He Writes?

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Dad when you get out of your
meeting will you
call me?


Apparently Jaden writes now. He was missing his daddy around 5 p.m. yesterday and wanted to leave a note on his desk at work. So I got him a paper and usually I spell each word he wants to say and he writes it one letter at a time. But not yesterday, he just picked up his pencil and whipped this out in a flash!

I volunteer on Thursdays in his class and his teacher that day is PT and a reading specialist. She only works one day in his class. From this experience, I know they are learning to put spaces between their words, initial caps and the letters in a word are close together. At Jaden's conference a few weeks ago, we came home with a boatload of books he has made in writer's workshop. Writer's workshop is where they take paper, stapler and pencils and make books. Kinders are expected to draw pictures, first graders must have words also. Clearly Jaden is an enthusiastic writer. I'll take a picture of his books later and post it.

Jeff and I are proud, can you tell? :)

Also I told Jaden I was going to post his note on my blog first thing this morning and he was amazed. He told one of Jeff's coworkers right when he walked in the door, he told Jeff and he told me he was going to tell all his classmates. "My mommy is going to put my note on her blog in the morning!" and then he added, "I'm not going to taunt them Mama though, I'll be kind."

Pros and Cons

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Many, if not most, people know that on Jaden's first day of kindergarten, we got an email from our landlord informing us of a 15% rent increase. Thus started the Housing Drama again for us. After weeks and a lot of searching and crying, we managed to get it down to a 12% increase instead. We resolved to stay put and pay it.

Not too long afterwards, an amazing opportunity came our way to rent a duplex at a savings of $750 a month compared to our new rent. This threw us into turmoil again but we decided to go for it. In the meantime, it got rented to someone else without even being offered the chance to work something out.

Now what?

We had resigned ourselves to spending a lot of money and staying put. I was calling the rent increase a Stability Tax. But the lost chance to move made us think maybe we should keep looking at the lower price point. Thus the past three weeks of me living and breathing the Craigslist page for my area. Hour after hour, I watch the search results in my price range go from 178 to 9 once I click "dogs allowed" in my search terms.

When we lost the duplex, we were all in shock as it seemed like a pretty sure thing coming from the source that it had (good friend of a good friend). My MIL said, "well there's always the studio."

Yes, the studio. You might remember not too long ago I posted about how I had 12 days to get out of our house and mostly into storage so we could fit in my MIL's studio while we searched for a rental.

Here we are with the same troubles (price, dog), different day (a year later).

So on Thursday we came to my MIL's for a one week trial of living here again, commuting Jaden to school via train/bike with Jeff and me in the car for the afternoon return trip. Friday's morning commute went well. Then I picked him up and realized that there was no school Monday or Tuesday. Plum choice for a trial week, not.

Still I hound Craigslist. In the meantime, things at Jeff's work have been unstable. We're not sure what is going to happen there yet. So we made the decision this morning to give notice to our darling, overpriced house.

We plan to move on Thanksgiving Weekend. We plan to stay through summer and then..... -- well we don't know for certain but let's just say we are damn tired of not setting down roots, not owning a house and the constant stomachaches of life here.

PROS OF MOVING BACK TO SAN JOSE:

  • $2550 will no longer be going out of our account for our landlord's retirement. Therefore we will make unprecedented financial progress over the next 8-9 months.
  • We will be close to our old friends from preschool and playgroup.
  • I will be in walking distance to my therapist, which is good because I'll probably spend all the rent savings on that. (Just kidding Jeff.)


CONS OF MOVING BACK TO SAN JOSE:

  • Jeff will be gone 12 hours a day again with the commute.
  • We will not have any privacy from Jaden for months on end.
  • Jaden and I will not be able to swing by and visit Jeff at work spontaneously.
  • I will not be able to host any kindergarten playdates for Jaden.
  • We will not have our own home and our own space to be a family.
  • Jackson is extremely anxious at my MIL's.


There is a whole category of social losses for Jeff and me that I really don't care to list because I will get too upset.

The bottom line is I never looked back after we left San Jose last September. I haven't missed it at all. This decision feels like moving backwards in every way but one, financial. But the financial reason weighs equal to or more than all the emotional, social, time CONS.

Jaden will be affected the least as I will do anything and everything to make it possible for him to succeed in school and continue socializing as he grows his friendships there. That is my job.

But people?

I am so worn out. I am not sure I have all this in me. I'm getting to the point I don't want to get out of bed in the morning, I am so beaten down. I love my town, I love my house, I love Jaden's school, I love(d) getting a text from my husband that he was on his way home and seeing his sweet face 10 minutes later.

And it's all gone now in just a matter of weeks. I will have to make a new mantra: two steps backward, one step forward; 35 miles south, 658 miles north to real home ownership and the stability I have craved my entire life.

I am sad and heartsick and will probably take some form of hiatus from posting here. But since I stupidly signed up for NaBloPoMo, you'll be able to find me every day at Wee Festivity.

One More Day

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I signed up but didn't succeed in working the phone bank today. I really do want to help though so I spent some time chatting with Judith who is working the front desk over at the local Democratic Headquarters.

She told me I can help get the vote out tomorrow by assisting at polling places to make sure every registered Democrat remembers to go vote. The goal is for a record Democratic turnout this year. So guess what? Tomorrow, Jaden and I will be Baracking the Vote! If you want to join us, the training session is tonight at 6 p.m.

I am deeply grateful to the throngs of people at the Headquarters who were not afraid to work the phones. You all rock!

Friday Poems

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I thought this was an interesting poem during these times of great financial duress on Wall Street. So maybe it's not all due to low interest rates, subprime loans and greed -- but to broken hearts!

To the loves i missed & had

You know what's true and
you know what's real.
You got hurt and you know
how it feels,
to have no money.
So you go out and give
your love
to stocks and bonds.
And forget all about
your honey.
But that won't last,
and your life will soon
seem dry.
High heaven knows
we all get lonely,
but you will wonder
why.
God only knows and i
can but sigh,
For you've cashed in
and passed love by.

-- Anthony R. Valli

Note: all capitalization choices are my dad's.

Driftwood

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This is some driftwood I passed on the beach in Pajaro Dunes.


A week went by in the following ways: a PET scan and results*, a weekend trip to the beach with family and the first sickness of the season has set up camp. I will catch up eventually!


*The scan results were better than expected; there are no new areas of cancer, two of the prior three decreased a little and the third increased as I knew it had. I am holding steady Freddy. No treatment yet, next scan in February.

Blog Action Day, Part 2

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Yesterday I happened upon this book at the library.


Being keenly interested in the topic of organic food, I tossed it in my over-stuffed book bag. While Jeff was doing the bedtime routine tonight, I started checking it out.

I am deep in Chapter 1, wherein one of the co-authors (Anna Blythe Lappé) is explaining about our food supply and food system and discussing it within the framework of the "Six Illusions." They are the Illusion of Choice, Safe & Clean, Efficiency, Cheap, Fairness and Progress.

Well as usual I am horrified by what I read about industrial agriculture. In section on the Illusion of Fairness, I learned that "economists generally agree that once four companies control 40 percent or more of a market, real competition...is shot." (Campbell R. McConnell and Stanley L. Brue, Economics, 16th Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2005, p. 468).

Drumroll, please....

The four largest producers in each of the following categories control the following percentages: 84 percent of the beef market, 63 percent of the flour and 80 percent of the soybeans, 80 percent of the commercial seed market and as far as GMO seeds, 90 percent of THOSE are controlled by one company, Monsanto. (Grub)

Excellent. So glad I already buy as much organic food as financially possible. Where is Coupon Mom for moms like me Oprah?

Moving on. Why am I posting twice on the topic of poverty for Blog Action Day> It's because of what I just read
on page 22, still in the Illusion of Fairness: "Wal-Mart, which entered the food sales market only fifteen years ago, now collects roughly one out of three of our food dollars." (Grub)

The author then tells an anecdotal story about visiting Paris, MO, with a population of less than 2,000 that while small, is surrounded by farmland. There was not a single store or restaurant selling fresh food of any kind. Unless you count tater tots or the tomato sauce on a microwaveable pizza.

And to bring it closer to home, I share a fact the author quotes from Christopher Cook's book Diet for a Dead Planet: in a San Francisco neighborhood, low-income residents paid 64 percent more for equivalent food than their wealthier neighbors.

Um. No, Jaden. Mommy getting to stay up later than you is not unfair. People not having access to fresh, healthy food at all or at higher prices is unfair. Gosh this discussion of poverty in America is a GREAT diversion for me during a PET scan week. It's enough to make me want to buy apples and spinach (organic, duh) and pass them out to everyone.

I am steaming mad and I'm not an artichoke so I don't like the feeling.

I might even host a Grub Party!
Would anyone come?

Serious: Blog Action Day on Poverty

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Jeff brought this to my attention the other day and Clare is participating too.

I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say on the topic so I started looking at the resources which led me to Our Day to End Poverty which led me to an idea I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember.

They said, "Visit Second Harvest to find a local food bank or food rescue organization that can use your help."

And maybe 2008 is the year I finally do it.

I have always, always wanted to help at a food bank. I think this goal came into being during the early 1990s when I lived in San Francisco with my dad for about a year and a half. I was barely 21 and working my first full-time real job in a law office. I would get my paychecks cashed because a) I could and b) they were SO BIG in my eyes. I would go shopping on the way home at the Embarcadero. I would always run into homeless people. I got proposed to multiple times by kind, old men. Or so I thought.

Some days I didn't give any of my cash away. Some days I'd give $1 to one person or $1 to many people. Some days I gave $5. One day I had $30 or $40 left and a homeless man touched my heart somehow. I don't remember what he said but I felt so horrible having that money in my pocket while I was talking to him. So I gave it all to him. He was speechless. I'll never forget the look on his face.

I get conflicted from time to time about homeless people, especially any with addictions. Those close to me know it is a complicated topic for me personally and I struggle to find compassion for addicted people. I've grown up a lot too and had my own struggles (in life, not with addiction).

This exercise has made me stop and remember my youthful compassion. And I am fired up to look into volunteering at a food bank. I remember a friend in high school used to go with her parents during the holidays. She hated it as a teen. But I know I want Jaden to experience this with me when he is a little older. I think five is still a little too little, even if he is mostly 35.

All Day Trip

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We went to see the Blue Angels yesterday in SF.



SF really dropped the ball on public transportation. We took the train which was standing room only. That took 30 minutes, but then it took us another 3.5 hours to finally get to our seats at the Marina. Streetcar after streetcar was full and they only got us to Pier 39. At which point there was nothing: no buses running and two taxis refused to drive us anywhere near the Marina. They both said "NOT POSSIBLE" and drove away mid-sentence! So we hoofed it two miles there and back. At the end, we got a ride home: total transportation time was 7 hours for a one-hour air show and dinner. Wowzers!


Even though I spent most of my day traveling, I managed to take a few pictures.