Growing Up

I am convinced that my sisters and i grew up to be such voracious readers because of one nightly ritual that my mother practiced with each of us. Now i am doing the same thing with the little revolutionary. Each night we fluff up the covers and snuggle down together to read before bed. For the past five years it's been a short stack of kid books -- Dr. Suess and Tomie de Paola, The Berenstein Bears and Richard Scarry... it seems that even with the 26 years that separate my daughter and me, the canon of kid classics remains the same. Now, thanks to a set of Ramona Quimby books donated by my co-worker (thanks, Matt B!), we are on to reading kid-length novellas. For the past week or so we have been catching up on Ramona's antics in kindergarten -- a worthy topic, since the kiddo is headed to "big kid school" herself in just a few short months. When Ramona is done, i look forward to having Laura Ingalls Wilder, Judy Blume, and Pippi Longstocking fill up my daughter's thoughts as she drifts off to dreamland.

And with the graduation into big-kid books, i am trying to get her into her big-kid bed. I admit it. This single mama has been curling herself around a warm little body all this time, and frankly, i see nothing wrong with it. Except that everyone around me seems to think it's just not cool. I could say that this queen longs to stretch herself over the whole of her queen-sized bed, flopping my legs in whatever position i want to. Or i could say that i want the damn covers all to myself. But that's just not really the case. Truth is, it's just all of you that lead me to believe she shouldn't be sharing my bed anymore. "She still sleeps in your bed? What?!"

Me, i have the panicked thoughts of a fire breaking out in the middle of the night, and her not being able to open the 1940's window that sits by her bed. I think about the feet that don't seem to get cold at night, when there's a little hotbox next to me. I think about the sweet way we wake up together each morning, her pretending she's not awake, just so i can kiss her eyes open. But somehow, you all are beginning to win.

And maybe there's also the slight hope that someday, i will have a big pair of feet keeping mine warm in the night.

So tonight, for the first time since Christmas Eve, when i told her that Santa would not come unless he could see her sleeping in her own bed, she is laid out under the sweet pink-and-white covers, that thus far have hardly been used. Across the hall, i'll keep my door ajar... half-hoping to hear the slap of five-year-old feet on the wood floor in the middle of the night.

If you're not outraged yet...

If you have yet to be affected by this economic crisis by seeing your 401k drop, or losing your job, then this set of articles is unlikely to unsettle you. But if you have been affected by the afore-named set of problems or others related to the crisis, or if you are just imbued with a sense of justice, then you are likely going to feel like firebombing someone.

Take a deep breath...

Stimulate This!!

Two stimulus packages passed today in Oregon's Senate and the U.S. House. They both still have to be approved by the other legislative branch. But in thinking about this problem, a columnist at the Seattle P.I. (soon to be closing its doors too) brought this up:

Should America be spending money it doesn't have to restore standards of living which were driven artificially high by the housing bubble?

I love our new president, don't get me wrong. But i still have to wonder, even in my current position of facing down unemployment, if any of this is stimulus stuff going to help me. Or if it's just going to screw over the next generation, and if we all need to start settling for less.

Then i ask myself, what can i do to settle for less, or go more DIY? I am gardening and raising chickens. From the mindset of the employed, these seemed to be at least a start. I also reuse stuff that other people normally buy new each time, and i spend hardly any money on clothes or restaurants. My current going-out budget has been snipped down to zero. But even with those practices already in place, it ain't gonna cut it. The sad little green onions and three eggs a day i'm getting right now won't feed us very long, should we really need to survive off the fruits of the backyard. So what else?

I broke down my must-have budget today. It requires $1400 a month, just to pay the basic bills -- house, car, insurance, electric... barring my kid's school payment, barring any money i would spend on food, barring the child care i would need to fly off to interviews. Or the gas i would need to drive there. I could pare this down by taking on another roomate, but beyond that, i don't know what i could do. Moving into a smaller place will really not solve anything, since my current roomate helps make my rent payment equivalent to any small apartment i might find in this city. I can't sell my car, cuz i still owe more than it's worth.

So what else? What do you think? How can we really get more DIY -- because 1400 bucks is just about what the government will give me, should i have to file for unemployment...

The Breaking of the World

"Lo, she was alone, at the breaking of the world..."

I sat outside last night as low clouds moved overhead, frigid temperatures making my breath puff out in sad white bursts. The clouds were moving from west to east, and crackling most eerily as they did so. I'd never heard a sound so mysterious and ominous in all my life.

For decades, young American kids have packed their tatty gym bags and headed out west, as if whatever was ailing them would be remedied by a sharp blast of Pacific air. Now, as unemployment soars close to double digits, a good number of those kids sit simpering on their back porches, dreaming of better days back home. Oregon is my chosen home and i defend that fact fiercely. But as the clouds moved back east last night, it seemed that the world was moving me back home, breaking my resolve and liberal-bubble contentment. But i won't do it. I will fight; start a daycare, or a dogwalking business, if i have to. I will rip the warm covers off each morning with a fresh burst of energy, to do battle with the dark duo of soaring unemployment and media hype, and find myself some way to make a living. Other people are doing it, why can't i? I am still employed and yet i look at the waiter at the patisserie and envy his confident bustle. He's employed, now why shouldn't i be?

Friends tell me i am bitter that my hippie dream world only lived to see the light of about one half-day. Hark, you know me so well. But this roil in my gut has always been what motivates me best. Friends, i apologize to you for the harsh brush i paint my life with. I didn't mean to cut you with it too. You motivate me with your love and positivity, and don't think for a minute that it's not appreciated, just because it comes back out my wordhole as spite and malice. It wasn't directed toward you.

I'm just fighting, fighting...

fighting for my life and all i ever dreamed it could be...

How fast the pendulum swings

I've stopped shedding tears so now i suppose it's time to write.

One minute i was sitting breathless in a chair in my living room, while the words that started with "I, Barack Hussein Obama" put the nation on a new hopeful path, and i was filled with justice and dignity...

and the next i was poring over the bad checks that had been written with my checkbook, but not my own hand. And the next day my bosses doubled up on me in the fancy office upstairs, making me breathless with the words that started with "well you know your contract is up..."

And we're going to downsize you because of it. You, the single mama, perhaps the most vulnerable employee on the newsroom floor. You, who alternately loves and hates this job with the quick swing of a pendulum. You, who hasn't saved a dime in all this heady time of having a Real job. You.

You never think it's going to happen to you. In all the times my fingers flew over the keys, writing broadcast copy about the people who were losing their jobs all over this planet, i never thought it would be me. It's funny, because we laugh and joke at work about how so many of the people we interview on the street about crimes in their neighborhood end up popping off a soundbite that goes something like "geez, I never thought it could happen here..."

Yet i really just never thought it could happen here. Even when the neighbors next door calmly told me they were out of work, while they smoked hurried cigarettes on their back deck. Even when ten of my co-workers disappeared overnight, just months ago.

So i have sent off a handful of resumes and cover letters already in these last couple days, hoping they adequately mask my desperation about having an expiration date on security. I look at my daughter now and silently apologize for the fact that i may not be able to give her health insurance, in a matter of about two months. I get pissed when she asks for another My Little Pony, because i fear that i won't have the luxury of buying her one if i wanted to. I drift off to gentle dreamland at her bedtime, because it's easier to dream the night away than burn the midnight oil, searching the want ads. Then i wake up and remember that i have a life to fight for. My livelihood as i know it is almost cast to the curb, so i wake and resolve to stay up later the next night.

So here i am.

National Day of Service 1.19.09

My little revolutionary and i will be taking part in the National Day of Service tomorrow, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There are dozens of events going on in this area to commemorate the event... from planting trees, pulling weeds, food drives, clothing drives, and marches. President-elect Barack Obama's site calls it a day to "renew America together." If you wanna find an event near you (and chances are you'll find one, with 10,000 going on nationwide), here's the link:

Martin Luther King's National Day of Service Events

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

Martin Luther King

Helping in Gaza

BBS photo archive

I know i say this every time something terrible happens, but a show this morning on KBOO'S Positively Revolting reminded me again. I have to hand it to the people at KBOO for keeping most shows timely and bringing on great local guests who are directly involved in various community building efforts that affect people worldwide.

Today's show featured Nael Saker, who works with the Arab American Cultural Center of Oregon, and was born in Gaza. He has lived in Oregon for eighteen years, and is now an American citizen, but Mr. Saker has four sisters and a brother currently living in Gaza.

Saker also talked this morning about the important work of Mercy Corps during the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. If you have one, five or a thousand dollars to give to help people in Gaza get food and medicine, please do so through this wonderful, locally-based organization.

If you've ever called 911 and had an ambulance come to your door within minutes, consider yourself lucky. Saker says 16 ambulances are all the 1.5 million people in Gaza have to serve the hundreds of wounded and dying.

If you are in need of daily medicine and are able to go to the pharmacy each time you need it, consider yourself blessed. And yesterday, Israeli forces bombed a UN compound where food and supplies were stored. This story was hard to find from Western sources -- but anyway it is important to read international news sources to circle in on the truth...

Medicines are sparse already in Gaza, and now that people can go out only three hours a day to get them, some are going without. Even with the humanitarian aid coming in from organizations like Mercy Corps, they are only allowed to deliver it three hours a day. I have heard that even during those three hours, many people are too scared to go out to get them. Imagine the fear that keeps a father from going to get food and medicine for his children. Then imagine yourself, from your comfortable American home, helping in one of the few ways you can. Revolution time!

Beautiful day in the morning

Paul Coates

A viewer sent this in this morning... mere minutes after i remarked to myself what a gorgeous morning it was, with the streaks in the sky, the pale half moon, and Hood peeking up in the East...

Back from Away

Makoa in the sink-tub
The whole fam-damily
Our kids stayed on the dance floor all night at Kassi Knudsen's wedding


Spent five days back in the Black Hills last week, enough time to get caught up on what my nephew's doing these days (becoming quite the little jock, shouting "yeeeaahh!!" during football commercials); enough time to be reminded how much colder the Midwest is than here, even when Oregon's in the midst of a snowstorm (people on the streets of Rapid City remark with delight, "oh, it's going to be 35 tomorrow"), and enough time to be reminded how we take our scores of excellent restaurants for granted, even in this shady section of Southeast (i remark, at the most tolerable Rapid City pub, how my salad is made of all iceberg lettuce. I get home and have a hash of winter vegetables, fresh eggs and goat cheese at the corner cafe'.).

But it's the reflection on the passage of time that strikes me most when i head back home. How my friends and i refresh ourselves on what we were doing five, ten years ago, the last time we met. How much you see who you once were through your old friends' eyes, and how much you really are that same person. Since then you've just gotten to tweak it a little, to deal with the present time.

How our friends left some question hanging out there those many years ago, and we needed to know how it came out. Kristine, remember the time we were extras in that movie, "Overnight Delivery"? Did you ever see it? I didn't...

Linz, remember when i brought my college friends to the Black Hills, and we slept at your grandparents' cabin (but we didn't have to sneak in there, for once), and then we took the four-wheelers out and you shouted how we should all take our shirts off as we sped through the forest? What ever happened to those four-wheelers?

Jaime and Chris, remember that?

When you return to the scene of so many years of dreaming, something profound is bound to happen. At least once in a while. You get to see whether you've arrived at those heights you thought you would. You get to hear the ghosts of the people you've failed, maybe even be present again at the very spot where they failed you. Maybe you laugh a little because the whole time you were making up those things you'd do, you really didn't believe they'd come true. Yet here you are, and they did.

These trips back home are some of the marking points in your life, where perhaps you even pick up some of the dreams you'd left behind when you flew away the first, second, third fourth fifth time...