New Year's Goals

It looks like I haven't given up completely. It's 2010, finally, and I am hoping things will be looking up. 2009 was not kind to us. Bruce lost his job because his plant closed down. After over 30 years in the envelope industry he had to search for something new in a new industry.

He's finally found something. It's a big step back financially, and there are no benefits. But we're considering it an internship, and hoping that if he proves his worth by September, when our COBRA discount is about to run out, they might be willing to work something out so he can have decent benefits for the family and be able to continue on there.

So the first big goal for 2010 is to get back on our feet financially and at least get back to where we were before the plant closing and the layoff.

My personal goal is to find a full time job with benefits, or else to raise my consulting rates to the point where I can afford to pay for benefits for the family.

Another goal is to continue fighting for healthcare for all Americans. We need Medicare for everyone, and any spare time I have I'd like to devote to this cause.

Jason's goals for this year are a part time job, achieving his A.A. degree, and starting towards his B.A. in the fall.

We're ready to take on 2010, but I certainly hope it will be a kinder year for everyone. I'm sure glad to see the back of 2009.

Health Care Rally in Times Square

Bruce and I attended the rally for Healthcare Reform in Times Square this afternoon. I think there were more than the 1,000 people the media is reporting, but anyhow, we were a lively and spirited crowd. Bruce and I were right near the barricades, so we held our signs up facing the passing cars. Taxi drivers were especially happy to see us and honked their horns, even jumping out of their cabs at the red lights to take some of our flyers. Most of the tourists on the double decker buses seemed to support us also.

I'm convinced that more people support the public option and even single payer health care than the media is reporting. It's just that we may not be as vocal as we need to be. It's hard to get people to turn out to demonstrations, especially on a day where it rained in the morning. But I wore my poncho and went, rain or shine.

There was lots of positive energy at this rally and I hope we can continue to build on this energy and create a groundswell.

Thursday at the Zoo

We visited the Bronx Zoo to celebrate Jason's 20th birthday. Thanks to his summer job, he was able to get all of us in for free and get us a 30% discount on lunch as well.

The animals were great. I enjoyed seeing many baby animals: a little lemur named "Cupid" because he was born on Valentine's Day, a baby giraffe, and a baby flamingo. Peacocks roam the Zoo grounds at will, and we got up close and personal with a peahen and her adorable chick. It's always fun to visit the zoo and learn some new facts about the animals there.

Leaving a Bad Situation

Consulting has a glamorous ring to it, but there's a down side as well. It's not steady work, and you sometimes have to be very aggressive in collecting your fees. Then there are the situations that should never arise.

I made the mistake of accepting a consulting position with an organization that had very little money. I knew they had almost nothing in advance, because I looked up their 990. But they promised me 15 to 20 hours of work a week, and I gave them a discount because they are a small organization.

That won't happen again. From now on, I will insist on being paid what I am worth; otherwise they can take their business elsewhere.

I also agreed to give them 15 hours of pro bono time to "get acclimated." If I had known that they were not going to stick with their original agreement, this also would never have happened. I certainly will not ever do it again.

All along, I was having constant conflict with the Executive Director, Z. Every time I asked a question she would throw some papers at me and tell me I had all that I needed, she needed to get her work done and I had to be a "big girl" and become independent. This is not the way to get a new consultant off to a good start. She also wanted to throw a number of proposals out the door, on the advice of a consultant with many years of experience.

When I investigated the targeted foundations, I found that almost all of them were a waste of time (and money). Most did not actually give to their cause. Some did but gave only out of state. Others had suspended grants because they were suffering as a result of the economic downturn. In fact, only one or two were viable choices, out of twelve. However, I continued to receive pressure to "tweak" the template proposal, a general operating support proposal that was requesting a huge amount of money to completely staff this tiny little volunteer organization, and shove it out the door.

Knowing this would not bring them any money, I was reluctant to follow through. I also received continual comments on just about everything, even whether I walked fast enough for Z., who claimed she had become a "real New Yorker" because she zips down the street at top speed.

Finally, I saw that the first week I was "on the clock," I actually was given only 8 hours of work, and when I asked where my 15-20 hours were, Z. told me that she could not afford to pay me for more than 5 hours a week because they "have no money."

Didn't they know that when they hired me?

I told her she really can't afford me, and should hire a student intern to do the work. A student would not be able to do the same quality of work, but since the organization seemed focused on quantity rather than quality, that shouldn't matter. Z. countered by asking if I were willing to take a reduction in my hourly rate so that she could give me more hours.

Wrong!

On Thursday I gave her my invoice for the 8 hours of work and quit. We had some harsh words; she is volatile and makes personal attacks. However, when she calmed down I suggested that she close down the organization and turn it into a program within some other, better funded nonprofit.

In any case, next time, I will not accept an assignment from an organization that has a tiny budget, especially one that has been incorporated for 8 years and is still not solvent. I'll know, next time, that there's a reason they have not been successful, and that I'm not going to be the one to pull them out of the morass they have made for themselves.

David's Dad

Last Thursday, the day Bruce was laid off after 23 years at National Envelope Corporation, we had a phone call we missed until early Friday morning. My childhood friend, David, called to say his father passed away.

Max was a quiet man. I remember him well but I never felt I knew him all that well. David's mother was the one involved with the children the most, so I remember her personality much more clearly.

What I do remember about Max is that he was a sheet metal worker who changed careers, becoming an elementary school teacher instead. At that time, the mid-sixties, this was just about unheard of. I knew people who had one job their whole working lives. Certainly, my Dad had the one job at Regal Emblem Company, polishing and electroplating costume jewelry and emblems. He was offered the chance to get a government job and turned it down, afraid of change.

But Max wasn't afraid. He had a dream and he followed his dream. Sometimes the kids gave him aggravation, but he must have been very happy that he made that change. In any case, his bold move stayed with me. When I changed careers, jumping out of legal publishing into fundraising, it was his example I followed. If he could do it at a time when it just wasn't done, how much easier would it be for me?

Max and Muriel raised three good human beings, and that's the highest achievement a parent can reach. So long, Max, I'll remember you.

Hot Dog!

Yesterday Bruce and I went to Coney Island to check out the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. I never realized that this famous July 4th tradition originated in 1916, the year my mother was born. We could hardly see the stage, but we could watch the proceedings on the ESPN screen.

Unfortunately the contest was supposed to start at noon but did not begin until about 12:50 PM and we just had other things to do. So we left before the contest started and got home while it was in progress. I got a laugh out of some of the contest rules, especially the one that said a contestant would be disqualified for "Reversal of Fortune." The contestants were called "Gurgitators," another one of those nonexistent words, sort of like "sheveled." Chucking up recycled hot dogs is a no no! One of the ESPN newscasters put hot dogs, mustard and ketchup into a blender and then took a swig of liquified frankfurter! Hilarious and yucky.

The crowd was taking sides; some rooting for Chestnut (who became a 3 time champ by scarfing down 68 hot dogs this year) while others rooted for Kobiyashi and held up signs saying "Kobiyashi eats chestnuts for breakfast!"

Directly in front of us, a group of young people were wearing bright yellow tee shirts advertising "Thatsnotcool.com," a website educating kids about the dangers of cyberbullying and how to fight back against online harassment, stalking, etc. I enjoyed speaking with them.

While I was annoyed that we didn't get to see the actual contest, at least we did get to see the build up to it. There was quite a crowd and some of them probably had been there for hours. It was amusing and finally I can say we attended a world class sports event!

Mermaid Parade, 2009

Coney Island's "denizens of the deep" came out to play again this year at the start of summer. This year's Mermaid Parade began in the rain, but that didn't matter: mermaids don't melt!

They did, however, carry umbrellas and walk a lot faster than in previous years.

Before the parade began, I headed into a bar to use the facilities. There was a long line and I got talking with a gentleman wearing his hair in two pigtails, complete with teal streaks. He also wore a skirt fashioned from a transparent plastic tablecloth adorned with flowers. This was a clever way of keeping his legs dry in the rain, which was coming down pretty hard at that time. In the bar, I spotted Jennifer Miller, the bearded woman who runs Circus Amok (another one of my favorite entertainments).

We met Ferdinand on the bus heading over to the parade, but he was so intent on finding a good spot to stand that he got too far ahead of us. So we didn't stand together this year. However we met him again at the end of the parade.

I recognized a lot of the same faces from last year's parade. We saw the Elvis impersonator, the Parrot Man, the painted ladies, and of course Marty Markowitz, the Borough President, telling us we are all "meshugah" (crazy) and that this was the most undressed parade in town. (I've seen a lot of seminudity at the Pride parades too, though). The Polar Bear Club was there, along with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, the Brooklyn Bombshells, and so on. There was the usual contingent of pirates, men in kilts, and mermaids with seashell or sea star pasties on their breasts. The costumes were up to their usual standard of wild, wacky, imaginative and sexy.

This year, Barnum and Bailey was there, but I wasn't so thrilled about that. The ASPCA has a lawsuit against them for violating the Endangered Species Act, and the circus's job application asked whether the applicant "is or has ever been" a member of PETA, The Humane Society, the ASPCA and other animal protection organizations. It smacked of the McCarthy Era and when I brought Jason's attention to it, he decided not to apply. Therefore I wasn't so happy to see the circus in the parade, even though the clown noses so many people wore were pretty cute. (Clown mermaids?)

The rain stopped after a while so that made it easier to take photos, but we had competition from the photographers who seemed to stop right in front of me every time a parader stopped and posed. There were so many photos I could have taken if they hadn't blocked my view. Still, I managed to take 930 photos and ruthlessly (!) chopped them down to a mere 291. Onward to the parade in 2010!

Crisis: Danger and Opportunity

I've always heard that the Chinese character for "crisis" contains the characters for "danger" and "opportunity." Well, our family is in a crisis. On the Monday before Memorial Day, Bruce arrived at work to learn that the division he has worked at for 23 years is shutting down operations, and almost everyone except for a few family members and high ranking managers is being laid off.

So, we are all looking for work. I am hoping to become more visible as a freelance writer, even as I am seeking part time and full time employment. Bruce is looking for work in inventory control and purchasing, and Jason has many options either in animal care, clerical, or bookkeeping work.

Still, it's a scary proposition because so many well-qualified people have already lost their jobs. I hear unemployment has been extended out to 72 weeks now, but unemployment would not pay all our bills. So, we'd have to deplete savings until someone is back at work and able to support the family.

There's been a psychological toll, of course. We've all had interrupted sleep, and I managed to come down with some sort of bad cold or garden variety flu (not swine, thank goodness). The only up side to this is that I have not left my house since Monday, and therefore haven't spent any money.

This is going to be the real test of whether we can be frugal enough to get through a period of unemployment without sacrificing some fun and games.

What a week!

This has been an exciting week for me. The grant proposal I was writing for The Hetrick-Martin Institute has finally gone out and the initial feedback is good.

I've finally overcome a mild case of writer 's block, and wrote a piece yesterday on the Buffalo Blizzard of 1977, which I experienced as a 22 year-old law student. Do the math, and I've just given away my age! I'm saving that for December as a friend in Franklinville assures me that the Blizzard of '77 is still memorialized each January in the Buffalo newspapers. Maybe they'll be interested in my personal experiences as an out-of-towner who had never experienced anything quite so devastating as a blizzard that shut down a city for two weeks.

Yesterday I submitted two stories to various magazines, and I submitted a third on Monday.

Also yesterday, while I indulged in lunch at Burger King, I received a call from Youth at Risk, inviting me to work for them on a short term prospect research project next week. This is not the first time I've been offered contract work as a result of sending out a resume for a part time job, and it proves that organizations do in fact keep promising resumes on file.

So I am revved and optimistic about what's to come. The weekend should be fun; we are planning to visit the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's "Color of Hope" art show in Red Hook on Saturday afternoon, and I have the Brooklyn Humanist Community Book Club on Sunday. I wish all my readers a wonderful weekend and week to come.

Bronx Zoo Photos

On April 26th we braved the 92 degree record-breaking temperature and visited the Bronx Zoo. While it was "too darn hot" to see all the attractions, we did manage to see a number of fascinating animals. Here are a few of them.

Rat in a handbag

That sounds scary, but it isn't. I took a walk on Avenue U today, doing various errands. At about East 22nd Street I spotted a woman who looked awfully familiar. I wasn't quite sure though, because she was wearing sunglasses and her hair was shorter than I remembered. She was looking at me also.

She took off her glasses and sure enough, we recognized each other. The woman was Rosemarie, the person in charge of the Animal Laboratory at Lincoln HS. We stood and talked for a number of minutes, catching up on our families and other news. Rosemarie said she was just coming from the veterinarian, that she'd had to take one of the animals from the lab to the doctor.

She pointed to her handbag and said the rat was inside. I asked to see, and she lifted out little Snoopy, an adorable black and white female rat. It seems Snoopy had mites, and had to see the vet. Rosemarie was on her way back to Lincoln where she was going to scrub out Snoopy's cage and herself too, to make sure there were no more mites.

She's so comfortable and loving with those animals. I loved the way she had Snoopy walking up her arm as we were talking. What a surprise and what a treat! I hope we'll get together soon (maybe with Snoopy, too).

"Waiting"

Last night Bruce, Jason and I attended a fundraiser for The Hetrick-Martin Institute, at the Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village. The young people in their after-school POP Arts program put on a musical play called "Waiting," and used it as a fundraiser. They got an excellent turnout and brought in about $2,000 for the agency.

The play was about waiting for HIV results, waiting for pregnancy results, for love, etc. The kids wrote the scenes and the music. We were sitting a little too far back so some of the lines got by me, and I couldn't always see. But it is clear this is a talented group of kids!

It was great to see the staff and exchange greetings. A few people came over and I introduced Bruce and Jason to them. After spending the day helping with grants there, it's great to see the kids who benefit from the work!

Another "Dollar Stretcher" Publication

My latest publication in the online and print magazine, "The Dollar Stretcher," has appeared online. Here's a link to the article, "Out of Work? Volunteer!" The article describes the benefits of volunteering while unemployed, and gives suggestions for people looking for a simpatico organization to volunteer for.

A Demagogue's Task

Today as I walked uptown to the Mid-Manhattan Library I passed the CUNY Graduate Center. A sign in the doorway read, in huge white-on-red lettering, "A demagogue's task is to become as stupid as her audience, so that they will believe they are as clever as she is."

I don't know the origin of this quote but it was reproduced in such size that it struck me as well worth repeating here.

Busy, Busy

The last couple of weeks, and now the coming week, are going to be very busy ones for me. So much is happening that I'm having a hard time keeping it all straight and recording it all in my three planners: the calendar on the kitchen wall, the pink planner in my tote bag, and Outlook on the computer.

I've been asked to serve on a steering committee for The Hetrick-Martin Institute to plan activities for their 30th anniversary year. We had a choice of subcommittees and I chose the Archive subcommittee. The idea of going through old papers and memorabilia intrigues me, and I liked the idea of interviewing alumni, former board members, and former staff. We've got a Yahoo group started so the subcommittee can keep in touch with each other, and I've suggested we do some of the interviews through StoryCorps.

This week, I have a conference phone call at noon on Monday for the Brooklyn Humanist Community. We're getting started with the incorporation process and this is the first step. At one I'll have an interview for a long-term temporary position.

On Tuesday I'm volunteering at HMI and then there's the BHC Board meeting at night. Wednesday evening I'm meeting with someone I worked with in the past, and I'll possibly write a grant for her start up organization. On Thursday morning I've signed up for a workshop on planning special events, through the Foundation Center.

By Friday, if I am not too exhausted, I might go and help out with the physical archives. Somewhere in there I also have to get medical clearance to volunteer with veterans in hospice, work on another grant with the War Resisters League, and arrange lunch with a friend.

I'm sure glad we are basically goofing off today, until the party tonight. It's Bruce's birthday and was our friend Tony's birthday on Thursday. So we've got a January Babies party for tonight, complete with a grab bag so everyone gets a small gift. Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut, as it is approaching Lady Godiva length, and then on Monday the whirlwind begins.

Inauguration Day

Yesterday was a day that will be in the history books: January 20, 2009, and kids generations from now will have to memorize it: the day the first biracial man of African-American and European-American ancestry took office as the President of the United States.

Almost 2 million people were in Washington D.C., filling the mall all the way from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. I've been in some pretty big crowds on that mall, at anti-war protests in the seventies, but this crowd of every color and every faith was bigger than all of them.

Jason and I watched some of it on streaming video. My computer was not cooperating. We kept losing connectivity every couple of minutes. Finally I shut down the streaming video and listened to President Obama take the oath of office over the radio. I noticed that it got slightly garbled, that Chief Justice Stevens mixed up the words a little bit and got the new President off track. They repeated the oath today, just to be sure.

I liked the inauguration speech. President Obama appealed to the virtues and values we all grew up on. He said we're going to get to work rebuilding America and that we're not going to serve narrow interests any longer. America is not just for the rich.

While he held out the hand of friendship to all nations, he also warned terrorists that they cannot outlast us and we will defeat them. Good strong words, and they are certainly needed now. Just because he is a Democrat and a liberal, there's no reason to think he is going to be a pushover when the nation is in danger.

I'm pleased, also, that President Obama mentioned that we are a nation of many faiths and also of some nonbelievers too. That's probably the first time ever that agnostics and atheists have been given recognition in an inaugural address. That is also a step forward.

We didn't have a television to watch the Inaugural Ball, but I enjoyed viewing the photos on the New York Times website. The Obamas are a beautiful and hot couple, and it's clear from the way they looked at each other and laughed together that they are deeply in love. It's got nothing to do with politics, but it was uplifting to see.

I've said it before: we've broken a barrier that many people thought would never fall down, and the excitement and joy particularly among African-Americans was similar to the joy when the Berlin Wall came down. We haven't abolished racism, that doesn't happen in one single moment. But we've grown up as a nation, and now, the possibilities are infinite.

I wore my Obama 1-20-2009 tee shirt and it felt so good to finally have a President who is going to lead us back to the path of goodwill, compassion, and common sense. To the rule of law, rather than to the rule of expediency. For so long, I was afraid to buy that tee shirt, afraid that Bush would be replaced by someone just like him. But that didn't happen, thank God.

The whole world was watching, and just about all of the world was very happy. Commentators kept mentioning that at such a difficult time, they had never seen so much hope.

Hope alone won't save us, but this man...yes, folks, this late-born Baby Boomer (our day is not over yet) has the power to inspire a new generation to work together. I'm excited to be here to see this and to have the chance to put my energies into the rebuilding we have to do.

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Yesterday was a strange day full of ups and downs. It began on an unpleasant note. We could not use the kitchen sink because the pipes under the sink were leaking and a flood spread all the way across the floor. Bruce had to mop it up when he woke up at 5 in the morning, because the basin we put underneath the pipe was overflowing. A few hours later when I got up, the basin was overflowing again, and the linoleum was soaked. Water was spread across the floor and even reached the door of Jason’s bedroom. So, I’d made frantic forays downstairs to the superintendent, begging him to come and help.

Now, technically, he doesn’t have to do a thing. We live in a co-op so he’s only responsible for the common areas. If a leak comes down to our apartment from upstairs, it is his job to repair the damage, yet he has often been extremely slow to respond to requests to plaster our bathroom ceiling. We once had a gaping hole in our ceiling for well over a year because he just could not be bothered to come and work on it, and after a while I gave up trying. It took a great deal of persistence to finally get him to come up and seal the hole.

So, I didn’t feel particularly sympathetic to him just because he wasn’t really obligated to fix our leaking faucet. Besides, our apartment is directly over the Board president’s, and that gentleman doesn’t hesitate to complain if something from our apartment bothers him. Once he sent Stanley up to put little felt pads on the bottom of our kitchen chair and table legs, because the slight noise of our chairs being moved disturbed him. Truly, I would not want to put this man in bed with a pea under his mattress!

So I knew that if he got any water coming down from our apartment into his, he would be shrieking at Stanley to do something about it. Armed with that knowledge, I enlisted his wife in the campaign to get Stanley to fix the leak.

It must have worked because Stanley showed up at ten this morning in a totally surly mood. I didn’t realize that he would have to get all the way under the sink to fix it and install a new faucet, so I didn’t remove all the stuff from underneath it when he told me to. He threw everything out onto the floor, and then crawled under the sink. He wouldn’t speak to me and he went in and out of the apartment without saying a word. That’s his typical behavior but this time I sensed there was more anger behind it than simple indifference.

When he was finished, he left without even telling me he was done. I was left with the dilemma of deciding whether or not he deserved a tip. I don’t feel he deserves it, because he did not have to help out yet he agreed to, but then he was obnoxious about it. However, in pragmatic terms, it’s better to catch flies with honey, only in this instance the sweet stuff is green, begins with an “M”, and is not found in beehives.

Once Stanley left, I cleaned up the mess. There were sopping wet shirts and socks we’d left under the sink planning to use them as cleaning rags. But we’d never used them, so I felt no guilt about tossing them out. The rock salt I bought so I could scatter it like Janey Appleseed when I went out on icy days had fused together into one solid and useless lump, so I chucked that too. I tossed the water-damaged items also. I saved the sponges, since they’re supposed to get wet anyway, and left the detergent stains on the dark linoleum, to be mopped up another day. One thing I can say in favor of a leaky faucet, it forced us to mop the kitchen floor.

Once the entire cleanup was done, Jason and I headed out to the Museum of Natural History.

From Grandmother to Wife

I've been mistaken for many things in my lifetime. As a girl, I used to be mistaken for my mother by some of her friends. Apparently our voices were almost identical.

Maybe 12 years ago, I took Jason to the pizza shop just outside the Kingsborough College campus. He was seven at the time. He asked for some piece of candy behind the counter, and the proprietor pointed to me and told Jason to "ask Grandma." My hair was going a little gray but I didn't think I looked all that old.

"I'm Mommy!" I huffed. "Grandma is dead!"

Today, Jason arrived at his doctor's appointment half an hour after I received a call that the doctor would not be in today. They asked him, "Did your wife call?"

Not too shabby, in growing 12 years older, I have morphed from Grandma to his Mrs. How's that for growing younger?

Fashion Fantasies

On December 26th, my birthday, we went to the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. You can't take photos inside the museum, but we wandered into the entrance to the college itself and found an exhibit of fantasy clothing designed by students. There was no restriction on photography there so I snapped a number of photos of humanoid models in clothing that has never been worn on Earth. Some of it couldn't, like the pinata-style garb for a female centaur.

Inside the museum, we viewed the exhibit on "Seduction," a retrospective of erotic male and female garb from the 18th century to today. Jason especially liked a dark green velvet ball gown. It reminded me a bit of the gown Scarlett O'Hara fashioned out of velvet curtains, on her way to seduce Rhett into giving her the tax money (what a coincidence).

I found the Goth exhibit downstairs more interesting. I've always had a fascination for costumes, and these fashions were more like costumes than everyday wear. Black predominated, of course, and the connection to Victorian mourning attire was obvious. Many of the clothes were quite impractical, such as a jacket that came up over the head, and a gown that appeared to have elongated sequins. Upon closer examination, they turned out to be microscope slides, shining against the blood-red gown.

Behind a mirror, there were humanoid models wearing modern street Goth attire. Black leather jackets painted with skulls, and so on. This was more like outfits I'd seen in real life -- only far more artistic.

After this we travelled uptown to try and get into the Museum of Modern Art, but gave up the project when we saw that there were people lined up all around the block. MOMA is free on Friday nights, and this combined with the holiday season drew out a huge crowd. Instead, we headed down to the Village and ate out at the Washington Square Diner.

A Fishy Christmas

We were supposed to have friends over to discuss the future of healthcare in America this afternoon, but everyone seemed to have something else to do. Fortunately it was a sunny and warmish day (around 50 degrees for a while) and we needed to renew Jason's membership anyway, so it was the perfect way to spend a day that would have otherwise been a downer.

I took 185 photos but deleted a lot of them. Fish and other aquatic animals are always on the move, so it was very hard to get sharp photos of them. The most cooperative critters were the anemones and sea stars that clung to rocks and didn't travel.

This was Bruce's first time seeing not-so-little Akitusaaq, the baby walrus. He's gotten a lot bigger but is still a baby, and he seems to love playing with a white plastic shovel.

It was even warm enough to go to the outdoor show and see Osborn the sea lion do his tricks. Osborn dances and gives sea lion kisses to the kids in the front row.

We had a great time admiring the animals on a day when only a handful of people came to the Aquarium. There were no crowds and it was easy to see anything we chose. It was a fun and relaxing afternoon, just what we needed.