Here’s what NOT to do when you’re broke: “payday loans.” (Which are now illegal in Oregon and 14 other states, thank God.) And avoid the damn credit cards, if possible. Get a roommate, move in with friends, reduce expenses, stop eating out, walk and don’t drive, take the bus and don’t pay for parking, balance the checkbook daily, don’t rack up “courtesy fees,” switch to a credit union, on and on. Yes, we know all this. Pay with cash when possible, put your money in little envelopes marked “groceries,” “leisure,” “emergency,” turn down the thermostat, donate money, supplies and volunteer when you can… But what about if you’re already over the edge? Hang on. You just have to hang on. Try to have hope when it feels like there is none.
Here’s what else you can do: Watch this show. It’s a Frontline special called “The Card Game,” all about the credit card fiasco our nation is diving into headfirst. We caught the end of it last night, it’s good. (more…)
1) i’m home sick from work today and tomorrow, trying not to slip over into bronchitis, cuz The Thing I’ve had for a month has moved into my lungs
2) i’m wheezing
3) i heard from the doc’s office — they found “abnormal endometrial cells” on my cervix. Isn’t the first time for this, but hopefully if I get all better by next month and can have surgery, it will be the last time for this kind of call.
4) if i’m sick, no surgery; if i have no surgery, i’m sick (exhaustion, anemia, cancer worries)
5) doesn’t this all just suck?
6) there has been a big windstorm all day and it’s kinda freaking me out, what with all the crashing and blowing
7) i didn’t get one of the grants i applied for for my library. jury is still out on other two grants.
8) on a bright note — steve and the kids are my favorite thing in life. they are sweet, funny, and know when to worry and when to breathe. (unlike me.) their love and enthusiasm keeps me going every day.
9) i’m really happy that my sis and the Red-Headed Guy are getting married next month. And guess what? My job is to provide the cupcakes for the wedding. With that in mind, they bought me my very own Cupcake Carrier. Do we need the Tree Stand, do you think? Or just arrange on platters? Oh, frosting. Oh, love. Oh, a Christmas wedding, so cool. Magic, magic, magic.
10) i’m also losing weight, cuz i’m worried all the time and don’t want to eat. that’s something. argggggggggggggghhhh. OK. Make it positive, girl. I love the Wii-Fit and the Wii-Fit Plus they are the best, funnest work-out ever. The end.
11) c’mon get happy.
love,
wm
And, because sometimes it’s not:
And, because this one is always true:
I always thought Danny was highly underrated as a bass player, didn’t you?
edited at 7:30 p.m. to say:
* one doctor wants me to come in so they can listen to me wheeze; other doc is on vacation for a week. the cells are probably… nothing. and if they are something? will deal.
Steve posted a great interview he did last week with Rob Ingram, director of the City of Portland’s Office of Youth Violence Prevention. You’ll find it here. Kids, education, the juvenile justice system, race, mentors — they covered a lot in an hour.
Posted by WackyMommy in Hope, Politics (Local) |
Comments Off on “Difference Makers”
Mayor Sam Adams, Amy Stephens from the Mayor’s office and everyone else who was involved, THANK YOU for helping to get 1,000 hungry kids fed Monday through Friday, now through the start of the school year. They pulled this one together and they pulled it together fast. (And they’re also working on a plan for next year, I hear.)
The free lunch in the parks program (funded with federal dollars, run locally) doesn’t start until two weeks after school ends, and ends three weeks before school starts! Did you know that? I did not like that math. That is a lot of hungry kids, for a lot of hungry weeks. And we’re not even talking about weekends. It is tough in Portland right now. It is tough a lot of places, and I know we can hang on and get through it, but it’s discouraging. We have a lot of people here who are out of work, and a lot of Oregonians are going hungry. That is heartbreaking, but especially when you’re talking about the littlest residents of the state.
Thanks to Luis Palau, Imago Dei and the Table, the Parkrose and Centennial School Districts, the Water Bureau and everyone else who is working with the Mayor’s office to bridge the gap so kids get fed. One thousand kids fed, five days a week, right up until school starts. Sam and everyone else came through. Indeed, yeah, I’ll say it — “Portland is better together.”
If you or your group is helping work on this, please leave me a note in comments or on Facebook so I can tell you thanks. It means a lot to me — but it means a lot more to the kids.
“I struggle with enormous discrepancies: between the reality of motherhood and the image of it, between my love for my home and the need to travel, between the varied and seductive paths of the heart. The lessons of impermanence, the occasional despair and the muse, so tenuously moored, all visit their needs upon me and I dig deeply for the spiritual utilities that restore me: my love for the place, for the one man left, for my children and friends and the great green pulse of spring.” – photographer Sally Mann – “Still Time” catalogue
“What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.
Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know you who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.”
-Marge Piercy
From “The Moon is Always Female”, published by
Alfred A. Knopf, Copyright 1980 by Marge Piercy
I’m re-posting that link because in Portland, Ore. we’re still talking (arguing) about whether or not to re-name one of our streets after American hero Cesar Chavez. This time, 39th Avenue is under consideration.
Easy: Re-name it “Cesar Chavez Blvd./39th Avenue” and call it a day. You’re a business owner, you don’t want to buy new stationery or new business cards? Don’t then. You can keep calling it 39th.
People, can we be welcoming to non-whites in this town?
On this beautiful Monday morning, remember the words of my late friend Beef: “Life gets better after you give up all hope.”
ps go look at the most perfectest strawberries I grew! Yeah, they grew themselves, I had nothing to do with it. And this is the gorgeous blue heron who parked his feathery butt on the neighbor’s roof.
, 
.