Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri
Read more Katy at...
LateBoomer.net
Most Recent Posts
- New Math
- International House Of…..Watch Out!
- Have Yourself A Merry Little Colonoscopy!
- Spell Check
- You Are Not Alone
- Don’t Know Much About The Big Three
- Why, Oh Why Didn’t I Take Home Ec?
- Really, Really Fun While It Lasts!
- In Defense Of Good Old-Fashioned Books
- Things I’ve Said That I’m Happy Someone Else Didn’t Say First, One In An Ongoing Series Of Several
- Do Depression Meds Work For This?
- The T-Shirt Off Our Backs
- For The Fallible Record
- Long Time, No Blog
- Droppin’ Gs
Syndicate
E me at katy @ ngenius.com
New Math
So I always spend the first few days of any new year reassessing our financial situation, and 2009 is no different.
Of course, I am the type of O/C chick who does at least a cursory net worth statement on the first of each month. And until recently, that always proved to be a rather enjoyable exercise.
I gotta tell you, though, I failed to calculate our net worth from September 1 until now, because honestly, I just couldn’t take the anguish. As you know, I haven’t been overly well these past few months (or is it a whole year now?) anyway, and to add crunching negative numbers to my list of stressors just didn’t seem wise.
Now, if you are one of those people who’s thinking, “But wait! When you add two negative numbers, don’t you end up with a positive?”, you might want to review that sixth grade math book again. You have to MULTIPLY two negatives to get a positive, and I’m starting to think even that calculation must be a lie!
Yesterday, after pouring over the ledgers, I ended up in a whine fest. (Can’t afford a wine fest, just so you know.) I told Doug that after all these years of attempting to apply Biblical principles to our finances, I was beginning to wonder whether we’d misunderstood the whole enchilada.
I mean, people! We are debt-free, except for our house! And we could pay it off in less than two years, if we wanted to! And yeah, it’s lost some value like everyone else’s house, but we’re sure not upside down on the deal. And another thing: we drive two old cars (a 1998 Taurus and a 2002 Saturn), and we’re saving to replace them with cash when we have no choice left but to purchase. Heck, we’ve got an emergency fund! Why, if something happened to our income today, we could support ourselves on our savings for upwards of 3.7 weeks!
And now, in case you are not duly impressed yet, I’ll boast some more, because I can: We are actually among the supposed 6% (a shockingly low number!) of self-professing Christians who tithe. Now, when I say “tithe,” I don’t mean “throw a few coins into the collection box.” In the Bible, a tithe represents 10% of all your income. TEN percent. We were raised as young Christians, furthermore, to tithe on our GROSS and not our net. The question pastors used to put to us in the old days was, “Do you want God to bless you on your gross or on your net?” Well, THAT’S a no-brainer, huh?
I’d love to add that we’ve never racked up any balances on a credit card. In addition, I would like to tell you that we did not, during years past, consider our shiny home equity to be our children’s college education fund. But I KNOW what the Bible says about lying, and while I’m questioning what it says about money, I’d rather not push my luck too far.
So yesterday, I whined to Doug (and to God, too...) that I wasn’t at all sure that the good Lord was keeping up His end of the bargain. We do not attend a church which preaches the “prosperity gospel,” but darned if I wasn’t positive that we were supposed to reap what we’ve sown. Haven’t we given faithfully to our church, our chosen charities, and the individuals God leads us to help? Haven’t we provided for our own household to the best of our abilities? Haven’t we, almost always except for that time we bought our first house in 1979 and our monthly payment was more than HALF our income, lived well within our means?
Haven’t we deferred gratification out the wazoo, so that in our old age we wouldn’t be a burden to our children or to the state?
Unless I end up to be happily mistaken, I’m pretty certain my generation is now facing a financial scenario we never anticipated in our wildest nightmares. Even the fiscally conservative among us have no choice but to admit that we may not be able to make up the losses we’ve endured in time to provide for ourselves in old age.
God’s principles have not failed, although it’s highly possible I have never understood them as He intended me to. Remember that line from The Princess Bride? “I don’t think that Word means what you think it means.”
The truth, of course, is that Doug and I have lived a bit too high on the hog during the boom years. Somewhere, in our pea-sized brains, we latched onto the belief that the good times would keep rolling forever and that if we threw a few bucks at the stock market every now and then, we’d end up on Easy Street.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? While we’re dreaming of ending up on Easy Street someday, (if we play our Scriptural cards right,that is), the real truth is that we’ve been living on Affluence Avenue for a very long time.
I can’t help but be reminded of another Biblical principle, one that would serve all of us really well right about now----humility.
The Bible says that even when we’re unfaithful (and that includes those times when we believe we’re being faithful, but we’re wrong...), He remains faithful.
No matter how many Scripture verses I may have misunderstood along the way, I think I’m finally starting to understand this one, after all.
International House Of…..Watch Out!
This morning, we’re leaving to meet Doug’s sisters and brother-in-law for breakfast out before taking presents and dessert to share with his mother.
I just called my mom to wish her Merry Christmas (we had the big McKenna bash last Sunday, and our own kids here yesterday....). I told her how few restaurants were open today and how Doug’s sisters had settled on International House of Pancakes.
You should know that here in Kansas City, we also have the International House of Prayer. Both institutions call themselves IHOP, and I’ve managed somehow never to confuse the two.
My mother, on the other hand? She’s only recently heard of the International House of Prayer, and became quite concerned when I told her of our breakfast plans.
“Be careful, Katy. When you are doing the interstate thing, you could end up at the prayer joint instead of the pancake joint.”
I laughed. “We’re going to the place over on Metcalf. I’m pretty sure they specialize in breakfast.....”
“Just the same,” she said, “you might want to call first. Ask if they’re serving pancakes or prayer. You wouldn’t want to go hungry.”
I love this woman, my mother. So much so that I’m going to be praying for her over pancakes.
Merry Christmas to you, too, Mom.
Have Yourself A Merry Little Colonoscopy!
Well, the deed is done. The colonoscopy, that is. And my health is, for all intents and purposes, perfect. I am a specimen to be envied among all womankind. Except for that, of course, I’ve been really, really sick.
So now, the docs are thinking maybe the anti-seizure meds they’ve had me on (first Tegretol and now Trileptal) for the stabbing pain in the eye (called Trigeminal Neuralgia) have caused the side effect of serious stomach pain. Since Monday, I’ve been weaning off the meds. This morning, I took my last dose.
So far, the stabbing pain in my eye (which was largely controlled by the anti-seizure meds, with Vicodin as a supplement) has returned only as The Grittiest Sandpaper On Earth pain, which only bothers me when I blink. Totally tolerable, you know what I mean? If I stay at the Sandpaper Stage, I will be able to handle it.
My stomach is a bit better today. For the FIRST time since mid-November. So I am hopeful. And grateful. And looking forward to better days ahead!!
Speaking of those days, I am going to fully enjoy the time I spend with family and friends in the next couple of weeks. Even bloggers take vacations now and then, and so I am declaring mine. Since my birthday falls between Christmas and New Year’s, I might as well extend my hiatus until after January 1.
I hope each and every one of you fallible folks has a truly wonderful and blessed Christmas!!!! You deserve it, I tell ya, if only because of how much you’ve had to put up with me whining recently!
I hereby resolve to be of much better cheer in the New Year, and promise to share my largesse of good will with each and every one of you, my dear reading friends.
Have yourselves a merry little Christmas! Next year, all our troubles will be far away........
Spell Check
At the beginning of 2008, I had exactly two goals for my health, not counting---of course---the two constants: lose weight and exercise. Those recurring resolutions SHOULD keep me in excellent shape just because of the muscles used and calories burned laughing my head off each time I think of them, but I digress.
I resolved to attempt to get to the bottom of my debilitating headaches once and for all, even if it meant trying unconventional methods and pursuing treatments beyond my comfort zone---as if I could really have a comfort zone with a stabbing pain in my eye. True to my word, I made an appointment with my eye doctor, whom I would describe by that word that starts with “op” and ends with “ogist” if I could ever remember the letters in between. (Actually, this was after trying natural hormone replacement therapy last fall, hoping an appalling lack of something or egregious excess of something else might be at the root of my difficulties....but, no.)
My op.....ogist, who always manages to detect swollen optic nerves during her examination, referred me to her colleague, one of only two neuro-op...ogists in all of Kansas City. (Evidently, it’s that narrow of a specialty, although I already have an oto-neurologist in my collection of neurologists, so personally, I don’t see what the big deal is.)
The two eye doctors concurred that I should be looked at for trigeminal neuralgia, a fancy way of saying you’ve got a problem with the trigeminal nerve in your cranium, resulting in an astonishing pain the face. My primary doc and at least one other regular neurologist were pulled in, since they’d decided I would need to go on an anti-seizure med that can really mess with your head and well....Head Doctors Backwards R Me.
About the time they started me on Tegretol, my mother went in the hospital with one of her Several Annual Near Death Experiences. Now, granted, sometimes she is Only Mostly Dead, but let’s just say that in February the doctors in the ER could not get me to produce her DNR papers fast enough. Miraculously, she pulled out! And except for the C.diff she’s been battling ever since (if you don’t know what this is, rejoice. And again I say, rejoice!), she’s no closer to dead now than she’s been at any time in the past seven years. Who knew?
Anyway, she was in the hospital and then the nursing home for rehab, and I think that took care of all of February and March. Maybe April, too. I stopped taking notes somewhere along the way. All I know is that I was on this experimental treatment for my head, running back and forth for blood work every ten days, taking care of Mom as best I could, getting relief from the eye stab only when I added the requisite supplemental number of Vicodin, and finding myself thinking about Peggy Lee (sing it with me now, “Is That All There Is?") more than I normally do.
By summertime, Mom was recovered as much as recovery amounts to these days, but I wasn’t. I went through an extensive edit on my novel, and that’s about the extent of real work I’ve gotten done this year. The side effects from the Tegretol, in my body at least, were freakish and not ameliorated nearly enough by the Vicodin to make them tolerable, or even interesting. For one thing, I jerked. A lot. All parts of my body, sometimes all at once, for at least two hours after taking the meds---both morning and night. I hated to medicate before church, as one example, because well, our church is kind of on the sedate side, and what would they think if I went all Pentecostal-quirky on them?
Medicating at bedtime was out of the question, too. Doug jerks all night, as you might remember me telling you on more than one occasion. Even with our glorious Sleep Number bed, two jerking parties just doesn’t add up to much of a party at all. I’m just sayin’.
The headache seemed enough better to persist with the treatment in spite of the numerous side effects, though, until one day in the middle of a September afternoon I got stoned out of my mind. Falling down drunk, literally, with what the literature unabashedly calls “Tegretol poisoning.” It’s bad when you’ve put on just a little weight since your hub carried you over the threshold, but he has to scoop you off the floor THREE TIMES (with a very bad back, poor guy) in order to carry you over the threshold of the garage, into the car, and then into the ER.
My Tegretol levels were way too high, so they kept me there until I returned to my senses. (I can hear the snickers from here, people. Stop that!) They talked about switching me to a different medicine, one with fewer side effects, but I would have to be weaned off Tegretol rather slowly in order to begin a trial with the next med. Groovy, huh?
Toward the end of September, I went to the writers conference I attend every year, and was sick the entire time. My back went completely out, but I do have lovely memories of holding up the palatial pillars in the gorgeous hotel where we stayed and trying to look architectural. “Are you OK?” friends and strangers would ask. “Oh, yes,” I’d say, with a hard smile plastered on like a cast on a broken psyche. “As soon as Gene Kelly shows up with the umbrellas, we’re going to dance a number or two....”
Bizarre symptoms accumulated throughout the conference until, by the time I got back home, I landed in the ER again. More complications from the Tegretol. This time, they took me off it cold turkey----not recommended but necessary in my situation. The risk is having a seizure, but hey, that was starting to sound minor to me.
I got switched to Trileptal at that point, and have had much better success with it! So, there you have it. My headaches are definitely not as severe as they were at this point twenty-five years ago!!!! Thank God for huge mercies.
I decided in October that I would tackle the other problem on my medical to-do list---getting into physical therapy for the herniated discs in my neck. It had gotten to the point where I could only sleep flat on my back, with a dog-bone shaped pillow under my neck. No rolling from side to side like a normal person, and how was I supposed to slug Doug for jerking in his sleep when I couldn’t get to him? You know what I mean? Our marriage was suffering!
The therapist, Eric, was wonderful. I say “was” because my PT days of bliss appear to be over. It’s hard to drive myself 30 minutes each way to have 20 pounds of traction pull on my neck when I’m in the hospital having diarrhea episodes so closely spaced I can’t make it back to bed before having to show up on the toilet again. You’ve been there, too, right? It CAN’T be just me!
Before my inpatient stay in the hospital----during which they did x-rays, an endoscopy, CT of my abdomen, a test requiring a large drink of Crystal Light mixed with God-knows-what, a gall bladder ultrasound, and a gall bladder nuclear (or, if you’re a Republican, newcewlar) scan---I also presented in the ER one MORE time. For the same symptoms as this last time, horrible stomach pain.
By my count, which becomes fuzzier with each pain pill ingested, I’ve been in the hospital four times this fall. It’s possible that it’s five. But if I’ve stopped counting, I can hardly expect you to! Ha.
Friday, lucky me, is Colonoscopy Day. They would have done it in the hospital, which would have sure been more convenient and let’s be real, I WAS all cleaned out, but the doctor said I was WAY too sick to go through the procedure.
Which is really funny because ONE day after I got home from the hospital, my insurance company called to say that while they had authorized me staying one night in the hospital, they had not been notified that I had stayed any longer. And that my claims had been summarily denied. So there!
Now you know a lot more about why I haven’t appeared here on fallible much for some months running. I just haven’t been well. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the kind comments you’ve sent my way. Honestly, they’ve made me cry with happiness and kept me from losing my will to be scoped. And in my case, I need to hang onto that will!
One of these days, I’ll come on here with the “hthalmol” I seem to have misplaced somewhere in the course of all my medical mishaps. And then you’ll know that those letters, preceded by an “op” and followed by an “ogist,” mean I’ve finally got my act back together.
Until then, please pray for Katy McKenna!
You Are Not Alone
Last night, I stayed home alone while Doug went out with our friends for a great evening on the town. I was invited, of course, but well, things haven’t been going too swimmingly for me on the health front. I really wanted Doug to go, because he hasn’t exactly been having a barrel of fun these days, either, and I thought he could use the break.
But I had to abstain. I didn’t want to make a scene, or cause a spectacular draw of attention to myself, or interrupt the festivities with any of a handful of symptoms which might at any moment turn me into a serious social liability. So I stayed home in my jammies and watched one of my favorite movies of all time, Serendipity.
It surprised me, as the night wore on, to find that I missed Doug terribly. And I missed my friends, too. Most of all, I experienced not just that passing type of loneliness that comes over each of us from time to time, but also something deeper and more insidious. I felt isolated.
For me, feeling isolated comes over me when I’m going through something I think no one else understands, or wants to understand. I mean, do my friends really want a blow-by-blow run down of diagnostic exams from hell and my sensitive constitution’s over-the-top response to tests other patients might consider ho-hum? I’m thinking: Not.
It also occurs to me that Too Much Information often has the unfortunate result of producing Too Few Friends, a condition I do not want to add to my current list of complaints.
So I boo-hooed my way through Serendipity, especially when I remembered that at the beginning of 2008, I chose that very word as My Word Of The Year. If you can tell me what exactly is serendipitous about taking care of The Moms, having a daughter with a newly-diagnosed and complicated thyroid problem, slicing my net worth as cleanly in half as if I’d used my chain saw on it, struggling with anti-seizure medication side effects for the stabbing pain in my eye that put me in the hospital not once, but twice, and now being an in-patient for five days with unresolved stomach problems, I’d like to hear about it.
This morning, I cried when I told Doug about how isolated I’d been feeling. About how even blogging scares me, because it makes me think you, my wonderful reading friends, might fall away if I pull out the stops and honestly let you in on the down side of my fallible life.
And then we went to church. And our dear pastor Tom Nelson spoke about loneliness. And isolation, the word I might as well have chosen as My Word Of The Year, for all the good Serendipity did me.
A lovely friend of mine, Lynett, came up to me after church and asked about my health. I thought to myself that, if she knew a bit more, she’d know better than to ask. So I dismissed her question with a shrug and an “I’m OK,” and then repented at leisure for having lied right there in God’s house.
We went on to Sunday school, during which we typically discuss the sermon in more depth. Before the discussion, during prayer request time, someone asked if I wanted to share about my health situation and I very politely declined. I think I said something like, “Trust me, it’s more than you want to know....” No one pushed me for information, but my feeling of isolation grew a little more pronounced after I squandered an opportunity to ask for support.
Then we got into the day’s topic. A question was presented about the types of isolation we go through, and people mentioned the typical suspects: Being in a crowded room and not knowing anyone. Being among loving family members, but somehow feeling disconnected from the camaraderie. Going through a loved one’s death and not knowing how to share your suffering with those who care about you.
And then Lynett said, “Sometimes, we experience isolation because we imagine that others won’t understand our particular circumstances. But really, they would, if we’d only give them the chance....”
So I gave them the chance.
“OK!” I said. “I had diarrhea 37 times in one day! Are you satisfied NOW?”
And you know what? They----these, my friends----were more satisfied than I’ve seen them in a long time. They laughed their fool heads off, and so did I. When I gave up trying to protect my dignity (like that’s even possible anymore....) and realized that a dose of TMI can work wonders in breaking the back of isolation, a beautiful thing happened.
All of a sudden, I had a roomful of people who---even if they didn’t know exactly what I was experiencing and truly didn’t want to know---were happy to be my appreciative audience as I processed my own miserable experiences in their astonished hearing.
All of a sudden I knew that if I wasn’t abandoned when I admitted to having 37 episodes of diarrhea, you aren’t alone, either.
I hope, somehow, that’s a comfort to you. Although if, in the middle of being So Not Alone, you happen to need a modicum of privacy, I certainly understand. ;)
Don’t Know Much About The Big Three
I’ve gone on record here at fallible in expressing my utter disdain for bailouts.
Trust me when I say I know enough personal bailouts to stay away from them (both on the giving and receiving end). It’s not that I don’t believe in giving second chances because, honestly, I do. It’s more that I’ve noticed that second chances usually lead to more crimes of the same type and further requests for easy answers.
My own dear grandfather once extended a personal bailout to a member of my family who was in serious trouble with some members of another “family” you really don’t want to mess with. Grandpa specified when he handed over the big bucks that this was a one time deal and not to come crying to him again.
Did the offending party ever ask Grandpa for another bailout? Amazingly, no. But only because Grandpa was known for being a strong man of his word.
Did the family member avoid the kinds of activities that might get him in trouble down the line? No way! His bad habits never changed. He just got lucky enough to avoid having to beg for mercy from those few who still might be willing to save his behind.
And that’s the point. Unless behaviors change---and now I’m talking about all the poor business models that have the car manufacturers lining up for the goody bags---the bailouts will never stop. In fact, they will never even slow down. Each sector of the economy will line up, as if on cue, demanding “theirs.”
There’s one thing I’ve yet to hear in all the rhetoric about how the Big Three must be saved at all costs to the American taxpayer. For all the talk about the jobs that will be lost (and of course that would be truly painful for all involved, and it’s hard not to feel bad about it....) and the communities that will be affected because of it, I still haven’t heard that car BUYERS will be deprived of automobiles to purchase.
Shouldn’t EVERY business exist to serve the needs of the customer? I know quite a number of self-employed people whose businesses would go down the tubes this second if they stopped having goods and services that their customers desperately needed. And while that would be regrettable, it would make perfect sense, wouldn’t it? If the customer has completely viable options elsewhere in the marketplace, WHY should a specific company automatically continue to exist?
If it’s ONLY for the employees, and for the healthcare and pensions of the former employees, that seems wrong to me.
When the debate about keeping the Big Three afloat begins to incorporate their own solid business plans for making sure this request for a bailout never happens again, I might start thinking they deserve some assistance.
And if I ever feel that a company actually exists to serve the needs of the customer, I’ll do my part to support their business.
I’d even consider buying an American car, if my money weren’t currently tied up in bailouts.
Why, Oh Why Didn’t I Take Home Ec?
When I went to an all-girls Catholic high school from 1968-1972, I was exposed to an education that was nothing if not progressive.
Now, that may not seem possible to you. Could the nuns really have been ahead of the times as far as women’s issues were concerned? You might think we were all taught to get married and pop out babies as fast as humanly possible. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, St. Teresa’s Academy was and still is known as a prep school---and getting an Mrs. degree ain’t exactly what we were prepped for. I don’t know a single girl who would have claimed, even back in the old days, that she actually wanted to be a wife, mother, and homemaker to the exclusion of a career path with a whole bunch of letters before or after her name.
And while St. Teresa’s offered a class in Home Economics in those days, I wouldn’t have been caught dead taking it. Not when the hallowed halls of journalism, forensics, theater, and art beckoned. There were important issues to be debated, wars to be protested, bad poetry to be written, Bob Dylan songs to be sung, and yes, bras to be burned.
Maybe, if I’d signed up for Home Ec, I would have learned the most cost-saving way to burn my bra---whether by lighting the gas oven and inserting it, using charcoal briquettes on the BBQ grill, or incinerating it in the furnace. Maybe I would have learned a whole bunch of other really smart stuff, too. The kind of stuff that would sure come in handy during my years spent as the Chief Financial Officer of the Raymond Home, whether I ever had a lucrative career outside the home or not.
I snubbed my nose at the idea, though. And so I learned by trial and error, and trust me, I learned a lot. I am grateful now that when my husband and I were young, we were poor. I am glad that when were were fledgling parents, I had the privilege of staying home with the kids. We could in no logical way afford for me to do so, and yet it worked out. And guess what? I learned more about Home Economics during those lean years that some people who apparently have more money than they know what to do with are capable of comprehending.
The thing is, when we started prospering, I still couldn’t get into the whole shop-till-you-drop mentality. I could do Nordstom’s, I guess. But why, when there’s a perfectly good Penney’s Outlet down the road?
After reading the New York Time’s article, which I recommend for the giggles if nothing else, all I can imagine is that times aren’t yet tough enough for true behavioral changes to take place. And every night when I watch the news, I just laugh. Have you ever seen so many goofy stories on penny pinching in your born days?
The spendthrift ways of a lifetime are rarely altered in a period of four or five weeks. It takes more serious pain than that for people who are used to indulging in not just one or two regular luxuries but a luxurious lifestyle to even begin to realize that there’s another (more sustainable and more satisfying!) way to live.
I’m not going to ask how you’ve “cut back” recently. I’m just not sure it’s the right question, judging by the ridiculous trade-offs the folks in this article have made. But maybe I’ll go ahead and ask if you took Home Ec in school.
If you did, I’m thinking you are feeling pretty good about your choice right about now. Congratulations on embracing wisdom in your youth!
Really, Really Fun While It Lasts!
If you hurry, you can catch one of the most fun blurbs for a headline I’ve ever seen. It’s on the Drudge Report, in the right hand column.
Do you see what I see? “Global SOCKS Slump.”
I am laughing my head off over here. If we HAVE to watch global STOCKS slump day after day, ad infinitum, we might as well have the hilarious vision in our collective consciousness of a worldwide global sock slump, too!
Hang on to your socks, everyone! We’re in for quite a ride.
In Defense Of Good Old-Fashioned Books
My good buddies BJ Hoff and Cindy Swanson have been twittering today about how books make such excellent Christmas presents, and I couldn’t agree more.
I think the first time I truly became aware of the magic of a wonderful volume unwrapped on Christmas was when I, as a ten-year-old, read Little Women. Who can forget how the four sisters each opened a differently-colored Pilgrim’s Progress---obviously the story Marmee felt would most ably shape their young hearts during difficult times---plus one other small gift suited to their individual personalities?
Ever since, I’ve been thrilled to both give and receive coveted books at Christmas, when often the members of my family---after the gifts are all opened and before the feast is begun---find private nooks and crannies in which to preview their treasures. A hush descends upon the house for those few minutes, as fingers carefully turn new pages and eyes smile over the bounty of even the slimmest tome.
So, as the holiday season once again approaches, tell me: What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift? Is there a title you’ve given that was appreciated even more than you imagined it would be? And if you could receive only one book on your wish list this Christmas, which one would it be?
Sure, many of us will be cutting back on extravagances this year. I know we are, just like those Little Women did back in the day. But pity the Christmas when books become beyond our reach! For us, we’ll celebrate with good books even if most everything else falls by the way side.
How about you?
Things I’ve Said That I’m Happy Someone Else Didn’t Say First, One In An Ongoing Series Of Several
“Some of us, when we read the writing on the Web? We see a wall.” Fallible Katy, November, 2008
Do Depression Meds Work For This?
Can you count how many times in the past two months you have heard or read the phrase “since the Great Depression”?
As in, of course, “the worse economy since the Great Depression,” “the highest rate of foreclosures since the Great Depression,” and “the fastest rate of rising unemployment since the Great Depression.”
Here’s the deal: In every recession in my memory---and I’m old enough to remember quite a few---the words “Great Depression” have not been spoken. It’s as if to even compare any harsh realities we’ve gone through with the dreadful circumstances Americans faced during those bleak times is so ridiculous an exaggeration that it’s not permitted.
There’s also always been a sense in which Americans have been led to believe that another Great Depression could not possibly happen, since our great nation now has policies in place (What are those policies again? We might want to pull those puppies out and USE THEM! Ha.) which preclude and prevent the obvious stupidity that allowed such a disaster to begin with.
Now, though, otherwise respected journalists are tossing around “since the Great Depression” with such abandon that it seems to me they might being fed this newly-acceptable language like a slow-dripping IV, the kind that causes the patient’s pain to be evenly numbed without killing her from an overdose outright.
And we, the listeners and readers, are growing ever more inured to the phrase ourselves. So much so, that I’ve got to say I won’t be one bit surprised when we are finally told that oooops, another Great Depression actually IS possible! I won’t be one bit surprised when they finally tell us that we’ve been in the Greater Depression for quite some time already.
Recession, my eye.
The T-Shirt Off Our Backs
Times are tough everywhere, and as you know, even here at fallible we’ve had to resort to desperate measures to make a few measly bucks.
Not that coming up with t-shirt slogans and pitching them on cafepress.com is exactly an act of desperation, but still. Let’s just say it’s not one of our usual lines of work. And that, my friends, is precisely what makes it so darned fulfilling.
Because, you see, in a fit of pre-election fervor, we decided to revisit our brief foray into t-shirt sales, which we haven’t attempted once in the last eight years. Heck, we couldn’t even remember our log-in information, since we’d had no use for it after pocketing the cool $25 we made all those many moons ago.
So we came up with a few designs, posted them in our store, and right away we profited by a handsome $9.50. Not bad for seven or eight hours work, you say? That’s what I thought, too, until I clicked on a little noticed link I’d never noticed before---the one that indicates whether or not you have any money due you from days long past.
Believe it or not, eight years ago some industrious soul passed through our humble CafePress t-shirt store on his way to fame and fortune. He ended up so inspired by our designs (in this case, I imagine “inspired” meant him thinking “I can do better than that!") that he clicked on an affiliate link at our site and then started up his own business.
His own very extremely successful business!!!
Yes, people, what they say about the Internet is all true. Without lifting a single finger, you too can make a World Wide Web killing!
Sure, we’ve only made a grand total of $34.50 over the past eight years through our own creative genius, as expressed in designs we’ve personally sold at CafePress.
But the ginormous success of a guy we don’t even know earned us an additional...drum roll, please...$680.00!!!!! I know these days we’re used to talking in terms of billions and even trillions, but to my way of thinking $680 is still a great little haul.
To think this money has been sitting in our account at CafePress for eight years, just waiting for us to become motivated enough by the goofy things candidates say that we order the old t-shirt press fired up again.
“Spread the Wealth Around,” indeed!
For The Fallible Record
I’ve waited a couple of days, but the time has come to tell you why I did not vote for Barack Obama. And why I’m at peace with my decision.
I didn’t vote for him because I’ve had my fill of charismania. Now, I’m not referring to the various branches of Christianity known as “Charismatic.” Rather, I’m referring to the tendency among humans to find a man (or woman) so full of what we’ll just call personal attraction as to make NOT following him (or her) seem almost sinful.
I didn’t vote for him because I’ve grown ever more fond of principles than I will ever again be fond of personalities. I’ve read, post-election, that Obama won because of “the secret of attraction.” Please, God, say it isn’t so. Can’t a candidate win on the basis of substance anymore, even if his style (or his level of attraction...) is rough around the edges?
I didn’t vote for him because I feel no “white guilt” whatsoever, and apparently I was supposed to. I didn’t know I owed him my vote, in order to somehow make reparations for the collective sins of the past. Seriously, I did not realize beforehand that such a thing as white guilt would even enter the white population’s thinking as they cast their ballots. But now, post-electon and in our new supposedly post-racial society, all I’m hearing is that race is a far bigger issue than I could have ever imagined.
I didn’t vote for him because it never occurred to me to consider his color at all. Not only that, but I didn’t understand that his ability to deftly mesmerize an audience (me included) with words of lyrical inspiration should trump my analysis of his voting record. So I read about his record, found that I disagreed with him on almost everything, and snapped out of his spell.
I didn’t vote for him because while someday, I’d love to have the opportunity to vote for a man of color, I did not and do not believe that Obama is that man. And since I cannot and will not vote for a candidate based on his color, I will have to wait a while longer to enjoy that privilege.
Long Time, No Blog
I sure have missed all you fallible readers, but it’s my own fault, isn’t it? If I would just get my act together and BLOG, things would be different....
The truth is that I haven’t felt overly well lately, and darned if I’m not starting to sound like my husband! He’s the one who----when he’s practically a dead man walking with back pain or a migraine---reports his condition to me as “not perfect.”
In case you EVER wondered, I have never been even remotely close to perfect! Recently, though, I’ve been toughing my way through some medication changes for the dumb stabbing pain in my eye, changes that have brought on depression. Now I need to decide if I will try to persist with the meds (which actually help the pain), in the hopes that the depression will lift, or if I should go off the meds and accept the pain as my 24/7 companion.
See, I AM cheery, am I not?
It probably doesn’t help that the world in general is in such a funk right now. I mean, we’ve been through some crummy economies before, but in my (rather long) lifetime, I don’t believe the entire planet has ever entered into a slump on virtually the same day.
I’m not a big fan of extended election seasons, either. One of my girlfriends (waving to Alison!) actually took a trip to Ireland in part to escape the craziness of the election, and I WISH I were with her right this very minute. Don’t you?
I wish I could say I have high hopes that the next president and congress will be able to correct some of the overwhelming problems this nation faces, but I believe we’re in for a world of hurt here. The problem is that no one seems willing to address the causes of the crises---only to patch over the symptoms. That NEVER works for the long term, and what on earth would make us think this time is different?
One of the ways the U.S. and many other countries attempts to gloss over facts is the continual printing of money, which if allowed to fester, eventually results in a situation like the one currently happening in Zimbabwe---hyper-inflation. If you want to see some pictures that will blow your mind and make you wish you’d studied New Math a little harder while you had the chance, check these out!
Think it can’t happen here? How many Zim dollars you wanna bet?
Droppin’ Gs
It’s bad enough that millions of us have watched our retirement accounts drop thousands (Gs for short) in the blink of an eye. I mean, the indignity of hitting “refresh” on Scottrade’s marketwatch page and seeing the market lose 300 points in 20 seconds is more than a little unnerving.
But there’s something worse. Something so insidious that the entire nation---both those invested in the stock market and those largely unaffected by the economic downturn of recent weeks---cannot help but fall under its evil influence.
And that, O fallible ones, is the sayin’ of words minus their final consonants.
I’m guilty of it myself. I say I’m gonna go, instead of going to go. But I try my best to only do it when the hearing of the sounds actually contributes to a simpler understanding of their meaning. You’ve got to admit that “going to go” has really gone too far, construction wise. “Gonna” works pretty well as a substitute.
But when presidential and vice-presidential candidates go from reasonably well-spoken individuals to hayseeds who are tryin’ to win votes with the common folk by usin’ Ozarky mannerisms, it just gets awful tirin’, awful darn fast.
So I’m proposin’ that we protest this artificial affectation they’ve all takin’ on. Insist that your candidate add proper consonants to his or her ridiculous sounding words or you’ll be up and withholdin’ your vote! Hold them to linguistic standards, even if you’ve lost all hope of them meeting any others!
After all the Gs we’ve lost, though (both in dollars and letters), I’ve got to say that the loss of a different consonant is the one that is truly worryin’ me to death.
People, if you still have Emergency Fun instead of an Emergency Fund, make like Vanna and buy yourself a letter D now! I’ve never been as sure of anything as I am of the fact that you’re gonna need one really, really soon.
I’m just sayin’.
