Gazelle-like intensity

Today's title, borrowed from financial self-helper Dave Ramsey, pretty much sums up my intentions for the next few month...weeks...as long as it takes. Because we've had a few precious, precious bits of good news and encouragement. A little good news--even just a little--has proven enough to buoy us up, as long as we stare at it intently.
Some of the good news I'm allowed to talk about, and some I am not. The first bit of good news: Mike won second place for his column from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and is picking it up in California this weekend. Nothing like a national award to enhance the resume. But that aside, there's also a cash award that goes along with it. While it's not the Lotto, it will make it possible for us to enroll our daughter in public school and pay Mike's quarterly life insurance without dipping into the safety net. Anything that involves cash is, for us, a beacon of hope.
I mentioned yesterday that the main push on the book is done (for us, though not for our editors and designer). Fun as it has been, putting together all that copy so quickly was taking every single minute of our "off" time from piano teaching and column writing. Of course there's still the editing process. But that shouldn't be nearly as much of a fire drill as the writing and interviewing were. So with any luck, there should be more time to look about for other ways to raise our income.
One possibility is selling off some of the construction stuff left behind by our house's previous owner. Mike's already been into it and it looks like we have some old-house stuff that might fetch us a few extra bucks.
There's that, and the fact that some aspects of the economy seem to be improving. No matter what happens to newspapers, it would be great to see some alternative jobs popping back up. All we need is some extra time to look, which should now open up. There's only so much stuff we have to sell.
All this has kept the despair away--as long as I don't allow myself to think about the haters. Never underestimate the power of the haters. That week Mike was getting thrashed by O'Reilly, out there on a limb, making the Star look good. That week he had a constant stream of bile, thinly veiled threats and out-of-thin-air posts--most of which he insisted on reading to me. You're just trying to raise your kids and live your life, and these people will bring you down in an instant, apparently for the sin of disagreeing with them. It's very hard to stay positive when you have people out there willing to make any hateful thing up just to bring you down. On the one hand, I hate reading them. But on the other, we need to archive them. Nothing like a good archive to help you prove "malicious intent," should it ever come to that.

Fie on them. Let them go stew in their own juice. I've wasted too many sentences on them already and it's ruining my gazelle-like intensity on imagining a positive outcome to this year. Back to the fun.

Free Food

It was Barbecue Battle weekend in Lenexa--the Daddy of free food events for the summer. Yesterday my son and I spent the bulk of the afternoon wandering around Sar-Ko-Par, and flirting with heat stroke. But although the heat kept the big crowds away, there were still plenty of samples out of ribs, chicken, brisket, etc. One site even had a banner advertising the "Bacon Explosion" featured in the New York Times a few weeks ago. But sadly, there was no exploded bacon out when we passed by.
Here are a couple of pics:

Honey I'm Home

Ahhh. It's good to be back.
This week was the final big push for copy for the garden book. My daughter's been out of town, which helps keep us focused. So I've been keeping my nose into Microsoft Word for pretty much the whole week. No peeking around for other points of interest.
But it's done and the deadline met. For now. So after taking today off from sitting in front of a computer, I'm definitely on an emotional peak that even Michael Jackson's untimely death cannot bring me down from. Things are moving forward. Hopeful signs are ahead. And there's more good news to come. Tomorrow will be free food at the Lenexa Barbeque Battle.
Today it is easy to be an optimist.

Keep cool

Nothing lifts the spirits in hard times like the ability to save a little money. So today's post is dedicated to finding ways to save money on one of the biggest utility bill oinkers--the air conditioner.
I know what you're thinking. "Weenie. Where's your spine? Just man up and shut the thing off."
And okay, I get that. We could completely shut if off. We could do that.
But there's the matter of the long sharp knives in the kitchen. And Mike still has his pheasant gun. I couldn't guarantee anyone's safety, along about July 15.
So yes, we do use the air conditioner, for the sake of the piano students, if nothing else.
I've studied and experimented over the years, with different settings and strategies. When we lived at the house before this, we didn't have central air. Only a gigantic window unit downstairs that gave me a cold and ear infection both times we turned it on. And a smaller window unit upstairs that overtaxed that wiring and periodically caused all power in the house to shut down for hours lest it burst into flames.
Back then, when the boys were little, our air conditioning strategy was simple--use someone else's. So out of the house we'd go, most days, to the library, the swimming pool or a cheap movie sponsored by the PTA. On particularly hot nights, we'd reenact a scene from the 1910s and sleep on lawn chairs on the deck.

Now that we have reliable central air, we have to figure out what's the best way to run it once in a while and still afford food. Various experts suggest keeping the thermostat higher--at maybe 75 or 76. But really that still isn't enough. So over the years, we've devised this thermostat strategy:
1. The air doesn't go on in the first place until the indoor temperature reaches 85 degrees. I've identified 85 as our breaking point from careful observation. Are people throwing things down and bursting into tears? Usually that happens right at 85 degrees. Under 85? You can tough it out. It doesn't really matter what the temperature is outside.
2.Before it goes on, all fans must be running. We now have a fan in every room (except this one, where I'm writing. Too much comfort in the writing area just produces lethargy, I always say.)
3.The daytime setting is 78 and the nighttime setting 76. I find 78 feels so much cooler if 85 was your high.
4.In the morning we turn the air off but leave the windows closed and fans on, if the night was warm. The house usually keeps its cool until mid afternoon. If possible, we try to stick it out until evening before turning it on again. If the night is cooler, we go ahead and open the windows first thing.
5.We do turn it on earlier for piano students. It's hard to concentrate on a lesson or anything else if you're fingers are sticking to every surface you touch. In fact concentration pretty much goes the way of temper once you hit 85.

There are some psychological tricks as well. I never allow anyone to say it's hot. And whenever possible, I keep perfectly still and do not move.
I think this is the cheapest way, but I'm not 100 percent sure. Some say it costs more to cool down from 85 than it would have to keep it running at 78. It's hard to know from our bills, because of variations in the rates and in the number of people living here. But...I don't...hold on a minute....oh dang, it's only 83.
Now where was I? Oh yeah. Anyway, I guess this way works as well as any, but I'm open to suggestion. Now I gotta get out of this room.

PS. Check out the link for Kansas City on the Cheap. This site lists all kinds of free and cheap deals including...OMG...Father's Day is this weekend. I completely forgot Father's Day. Gotta go.

Yeeaaagghhhhh!!!!!!

It's been a little over three months since the quasi layoff. A quarter, in fiscal terms. Looking back, I think the part I was most unprepared for was the weird emotional ride we've been on.
Calling it a roller coaster would be a cliche. But it's an apt one. The first month or so, we were on the screaming downside for what seemed like forever. Then we did a correction with a long, slow bout of hopefulness. Then another correction to the downside for days and days of sleeplessness.
Gradually, our downs and ups are getting shorter and shallower, and that's a good thing, I hope. Still, it seems like, just when I think I've got my fear and despair under control, just when I can go to yoga without worrying that I might cry quietly into my ears during the shavasana, some little thing comes along and throws me off.
The latest was this week. Generally, the garden book and piano teaching have kept me busy enough not to ruminate on the bad things. I was able to put enough money aside so our son could have a birthday present (a bike, used, but still good). So it's been a relatively happy week.
Tuesday, I opened the mail and found a pleasant surprise. Aetna had sent us a $112 check for "overpayment" on Mike's life insurance (he now must pay quarterly because of the loss of that benefit.)
Great, I thought. That will go toward the $209 it will cost to enroll my daughter in public school. Or the $160 to pay for car tags, neither of which is in our operating budget any more.
But no. When Mike checked, he found that Aetna had taken his last payment and applied it only to the remaining months in their quarter, which for some reason is different from ours. So we will have to send it right back, plus some more, at the end of this month.
This, for some reason, made me furious. I spent the rest of the day frothing about the injustice of probably having to pay extra for Aetna to process these two payments, when one would have sufficed. Not to mention the brief glimmer of hope, which was so unceremoniously snatched away.
But then today, I'm back up and normal. We may make it to pay day without dipping into savings for the first time, owing to lower utility bills. So...rage successfully repressed.
I could deal with this whole situation so much better if I knew for sure it was only temporary. I'm happy to work 80 hour weeks and forgo an occasional trip to the movies temporarily. I'd do it cheerfully, even.
The trouble is, I keep reading stories about unemployment where different people are profiled. And almost always, the person who still hasn't found another job after months and months is someone just our age. Damn it, I just don't know if I can make it for the rest of my life without a vacation or even an occasional restaurant meal.
I've developed a little mental exercise, and it's quite the reverse of what most positive-thinker gurus would advise. But it does seem to make me feel better. I just go ahead and imagine the very worst: Mike and I--considered too old to start anew--never find better employment. When the college loan forbearances end next March, we still can't pay and have to default. We get a bad credit report, but then we don't plan to borrow any money anyway.
My daughter graduates in four years. Can I hold on four more years? Yes, I think so. We go totally through our savings. But at least my daughter is out of the house and doesn't have to suffer with us. The house would be paid off in another four. Can I make it to then? Maybe. If I can just shut my eyes and hold on tight for eight more years, I'll only be 61. Still young enough to have a little fun, if I stay healthy. In eight years, surely, surely something good has to happen.
Oh well. Back to work now.
Here's a virtual ride on a Vegas coaster to get me back in the mood.

Santa on the Curb

One of the biggest things keeping me from being an optimist right now is, of course, our financial situation. No, that's too euphemistic. What I mean to say is "our lack of money." With such a huge pay cut in force, there's just enough for the basic necessities of life, but nothing for the occasional bit of fun. And when you're working extra, making less and not having much fun, it's hard to keep a cheery disposition, not that I ever had one in the first place.
So today I'd like to report on an annual activity that always makes me smile.
It's called trash picking, and it's an early summer tradition in our family.
Every spring Lenexans have one day designated to set stuff out on the curb that's too big for the weekly garbage collection. Stoves. Water heaters. Metal file cabinets. You get the picture.
Most people set it out the night before. So on Big Garbage Eve, there's a slow parade of junk shop pros. There's the pickup trucks full of all kinds of furniture. The flatbeds loaded with lawnmowers and tires.
And us, in our '90s conversion van.
Let's be clear. This is trash picking. Not dumpster diving (which involves dumpsters and sounds gross) or freecycling (which involves Internet groups and sounds cool. I just might sign up).
We've done trash picking for years--long before Mike's demotion and pay cut, lest anyone misdirect any pity. This is not about desperation and want. It's about adventure and serendipity. And I guess, since trash picking makes me feel resourceful and thrifty, I can claim to be an optimist, at least on this one subject.
Big Garbage Eve is better than Christmas. The budgeting and cooking and volunteering of Christmas leave us exhausted and emotionally in need. Big Garbage Eve leaves me feeling lucky and blessed--as if God really is looking out for us after all.
We got into the van last night with a fuzzy wish list. Our middle son will soon move into an apartment and needs a better desk. As for Mike and I, we just look for anything we might use.
Partly, it's about the thrill of the hunt. We watched the pros' trucks come through, then tried to find a route that would beat them to the biggest piles. Then we slowly trolled through the neighborhoods, with me getting out every so often to hold up items of interest.
Our haul for the night: A long folding table in very nice shape. A couple of missing screws was the only flaw we could see. A hand saw that looked pretty good once the rust was sanded off. A pet carrier that was a little chewed around the front. If our other son doesn't use it when he gets his cat(s), we'll keep it for ours. A wooden melon crate that can be fixed up to hold magazines or something. On an earlier trip, Mike found a girls' bicycle that needs a couple of tires.
We didn't find a desk. But all in all, not bad.
The recession hasn't seemed to affect the quality of trash, either. Only this: There seemed to be an unusually high number of old toilets out on the curb. We must have seen a dozen of them. Did someone come through selling toilets door to door this year?
I'm proud to say our sons seem to be carrying on the tradition. Our oldest recently told me he keeps an eye on the apartment trash when people move out, and has found some nice things.
We put in an order for a floor lamp.

Laugh with the Animals

The more I read, the more I think the laughing yoga people are on to something.
Latest evidence comes from the University of Portsmouth in Great Britain. Researchers there were curious about animal laughter. So they set about to map similarities between recorded sounds made by young apes and human babies as they were tickled. The sounds were then acoustically analyzed for similarities and differences.
Conclusion: Laughter shows a clear path down the evolutionary tree from. In other words, human laughter can be traced back 10 to 16 million years to a common ancestor of great apes and humans.
(for a synopsis of the study, click here)
On the road to finding this, I also stumbled across references to experiments with rats. Apparently they make high-pitched sounds when being tickled and played with. And they enjoy and seek out these vocalizations.




MSNBC science editor Alan Boyle writes in his blog that other researchers have found that animals do laugh. Neuroscientists are now studying whether that laughter has a healing effect. So there you are. Another case for laughing yoga (though I haven't been back in a while.)
This is some of the coolest research I've ever seen. So much better than what usually happens to rats in a lab. The very idea of giggling animals makes my inner Disney child delighted.

Also more conflicted than ever.
Animals can laugh? What else are they saying that we aren't hearing? Do they cry, too? How about despair? Can animals feel despair? If it's all about brain chemicals and evolution, can they also have nervous breakdowns? (Just going by our new puppy's behavior, I vote "yes". We all recognize the "crazy eye" he gets just before he goes rampaging through the house like a cackling maniac.)
And what about all those bears that are climbing trees in suburban neighborhoods? What do they want, really?

Just as all the research about early fetal development made everyone uneasy about abortion, I think knowing that animals can laugh might change the way we think about them and treat them. Johnson County, KS, for instance, is going to have a mass deer shoot to get rid of a surplus of deer in a park at the edge of Shawnee and Lenexa. While just about everyone agrees that something needs to be done to get things back in balance, it's unsettling to think about now. That little fawn we saw last night, probably no more than a week or two old. He'll be in with the mix of does and bucks that will be lured with bait to the waiting sharpshooters. Will they all be screaming?
So here's my plan of action for the week. Find an animal and make it laugh. It's the least we can do. Maybe it will take some of the sting about the bad human-induced things that are going on.
Our garden scarecrow probably sends the birds and squirrels into fits. That's a good start, I guess.

Do the right thing

I was flat on my back on the couch at the end of a lonnnng day a while back, when the above television commercial grabbed me by the throat and sat me up.
I guess it was the excellent acting. Or the camera and sound work. That moment when the grizzled guy starts his uncomfortable announcement about "changes" at work. The sick expressions on the wife's face. The silence of the kids. Suddenly I was right there, zeroed in. Tears were forming about the time he started talking about "promises we made, your mother and I...may have to be put on hold." Oh, God, do I really have to relive this now?
Then, the tag line, printed on the screen. "Doing the right thing says a lot about a person. And a company."
What the...?
Doing the right thing? Really? What right thing is that, exactly?
It's not too clear. About-to-be-laid-off guy talks about keeping expenses down. To me, though, that doesn't represent a choice. What else are they going to do but keep expenses down?
This doesn't look like a family that has a lot of extravagance to cut out to begin with. Apparently they have grandpa living with them.
So what right thing does Liberty Mutual--the company behind this ad--have in mind? Surely they're not suggesting that dad "accidentally" end up pinned beneath his tractor in an irrigation canal. Or that the wife and kids start trading in illegal prescription medicine.
Perhaps Liberty Mutual wants the family to do the right thing by becoming activists and union organizers, joining in anti-globalization marches.
I think not. Really, it looks to me like Liberty Mutual's idea of the "right thing" is to quietly accept the their station in life, cut back on even the tiniest of pleasures and never speak ill of the company. "The missus and I, we'll make due." Yeah, that sounds about right.
Okay, I know this sounds a little angry for an optimism post, but damn! This ad seems to me just a little bit clueless.
Turns out its part of a campaign called the "responsibility project," in which LM creates fictional problems to start a discussion about what the right thing to do would be. (Example: Pick up your own kids from soccer but leave their one friend alone waiting for his ride?) Go here for New York Times story.
Any other time, I'd be right on board with the positive messages of the responsibility project. Pay it forward? You bet. Optimistic belief in the good intentions of our neighbors usually brings out the feel-goods for me. This time, though, I feel the hot fires of cynicism flaring up.
I love it when insurance companies and bankers feel the need to educate us common folk about personal responsibility. It's the burden of the management class, I guess, to strengthen the moral fiber of the chronically lazy workers. Let's see how LM has done, responsibility-wise.
Hmmmm. Looks like they pulled away from the worst of the stock market's problem children just in time. To their credit. Let's see what else. Liberty Mutual, Liberty Mutual....
Ah, here it is. March, 2009. "Connecticut orders Liberty Mutual to pay nearly $930,000 in fines and restitution for overcharging thousands of customers, settling claims incorrectly and violating state laws in the appointment and licensing of agents." (Insurance Journal story here.)
And they think they've got something to teach us unemployed and under-employed people about ethical standards. Please.
Guys, how about this?
Scene: Well-dressed managers are seated around the boardroom table, exchanging small talk and shuffling papers. Leader nervously clears his throat and calls them to attention.
"There have been some, ah, changes going on in our sales and expenses. Profits are down and I don't know how far it will go. It will affect the money we have coming in. Some of the bonuses we've promised...may have to go on hold. But if we keep expenses down and we all tighten our belts, we can get through this."
Now there's an ad I'd like to see.

Visions of Hope

Wow. Was Monday really the last time I posted? With the book deadline looming at the end of the month, it's getting harder to have enough time to post. Maybe next month things will lighten up a bit.
On the way to writing that whole thing about the bird crap on the car window, I got sidetracked into collecting pictures of Mary and Jesus in various everyday items. There's really quite an impressive array out there, and I doubt I got them all. Here's a few people say are of the Virgin Mary:

On a grilled cheese sandwich:

On a tree:

On a pancake:
On a grape:

In a window:

On a pizza pan:
On a turtle:
There are more, but I think that's enough for now.
It's an interesting phenomenon. Nobody actually knows what Mary looked like. We have no drawings. Just some artists' imaginations from hundreds of years ago. Yet people can't stop seeing things that they identify as the Virgin. Itseems to be a group think kind of thing.
It's also interesting that there has been such a spate of sightings in recent times. Believers would say that's because we're in the End Times. I think maybe it's because we're stressed and looking for comfort. Signs and visions of optimism.
I'm not a Roman Catholic, so the idea of Mary doesn't have much resonance for me. And Jesus and God, who might have comforted me in the past, have now become authority figures who want to bully me into a particular brand of politics.
But I was totally captivated with the idea of the bird crap heron. Once I started reading about animal and nature symbolism, my brain grabbed hold and wouldn't let go. Is the heron my totem and is it trying to tell me something? (A few weeks ago, I probably would have said the dolphin is my totem.)
Did a wise bird really try to send me a message about optimism and patience by sh*tting on my car window? Wouldn't it be cool if that was true?
It's a dream and I know it. But to be an optimist, you have to be able to dream.

Look to the heron

What do you think of this picture? (on the left)
Look closely at the passenger side window of our van. If you can make it out, it looks like a big white body, with two legs, feet and a small tail. Above the body, but not connected is a long graceful neck topped by a small blob of a head and even a beak.
To my way of thinking, it can't be anything but a heron.
Or maybe it's a miracle. The miracle heron.
The image appeared one morning a few days ago and only recently washed off in the rain. The medium is, appropriately enough, bird crap.
It was so clearly a heron that we just decided to leave it on there until it washed off. No point upsetting the spirit world.
Yes, I've considered that it may have just been someone messing with us. It could have been someone out there drawing on the window, late at night. But then, they would have to have been willing to finger paint in bird poo. And excuse me, but we just don't know anyone that twisted.
On one level, it was nice and amusing to point out to people. A pleasant diversion. But, as an aspiring optimist, I feel compelled to seek out something hopeful in this sign.
So on to the Internet and animal symbology.
And wow. The heron is a good thing. According to a site called Wildspeak/Vilturj, there are quite a lot of lessons the patient, silent, balancing heron can teach us. And I quote:

"Heron teaches us the value of watching and waiting in order to get what you need. In other words, heron teaches us the value of patience. It is not a passive patience, but an active one. We wait in our lives to grab opportunity when it arises, it is not a passive patience waiting for life to happen to us."

Yeah, that seems apt enough. So maybe a heron is my totem and it will be my gentle guide into the middle world, teaching me to balance my emotions and perform martial arts and...oh, wait. Am I straying into the occult again? Dang. But if people can line up to see images of the Virgin Mary on a grill, a grilled cheese, a lump of chocolate, a hospital window, a turtle (click here for some pics) and if a guy in Australia can claim that a Mary and Jesus in his lava lamp turned his life around, then why not my little heron teaching me the lessons of patience and quiet reflection?

Free food update

The free food outlook was grim this past weekend. I was out in the car for several hours Saturday morning, interviewing people for the garden book when I needed to make a stop at the Toon Shop in Prairie Village for some piano books for students.
As luck would have it, there was an art show with lots of booths. Should be some free food, right?
So I walked around with all the people enjoying their day off and deciding what to spend all their extra money on.
Art. Art. Art. No food. I stopped in the Better Cheddar--usually generous with the pretzels and dip. What's happened to that store? There were only some miserly crackers.
Back out on the street, a nice lady gave me a tiny free bottled water with a store coupon. Thanks, I was getting thirsty.
In desperation, I made one last lurch through the Hen House Market. Things looked hopeful when right away I was able to score a big piece of some kind of sample muffin. But alas, the only other sample table had only an empty wrapper for hot dogs.
People, people, people. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
One day, when my heron guides me to power and riches, we'll remember. Oh, we'll remember.