A thousand dollars.  That’s what Stasha is giving us to play with this week. Having just been told that my life choices were less than fantastic by my eleven-year-old son, I decided to cut him out of this listicle (HA! that’ll show him, right?) and asked the seven-year-old, instead.

Caleb: $1000! wow. Okay. I’d buy – wait, how much does a mansion cost?

Me: More than $1000, sorry.

Caleb, rallying: That’s okay. So number one, I’d buy an apartment like Thiery Henry’s apartment in New York, with three floors. Three attached floors.

(Thiery, for those of you who are not soccer-crazed second-graders, is a European footballer who now plays for the Red Bulls, in New Jersey. He lives in a triplex apartment in the same building where one of Caleb’s best friends in New York lives. The friend, needless to say, does not live in a triplex, or even a duplex. The friend lives in a one-plex, but the friend has, in fact, been in the Henry apartment. Caleb lives in hope that somehow, someday, he too will wrangle an invitation)

Caleb: Number two…all new legos. Especially the Lord of the Rings Legos. I’d go to the Lego Store and just buy everything. Number three…I’d buy some books. And number four, new cleats. I’d buy as many different pairs as I could. And that’s all I can think of.

Me: Just four things? An apartment, legos, books, cleats?

Caleb: Yeah. No, wait, I think I would give money to hobos. Why do they call them hobos, anyway?

Me: I don’t know.

Caleb: Do they come from Hoboken?

Me: Seriously? I have no idea.

A thousand bucks, in Caleb-land, goes a long way.

In my life, a thousand dollars doesn’t go quite so far, I have to say, but usually I could put together a pretty nifty list of Stuff.  My appetite for Stuff, however, has taken a hit since I finished Half the Sky, which talks about oppression and opportunity for women in developing countries. So my thousand-dollar list now looks more like this:

Sponsor kids’ soccer teams in Africa, the way this organization does: Grassroots Soccer

Donate to one of the hospitals that’s working to repair fistulas and other catastrophic injuries incurred during childbirth: Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital

Or maybe I’d donate one of the Abu Dhabi safe houses, where women (usually domestic workers) can go for help, shelter, and advice if their workplace has become unsafe. There aren’t websites available for these safe houses, but they rely primarily on donations and volunteer efforts.

And then because…well…I do have a weakness for shiny things (in another life I was probably a crow or a magpie: oooh! shiny! who cares if it’s tinfoil!), maybe I’d get myself one of these here rings, from BLGK Goldsmiths, in Amsterdam. I’ve never actually been to this shop, but ooh, pretty pretty pretty!

a note about the charities listed here: I’ve not researched these thoroughly, so other than the Half the Sky Foundation, listing these organizations here is not an endorsement or a recommendation, just a thought about what it would be nice to do if a gal had an extra grand burning a hole in her pocket.