Today is Father's Day and I am thinking about my late father and his influence on my finances.
My dad was cute, tall, fun, generous and charming. My friends loved him; he was always the one who came up with dough when someone needed an operation, schoolbooks, or just asked. The truth is he was the pits with money. When he went into a hospice for his last cancer-ridden days, he had two dollars in his money clip and a lucky half dollar coin he always carried with him. For years my mother had asked him over and over if they were financially ready for their old age - to which he would respond, "stop asking me already - it's taken care of."
What had been taken care of was spending the millions he had made off and on dealing coins, gold and silver, and as a consultant to the SEC. supporting a consistently escalating gambling habit. He was known to have made 3 separate trips to New Jersey in a single day when the state lottery was highest to buy hundreds of tickets, disappear to Atlantic City for blackjack when my mom thought he was in Pittsburgh on business, bet on anything that came his way from sports to what my grades would be on my report card (yes, I found this out later). He was the first person to put a pair of dice, a pool cue and a deck of cards in my hand. He drove flashy cars like Cadillacs and Lincolns, much to my chagrin (he tried a Mercedes for a week; too small.) He hardly ever hugged me or my brother, but we got new toys, new cars, crisp hundred dollar bills shoved into our hands, huge Sunday breakfasts, trips around the world and world class educations.
He came by this grand passion naturally. His mother, a diminutive blue haired lady we were all scared of, had taught him poker at 3, pinochle at 4, blackjack and the rest before he hit grade school. At 92, she was still routinely skinning her lady friends at cards- mostly 5 card stud - in the synagogue social room. When she and dad were together, they spoke Yiddish, so I never quite understood what they were talking about, but there was something conspiratorial about their quiet, breathy conversations in a foreign language, something I could sense but not define.
My grandmother, who had divorced the grandfather I never knew in the 1930s, lived quite well at my aunt's giant main line home, without too many worries. But she could fly into a rage for no apparent reason, leaving us all cowering. Dad had been something of a piano prodigy early on, and I was told grandmother would rap his knuckles if he played a wrong note. Rather than making him afraid of taking risks, or of calculating their effect, this seemed to have spurred him on to higher and more dangerously risky ground, especially where his finances - and his gambling - were concerned. At one point, he was holding on to some gold that a friend who was divorcing asked him to hide. He used a bar or two to purchase some coins planning, he said, to replace the gold when he had turned a profit on his purchase, which was probably more like a gambling debt in Atlantic City. He lost the friend, obviously, but even more miraculously stayed out of jail. He repaid all, but at what cost no one will ever know. The money probably came from a craps table somewhere. My mother cried over the loss of the friendship. There were later rumors of Swiss and offshore bank accounts, but we never found any.
So here I am, and most of the money I am living on is not mine. When dad defaulted on a school loan he had promised to pay while I was living in Europe, I swore I would never be like him, not ever. I think of this as I count out quarters for the bus. Still, he was my father. I remember with more than a modicum of pain how depressed he looked when I'd visit and he had no money for me that day - I always said it didn't matter and it wasn't like I even needed it. We spent my parents' 50th wedding anniversary around his hospital bed, my father the glowing life of the party although he had already lost his powers of speech. And I would give a lot to be able to sneak out of the house with him one more time without my mother knowing, head straight to exit 26 on the Pennsylvania turnpike and into Jersey to buy handfuls of lottery tickets and conspire on ways to nail down that ever elusive pot of gold. I swear I can still see it shining out there, someplace past the fast food meccas and car dealerships, at the end of our very own rainbow.
Showing posts with label Recession. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Recession. Show all posts
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
I'm Not Waving, I'm Drowning
The poet Stevie Smith wrote a wonderful piece with a line about a figure far out in the ocean, who seems to be waving at friends on the beach but is, in fact, drowning.
That seems to be me.
I get up every day, get dressed, take Rocco (my dog) outside, go to work, do more work, and then do more work, then I come home, do more work, watch some tv, work during commercials, and collapse sometime around midnight on my bed. Oh yes, in there somewhere I take Rocco out one or two more times. And in my dreams, I work.
I usually smile and wave at people I see down the hall, across the street, in the buildings where I am selling property, at my office. But a distance is opening up, and something is creeping into my lungs like water, slowly stealing my ability to breathe......oh yes, it's the bank account draining! An all too familiar sound these days. A friend of mine calls this separation from life - this distance or asphyxia - like living under water. I am oiling my wetsuit as we speak.
Today, I lost my health insurance. I expected it - my fabulous company has been carrying me for many months. Now I am not sick, and I can replace my current mood meds with LOTS of activity and, hopefully, more sunlight than rain, but it's always a gamble. My home looks like a warehouse as I am running an ebay business out of it; my desk is chaotic; my dog has almost become un-housetrained as he feels my pain and anxiety so I usually come home to a welcome back dog mess. I have been served with a rent demand, but no lawsuit yet - my attorney says it's imminent. And none of my listings are selling or renting. But lots of people are smiling at me. Or waving.
What's a girl to do?
Tomorrow I am taking a mental health day. No work, no real estate, a lot of dog (Rocco is wonderful), some art, some fun conversation, one great meal, and long long walks. I am going to take myself out of the medium that is drowning me and try to find new ways to breathe. So when you see me in the street, I may look a bit haggard, but it is me, and I assure you, the smile on my face is real. And I will NOT be drowning, but waving.
That seems to be me.
I get up every day, get dressed, take Rocco (my dog) outside, go to work, do more work, and then do more work, then I come home, do more work, watch some tv, work during commercials, and collapse sometime around midnight on my bed. Oh yes, in there somewhere I take Rocco out one or two more times. And in my dreams, I work.
I usually smile and wave at people I see down the hall, across the street, in the buildings where I am selling property, at my office. But a distance is opening up, and something is creeping into my lungs like water, slowly stealing my ability to breathe......oh yes, it's the bank account draining! An all too familiar sound these days. A friend of mine calls this separation from life - this distance or asphyxia - like living under water. I am oiling my wetsuit as we speak.
Today, I lost my health insurance. I expected it - my fabulous company has been carrying me for many months. Now I am not sick, and I can replace my current mood meds with LOTS of activity and, hopefully, more sunlight than rain, but it's always a gamble. My home looks like a warehouse as I am running an ebay business out of it; my desk is chaotic; my dog has almost become un-housetrained as he feels my pain and anxiety so I usually come home to a welcome back dog mess. I have been served with a rent demand, but no lawsuit yet - my attorney says it's imminent. And none of my listings are selling or renting. But lots of people are smiling at me. Or waving.
What's a girl to do?
Tomorrow I am taking a mental health day. No work, no real estate, a lot of dog (Rocco is wonderful), some art, some fun conversation, one great meal, and long long walks. I am going to take myself out of the medium that is drowning me and try to find new ways to breathe. So when you see me in the street, I may look a bit haggard, but it is me, and I assure you, the smile on my face is real. And I will NOT be drowning, but waving.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Private School Vs. Private Parts.....
I went to private school in one of the oldest cities in America, a school to which George Washington sent his stepchildren and where a large bell from that era still heralds the start of the school day.
We wore uniforms that consisted of pleated plaid skirts, navy blazers piped with the same plaid under which we had short-sleeved white shirts with Peter Pan collars (the collar closed with a circle pin), navy blue knee socks and dark loafers (Weejuns were the thing in those days. The ones with the leather fringe that you'd bend back to make the shoes look worn).
Our rebellion consisted - among the girls - of seeing how high we could hike up our skirts until the dreaded headmistress dragged us down to her office or we were sent there by a new algebra teacher with a mission. The headmistress, let's call her Miss McCray, was a tall, slightly mannish woman with unruly black curls and, usually, a smile on her face. Except when she was called to skirt duty - then she was all business. We would go into her office where first she would make us kneel and then she would take out her old wooden ruler.
I know you are expecting some horrific story of child abuse, but all Miss McCray wanted was to measure the length of our skirts and make sure they were NO MORE than 4 inches above the knee while kneeling. It was the absolute law - even written in a terse letter to our parents, guardians of our virtue. I was in that office at least twice a week, while (let's call her) Poppy Mast was in there more but got detention less. Poppy's dad was on the board of trustees until indicted for tax issues years later. I once sat in Poppy's living room and listened to her father kick a suitcase around in the room over us, upset that I was there on a school night or perhaps for other reasons not relevant here.
Anyway, I digress. I usually got detention along with a thorough scolding that my underwear was not meant for public view. Detention consisted of being sent to a boys' home room (we had separate classes). Where anyone got the idea that this was punishment for girls, I'll never know. It was a chance to try and pull down Mark Maresco's socks with my toes, or to smile at Mr. Miracolo, the yummy teacher of French who ran the home room and who, 8 years later, actually asked me for a date. I was usually exiled to the boys' side with Susie Sperber, a buxom blonde with a big laugh and lots of jangly gold bracelets. You could hear us laughing and jangling, I think, in the next county.
So here I am, poverty stricken and suddenly, once again, creating a uniform that I can vary slightly day to day so i do not have to buy new clothes. I have my private school to thank for the idea - it's extremely liberating. Black pants, black top, red top, black pants, colorful scarf, long coat, short trench, earrings or no earrings. Gone are the days when I am thrilled to show off my Hanes cotton bikinis, but I do like a little cleavage now and then. Sometimes I wonder if I go too far and what Miss McCray might think the appropriate decollete would be. 5 inches from the base of the throat while looking straight ahead? I think Miss McCray would find that acceptable.
We wore uniforms that consisted of pleated plaid skirts, navy blazers piped with the same plaid under which we had short-sleeved white shirts with Peter Pan collars (the collar closed with a circle pin), navy blue knee socks and dark loafers (Weejuns were the thing in those days. The ones with the leather fringe that you'd bend back to make the shoes look worn).
Our rebellion consisted - among the girls - of seeing how high we could hike up our skirts until the dreaded headmistress dragged us down to her office or we were sent there by a new algebra teacher with a mission. The headmistress, let's call her Miss McCray, was a tall, slightly mannish woman with unruly black curls and, usually, a smile on her face. Except when she was called to skirt duty - then she was all business. We would go into her office where first she would make us kneel and then she would take out her old wooden ruler.
I know you are expecting some horrific story of child abuse, but all Miss McCray wanted was to measure the length of our skirts and make sure they were NO MORE than 4 inches above the knee while kneeling. It was the absolute law - even written in a terse letter to our parents, guardians of our virtue. I was in that office at least twice a week, while (let's call her) Poppy Mast was in there more but got detention less. Poppy's dad was on the board of trustees until indicted for tax issues years later. I once sat in Poppy's living room and listened to her father kick a suitcase around in the room over us, upset that I was there on a school night or perhaps for other reasons not relevant here.
Anyway, I digress. I usually got detention along with a thorough scolding that my underwear was not meant for public view. Detention consisted of being sent to a boys' home room (we had separate classes). Where anyone got the idea that this was punishment for girls, I'll never know. It was a chance to try and pull down Mark Maresco's socks with my toes, or to smile at Mr. Miracolo, the yummy teacher of French who ran the home room and who, 8 years later, actually asked me for a date. I was usually exiled to the boys' side with Susie Sperber, a buxom blonde with a big laugh and lots of jangly gold bracelets. You could hear us laughing and jangling, I think, in the next county.
So here I am, poverty stricken and suddenly, once again, creating a uniform that I can vary slightly day to day so i do not have to buy new clothes. I have my private school to thank for the idea - it's extremely liberating. Black pants, black top, red top, black pants, colorful scarf, long coat, short trench, earrings or no earrings. Gone are the days when I am thrilled to show off my Hanes cotton bikinis, but I do like a little cleavage now and then. Sometimes I wonder if I go too far and what Miss McCray might think the appropriate decollete would be. 5 inches from the base of the throat while looking straight ahead? I think Miss McCray would find that acceptable.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Taxis vs. Public Transport
Today, Easter, I took a bus uptown to work. This is a new vista for me, public transport. The bus was late, crowded, and since it looked like the Crips and the Bloods had set up house there, I stood for most of the trip to 57th Street. Taking the bus is so, well, real. I looked up to read all that billboard drivel that lines the walls above the windows. There was a quote from Shakespeare, from THE TEMPEST: "o brave new world/that has people such as these in it" or something to that effect. I looked around. Yes, it is a brave new world. Indeed.
I'm trying to make the best of my own new world order. As I waited for the bus today (for example) and it didn't appear for 15 minutes, I decided that this waiting was teaching me patience. When the bus stopped, and the lady in the wheelchair showed up from nowhere and held us up another 7 minutes as she boarded, I knew that patience was joining hands with tolerance. Kum-by-yah.
When I hail a cab, I thought,I place myself alone in the universe, above and disconnected from humanity except for the driver. I'm a person with nothing on her mind but getting to the next place and nothing to do but think about getting there until she gets there, an exercise in abject narcissism. Taking buses and subways is like playing bumper cars with humanity; wherever you turn, walk, run or sit, humanity cannot be avoided. At any moment you can be threatened, approached, asked to move, offered music (for a price). The process of getting someplace cannot be disconnected from the triumph of arrival. In fact, it makes getting there -- alive and in one piece - that much sweeter, and often punctuated with a triumphant sigh of relief. You have really achieved something.
I do not miss my taxis. Taxi TV was repetitive and dull and featured Regis Philbin; the credit card system never worked, or drivers lied about it not working in order to get cash. One in five taxi drivers has not bathed in recent memory and one in two insists on talking on his Bluetooth so you are five times more likely to get into an accident. I have been in at least one taxi accident per year since I've been in NYC. On one particularly hot summer day, a bike messenger, reacting to my driver cutting him off, actually ripped a window out of my side of the cab, leaving me covered with glass, and obliging me to wait for the cop who was invariably summoned. I have been hit on, yelled at, lectured and opined in cabs until I couldn' t hear myself think.
There is a delicious anonymity in taking public transport. The bodies are there, but no one really wants to talk. We're as random and singular as atoms in a laboratory, except we have a certain degree of choice. You can move away from the person who stinks (usually) and everyone is on his way somewhere other than where you are going, so they tend not to bug you. If they do bug you, cops get off and on the trains and buses with some regularity and they let everyone stare at their guns. And now I only have to count my quarters to make sure I have the right fare, rather than having to dig out a 20 dollar bill, which is what my bank machine gives me, to cover a 5 dollar ride And how often do the drivers have change? You know already.
So, onward and upward. I am now as familiar with the M11 and the M23 as I am with the floorboards in my hallway. I eagerly await the advent of the Second Avenue subway. More horizons to conquer!
.
I'm trying to make the best of my own new world order. As I waited for the bus today (for example) and it didn't appear for 15 minutes, I decided that this waiting was teaching me patience. When the bus stopped, and the lady in the wheelchair showed up from nowhere and held us up another 7 minutes as she boarded, I knew that patience was joining hands with tolerance. Kum-by-yah.
When I hail a cab, I thought,I place myself alone in the universe, above and disconnected from humanity except for the driver. I'm a person with nothing on her mind but getting to the next place and nothing to do but think about getting there until she gets there, an exercise in abject narcissism. Taking buses and subways is like playing bumper cars with humanity; wherever you turn, walk, run or sit, humanity cannot be avoided. At any moment you can be threatened, approached, asked to move, offered music (for a price). The process of getting someplace cannot be disconnected from the triumph of arrival. In fact, it makes getting there -- alive and in one piece - that much sweeter, and often punctuated with a triumphant sigh of relief. You have really achieved something.
I do not miss my taxis. Taxi TV was repetitive and dull and featured Regis Philbin; the credit card system never worked, or drivers lied about it not working in order to get cash. One in five taxi drivers has not bathed in recent memory and one in two insists on talking on his Bluetooth so you are five times more likely to get into an accident. I have been in at least one taxi accident per year since I've been in NYC. On one particularly hot summer day, a bike messenger, reacting to my driver cutting him off, actually ripped a window out of my side of the cab, leaving me covered with glass, and obliging me to wait for the cop who was invariably summoned. I have been hit on, yelled at, lectured and opined in cabs until I couldn' t hear myself think.
There is a delicious anonymity in taking public transport. The bodies are there, but no one really wants to talk. We're as random and singular as atoms in a laboratory, except we have a certain degree of choice. You can move away from the person who stinks (usually) and everyone is on his way somewhere other than where you are going, so they tend not to bug you. If they do bug you, cops get off and on the trains and buses with some regularity and they let everyone stare at their guns. And now I only have to count my quarters to make sure I have the right fare, rather than having to dig out a 20 dollar bill, which is what my bank machine gives me, to cover a 5 dollar ride And how often do the drivers have change? You know already.
So, onward and upward. I am now as familiar with the M11 and the M23 as I am with the floorboards in my hallway. I eagerly await the advent of the Second Avenue subway. More horizons to conquer!
.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SUPERMARKET
Let's talk about comparative shopping.
I am one of those baby boomer holdouts when it comes to canned food. I eat canned tuna, I eat canned salmon, I will even eat peas, stringbeans and asparagus from cans. Maybe not as nutritious as the real thing straight from the ground, but certainly better than popcorn for dinner and you don't have to wash it.
My monetary situation is now so grave it is hard to look at 2.09 for certain canned foods packed by Green Giant or Del Monte, so I have taken to searching the store for alternatives. Enter: Goya Foods! My friends and I always avoided the Spanish food sections of the supermarket, racist prigs that we were (and I emphasize "were"). There was always some unconscious view that those foods were for the people in the "projects" on either side of our fancy shmancy red brick neighborhood, or for the few Domina-Ricans who still managed an apartment in Manhattan. We'd turn our noses up for the opportunity to pay MORE.
Well, GUESS WHAT -- Goya sells fabulous cut beets in a can for 1.19. ONE DOLLAR AND 19 CENTS as opposed to spending almost a dollar more for Del Monte's fancier can (is it really fancier? maybe I am just reacting to the familiar logo). And they have an enormous variety of canned beans, from butter beans to pintos, limas to garbanzos, all at around 1.19 or so per can. Hey, Progresso: you aren't even that cheap ON SALE! They also sell boxes full of cookable rice and beans (the perfect protein, so they say) in many variations. I am getting addicted to the random bowl of red beans and rice - and a box is good for several meals at a mere 2.39. I don't even think Hamburger Helper is that cheap.
So let's think of this recession as a time when we are called upon to broaden our horizons. I now walk to work one way in order to burn off the extra rice - and it's working. Do not worry about Goya -- seems my nephew went to boarding school in New Jersey with the heir to the fortune, so the company certainly doesn't need us as much as we need them right now.
I am one of those baby boomer holdouts when it comes to canned food. I eat canned tuna, I eat canned salmon, I will even eat peas, stringbeans and asparagus from cans. Maybe not as nutritious as the real thing straight from the ground, but certainly better than popcorn for dinner and you don't have to wash it.
My monetary situation is now so grave it is hard to look at 2.09 for certain canned foods packed by Green Giant or Del Monte, so I have taken to searching the store for alternatives. Enter: Goya Foods! My friends and I always avoided the Spanish food sections of the supermarket, racist prigs that we were (and I emphasize "were"). There was always some unconscious view that those foods were for the people in the "projects" on either side of our fancy shmancy red brick neighborhood, or for the few Domina-Ricans who still managed an apartment in Manhattan. We'd turn our noses up for the opportunity to pay MORE.
Well, GUESS WHAT -- Goya sells fabulous cut beets in a can for 1.19. ONE DOLLAR AND 19 CENTS as opposed to spending almost a dollar more for Del Monte's fancier can (is it really fancier? maybe I am just reacting to the familiar logo). And they have an enormous variety of canned beans, from butter beans to pintos, limas to garbanzos, all at around 1.19 or so per can. Hey, Progresso: you aren't even that cheap ON SALE! They also sell boxes full of cookable rice and beans (the perfect protein, so they say) in many variations. I am getting addicted to the random bowl of red beans and rice - and a box is good for several meals at a mere 2.39. I don't even think Hamburger Helper is that cheap.
So let's think of this recession as a time when we are called upon to broaden our horizons. I now walk to work one way in order to burn off the extra rice - and it's working. Do not worry about Goya -- seems my nephew went to boarding school in New Jersey with the heir to the fortune, so the company certainly doesn't need us as much as we need them right now.
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