Petunia rambles on and on….

I so enjoyed a news/finance article I read this morning.   It brought back fond memories.  I could hear my mother’s voice.

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The article was in the US News and World Reports Money & Business section, entitled The 10 Worst Assumptions of 2008.   It read like I was sitting across the kitchen table from my mother again.  She was a wise woman, always ran the finances at home, saw that we all had all that we needed, and more, even in tough times.  She remembered “The Great Depression,” and perhaps that spectre stayed with her.  She remembered her father-in-law, who was out of work for YEARS, and he cut the grass, on his hands and knees, with scissors.  Over and over.   It needed to be cut, he had nothing else to do, he needed to just keep busy to keep his sanity, and perhaps, to get out of the house and away from a wife always saying, “Fred, go find a job” when there simply weren’t any for an immigrant who didn’t speak the language very well.  Mom related that, as newly-weds, when the  paycheck came home each week, they divided the dollars into envelopes. Three dollars for groceries, four dollars for the rent, two dollars for utilities.   When the bills came due, the money was there to pay for it.  They SAVED for any new items they wanted, or they did without.  Plastic hadn’t been invented yet, or at least, not for the purpose that we’re immediately thinking of.  Perhaps the Lux liquid caps were made of plastic then.  This was 1935.

“The Good Old Days,” they called them.  But we couldn’t see much good there.  Wringer washers, hanging the clothes out on the line in the freezing cold?  Not always having the newest, latest, fanciest, most expensive?   What the hell was so good about that?

Talk about your generation gap!

Anyway, the article lists 10 “financial assumptions” made in 2008, either by scads of individual consumers like you or me, or by those much higher up the “money chain.”   And here we are now, with 75% of the population wondering if they’re gonna get laid off from their jobs.  (The other 25% are already not working, either by choice, are under age 16 or have already gotten their pink slip).

1. Real estate values always rise over time.  Well, we all believed that one, didn’t we?  I remember, about 3 or 4 years ago, a young man that I worked with was trying to buy a house.  He talked of having to really jump fast when a house in their price range came on the market, and bid higher than the asking price.  What?  Then bid higher again!  And do it all so fast before really getting a good look at the house, the neighborhood, a condition report?  Something’s wrong here.  They did this maybe 10 times on different homes, but never won a “bidding war.”   Lucky, they were.  And I heard this from so many, so it was common.  Betting that the house value would rise.      Mom used to say, “If you can’t afford to lose, don’t bet.”
2. The mighty consumer will keep spending.   This is based on the American way of continuing to spend, acquire, “keep up with the Jones” against all good sense, whipping out wallet and digging for a credit card in there somewhere that isn’t max’d out.  We’ve all heard stories of folks with dozens of cards, and $50,000 of debt on them, and for what?  They didn’t charge medical expenses so their kid could have life-saving surgery.  They were charging expensive brand-name jeans at the mall, $300 sneakers for their kid, botox lip-fatteners and exotic vacations, for bragging rights at work.  Spent more on haircuts than I do on car payments.  I know of many who “card-surfed,” always changing their cards for new ones to stay inside that “for the first 6 months it’s interest-free.”   Doing this time and again apparently never rang any warning bells.  A whole way of life has been based on “I want it, I’ll have it, right now, no matter what.  Damn the consequences – Full speed ahead”    The mighty consumer will keep spending – Boy we sure fell for that one.       Mom said to us when we were kids, and pointing at things in the store, exclaiming how much we wanted them, “You can WANT.  You just can’t HAVE!”    Hmmm.
3. A buyer will always emerge.  Is this directly related to “There’s a sucker born every minute”?    I’ve heard it said so many times by so many people, “It’s worth XXXX dollars.”  Yeah right.  Bring me someone, right now, who will pay that much for this item. (A corollary to that is, “It’ll hold it’s trade-in value.”) This relates to the inflated housing market, selling your junk on e-Bay, whatever.  It’s worth is what a genuine, in-your-face buyer will actually pay.  Without that buyer with a wallet full of money willing to hand it over for your item, it’s worth is nada.     Mom used to say, “I didn’t spend all this time raising you for you to turn out this stupid.”  She said that often.
4. Banks will be careful with their money.  Hehehe, this one is really funny.  Back in the day, you had to prove credit worthiness to get a loan.  Remember?  You had to bring in all sorts of paperwork to prove you had an income.  Not just an income today, but what appeared to a stable income in the past, and one likely to continue.  They looked at stuff like how long you were employed at the current job, how many different employers you’ve had over a given period of time, less being better.  And they looked at how much you already owed.  They were really concerned about your ability to pay them back what was due them.  (And they applied even stricter standards with women!)  Today, if you breathe, you qualify.    Once, long ago, something free was offered and one of my kids wanted it.  Offer was limited to one per person.  Kid sent in multiple names.  I got offers of credit in the mail for Rose W…..   Ah, Rose was a wonderful one, half Standard Poodle and half whatever sort of dog got to my beautiful Standard one dark and stormy night.   But Rose apparently had good credit.  You didn’t even need to be human to get offers from banks to float you a loan.  Careful with their money – HA!!!   Mortgage brokers got paid on a commission basis, on how many loans closed.  They didn’t give a rat’s ass if the buyer was out in the street 6 months later because they couldn’t make the payments.   And people were led down the garden path and MOST of them should have known better.  If you don’t have enough extra money to buy a pair of roller skates, and some slick salesman says, “I can put you in this top-of-the-line SUV loaded with so much shit it’ll take you 6 weeks just to read the owner’s manual and figure out how to turn on the headlights,” and you don’t have sense enough to question the deal, then, well, some folks just get what they deserve. (They’re out now, stealing bicycles from schoolkids, so they can get to work; the fancy SUV is long gone).         Mom always said, “If it sounds too good to be true, it isn’t.”
5. Don’t worry.  The smartest guys in the world are working on the problem.  Another silly one.  An awful lot of really smart people can be led down that famed “garden path” if that’s where they want to go.  People put on their own blinders, so they don’t see what doesn’t suit the scenario they wish to see.  And smart people make big mistakes, because they are often put in a position where their genuinely human errors affect not only themselves, but a host of other innocent folk who have trusted them.  No one is above making honest mistakes.  And there’s many out there who aren’t honest.   And Smart doesn’t exclude Greedy and/or Selfish.   Mom taught us to think for ourselves.  “So, if Joey jumps off a bridge, you’re gonna jump, too?”
6. Technology is the solution.  When I first heard this, it was more like, “To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.”     Look back up at all the above.  Mom said them all, and they probably all apply here.
7. The feds will fix things.  Oh, no, let’s not even go there.  Locomotives used to have what’s called a Dead Man’s Switch or Brake, a device that, when the one in control no longer had control, everything was brought to a screeching halt, and everyone knew about it.  Sadly, none of these devices were installed on the federal government, which continues careening about wildly until the whole country’s derailed.     My mother, and every other parent back in the day, taught us to take responsibility for our actions – and saw that we did so.
8. There’s plenty of liquidity.    But only if the drain is stoppered up tightly.  If is comes unstuck, you’re supposed to notice before all the dishwater drains out, or you got cuffed in the back of the head.   Didn’t anyone notice more outflow than income?
9. Things will bounce back.   Yeah, probably true.  There’s historical precedent.  But in what time frame?  And what are the consequences to individuals during the wait until that happens?  Are we talking about losing our Premium Channels for 3 months?  Or losing jobs, insurances, medical care, homes?   All that we’ve worked for, sacrificed for, over a lifetime?  Age is a factor here, too.  The average 17-year-old loses it all – he’s lost gas money and the price of getting into the movies this weekend.   A 60-year-old who has his pension go up in smoke, stock portfolio turn to water, and has 5 years to go before Medicare will cover his medical expenses and medicine costs may lose a bit more.  And that 17-year-old has more time to wait it out, and recover.       Mom said, after a fall at age 88,  “At my age, I just don’t bounce well anymore.”
10. It can’t happen to us.    That’s the best one of all.   Not me!   “I didn’t think it would happen now, not to me” says every woman to her obstetrician.  Heh!

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We should have left Mom in charge.

Daughter and the Move

All appears to be well – everything and everyone arrived safely, and the slow process of getting things organized in a new location commences.  She reports that her new home has lots of closets/storage – I don’t think a house can have too much storage.  It will take them a while to fill the place up and add accent pieces, decorative items.

Christmas

Should I just cancel????  Ordinarily, I do all the Christmas cards during Thanksgiving weekend, have all the gifts purchased by the first week and all are wrapped by the second week of December at the latest.  The scent of cookie baking in the air, the freezer filled with delightful goodies, decorations all in their proper spots in a spotless house.

This year just ain’t following that pattern.  I did buy the cards, they’re around here somewhere.  Two gifts are bought.  They are not wrapped.  The oven still doesn’t work properly and a service technician is scheduled here for next Wednesday.  Should they need to mail to Tibet to get a needed part, well, I don’t have a lot of time left before that ham needs to go into the oven.  Nothing is baked, and I don’t have the energy.

Health

I am only drowsy and lethargic when I take the medicine; per doctor’s orders, I take it twice a day and it lasts about 12 hours.  Except last night’s dose that wore off a bit early this morning and I coughed for what seemed like half a century but may have only been an hour or so.  Not sure here – see info re drowzy head above.  It’s hard to determine the passage of time accurately when your extremities are turning blue from lack of “air in.”

Knitting

I figure that while I’m sitting on the couch, dizzy as a loon, I could perhaps knit.   I’ve got the body of February Lady Sweater done and working down on the first sleeve.  Merrily working down.  Until I stopped and actually looked at what I had done.  It’s a tough (hahaha) pattern.  4 row repeat with the pattern created on only 2 of the rows.  On one row of the pattern you put the Yarn Over holes near the center, on the other, you put the Yarn Over holes near the outside.  (Work even on the other 2 rows)  Duh.   Looks like outward moving little waves.  Row One and then Two.  Row One and then Two.  Apparently, thanks to this medicine, I am not capable of dependably counting to TWO.    I did quite a few of the rows with the Yarn Overs in the center, row after row after row, with the Yarn Overs all lined up neatly instead of flaring outward.  I did figure that if my head is this stupified to have created this mess, this probably isn’t a good time to rip it out right now!!  That’s a chore best left for another day.

Still, I had to find some sort of handwork to keep my mind and hands occupied.  Pop was watching some show about Yeti’s or some such and if I allowed myself to think about that, I would have dissolved.  So I found 2 balls of Paton’s Classic Merino Wool and the Paton’s book Big Chill, with colorwork sweaters and hats.  One features was a pullover sweater with matching hat, bright red with white snowflakes.

Maybe I can handle this much thinking.  (I mean the hat!!!   Just the hat!!)

TKGA

I received confirmation of my membership in The Knitter’s Guild Association, and the pin with their logo on it.   And a few days later, the package containing my Basics, Basics, Basics course arrived.  I haven’t opened it yet!!  I don’t want to be tempted to try and start in on it while I’m feeling so poorly.  My brain has already demonstrated to me that it’s misfiring due to medication and congenital stupidity.  Now’s not the best time to start a course where I’d like to make a really good showing.  Oddly, sadly, I just placed an order and already received multiple skeins of Cascase 220.  It is recommended that the coursework be done using pure wool; not required but recommended.  Pure wool is the most forgiving, had the most resiliance when working on it.   Per the TKGA and Ravelry sites, I believe they also ask that coursework be done in solid, light colors.  This makes it so much easier on the eyes of the person(s) who will be examining and grading the submissions.  Makes perfect sense.  And I just ordered a shitload of Cascade 220 in #8884 Claret and #9405 Black Forest.  (My natural tendency is to work with darker colors, jewel tones, and do it under an OTT-Lite!!)

I’ll have to hunt around the house and see what I might have already here that will meet their requests, as I don’t want Pop to find and carry in another box of yarn.

Over the weekend, I noticed that my throat was a bit scratchy.  Hell, always being around little boys that are in Day Care 5 days a week brings a lot of germs into the house, but I manage to stay ahead of almost all of them.  I get less colds than everyone else around here.  But then there’s the odd stray hardy germ that gets ahead of me.  Goes into the throat, really digs in and stays.

By the fourth day of being unable to talk or swallow without pain, I started to cough, and I knew that the cough was going to rip my throat to shreds.  My doctor is great.  He knows me well, for many years, and knows that if I call and say I need to be seen right away, there’s a real reason.  I called about 9am.  He saw me at 930am.  Of course, I’ve got that great old standard, the Upper Respiratory Infection, and now Bronchitis, Laryngitis and Pharyngitis – I really do have a chronically weak throat!   He put me on killer-strong anti-biotics to knock this out of me and to make sure it doesn’t go into pnuemonia.  I did that about 3 years ago and it was a whole lot of No Fun!!  

And to prevent the coughing from ripping up my vocal cords, that have already been stitched back together once, he wrote me a prescription for something slightly stronger than Kickapoo Joy Juice. 

 

  

I am to take 1-2 teaspoons, twice a day as needed.   So far, I’ve kept that to 1 and a half teaspoons, and I’ve had a buzz on for 2 straight days!!   This stuff is great.  Sometimes I’ve been knitting, but much of the time, I can’t even do that much!   I had to sign for the medicine at the pharmacy and I’m limited to only one refill.

I sure wish I could get this stuff in gallon jugs.