometimes a little weird-tasting, but still safe to drink.

What's interesting is the bottled water is not necessarily cleaner or safer than tap water. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, who recently conducted a bottled water study, current bottled water regulations are inadequate to assure consumers of either purity or safety. In fact, the standards for bottled water are lower than those for city tap water. Oh, and despite the fact that bottled water is marketed as safer and more pure than tap, one fourth of it actually IS tap water--although it's beetween 240 and 10,000 times more expensive.

But that's not even the worst part. Bottled water actually hurts the environment far more than it protects human beings. According to the Earth Policy Institute, the manfacturing of the bottles for all the bottled water drunk in the U.S. each year uses as much crude oil as 10,000 cars. And disposal of the PET plastic used for water bottles is an even bigger problem. Burning PET creates chlorine and heavy metals, and if you don't burn them, bottles take 1000 years or more to biodegrade in a landfill. Recycling helps, but it still uses up resources to transport and reprocess the plastic. Basically, those empty bottles are bad news.

So, it seems like it's time to stop being suckered by the marketing of bottled water and get back to drinking plain old tap. OR, there's always a nice water filter on your faucet if you can't stand the taste of LA tap.