mechanicals

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I just discovered a reason why I haven't been writing in my blogs much lately. When I first started, I was writing from a webtv: turn it on, log in, type "blogger" into my "goto" function, hit "new post," start writing. It was pretty fast.

Now that I'm using Ma's computer, it's harder. Turn on computer; wait for it to load. Type in password; wait for personal settings to load. Click on NetZero; wait for ridiculous, hiccuping commercial to finish, click on "connect;" click on "favorites;" click on "Rogi;" click on "writing;" click on "blogger dashboard;" click on "hood life;" click on "new post;" write.

EACH of these steps can take upwards of thirty seconds, sometimes more. I'm not too with it, first thing in the morning. One morning, Ma woke me with, "I couldn't sleep, so I put new tires and tubes on your bicycle..." I said, "don't say anything complicated." She loves bicycles, and could spend at least an hour, describing the blow-by-blow details of this procedure. She understood.

But computers don't understand. Sometimes, it's all I can do to sit in this chair and watch that damned hourglass spin, as I wait for this and that to load. It's Ma's computer, so I can't exactly throw a brick through the monitor. So, sometimes, avoidance seems the best tactic.

Oh, sure, I find things to do so I don't have to just sit here and stare: let chickens out, got to bathroom, pour coffee to warm in microwave; feed dogs; water cats; water garden..... I'll do all these, between steps on the computer, as I wait for things to load.

I guess that's multitasking: going on with your REAL life, while you wait for the damned computer to percolate...

The heat wasn't so bad yesterday, not until around 3pm, anyway. I transcribed another Peace Talks for http://paulingles.com Paul Ingles. I puttered with some minor chores.

Ma and I walked to the store for filtered water (they have a vending machine; we have our own, 3 gallon jugs) and assorted groceries. I scored a 99 cent-per-pound brisket. I'll throw half in the crock pot today and freeze the rest. Makes great tacos, taquitos, burritos... But you have to cook it for a loooong time, so it'll fall apart. Otherwise, brisket is meat chewing gum. And floss: it always makes strings that get caught in teeth.

Memorial Day is coming. Ma has the day off. She wants us to go to a movie on bike and scooter. Busses don't run on holidays. We live near the museums, Old Towne (an affected, English spelling of an ancient, Native and Spanish area of the city), the Biological Park, Zoo, Aquarium... lots of touristy things. I've never been to any but the Zoo and the free parts of the museums. I'd kinda like to go. We have a planetarium within walking distance, too; we walk past it on summer evenings all the time.

I had an old bike I'd found in the dumpster, next to my last apartment. The handlebars were crooked; the gear chain had derailed; the tires were flat. Ma fixed it up for me. I think it's actually for little kids. It's a VERY small mountain bike, eighteen speeds. It's in almost-new condition. And, since it's so small, I can dismount without killing myself. Hell, my feet actually tourch the ground.

So, it's her mission in life to fix it up so I can ride bikes with her. Oh, she thinks the scooter's ok, for long trips, but she's absolutely tickled that I might actually ride bicycles with her. No, I don't know why.

But bicycle people are peculiar. It's like a religion. But it's a private religion, for the most part. Yes, I see gangs of spandex people in melon helmets, their skinny hipbones jutting with each peddle, speeding along on weekends. But that's rare. For the most part, I only see individuals riding on errands or to work. Many are alcoholics who've lost drivers' licenses. Many are Mexican and other immigrants, earning minimum wage, just trying to survive. Mostly, the white, middle class people have the religious aspect to bike riding; everybody else is just trying to get to a dead-end job on time.

It's also like a drug addiction. Ma and I went into a bike shop, near the Guild Cinema (we'd seen a double feature Orson Wells, the week after seeing his "The Trial," written by Kafka--which is the story of my life, actually...). Anyway, that bike shop had the damdest wastes of money I ever saw: every contraption you can THINK of to cherry out a bike, a bicyclist, or anything remotely related to bicycles. Ma bought one, little part: a bike seat shim. It cost TEN DOLLARS!!! Paraphenalia.

Ducks and chicks, dogs and cats, gold fish are all fine. When my strength returns, I must line my pond and fill it.

Right now, though, I'm about conserving my strength, keeping my animals and garden alive in this heat, and laying low.

The heat really knocked me off my feet. And, yes, there was a fire in the bosque (Spanish for forest) yesterday. It was small, thank heavens, but still....

I'm sewing some sun dresses for Ma and I. Hers is lime green with lemons printed on the bodice. I got some chickens; I'm making a pinafore from them. I got some cats, too. Haven't decided on those yet... But some new dresses were in order. I guess I could finish the straps and hem on Ma's today. Maybe...

I got the sewing machine working again; it's poorly designed and the thread can wrap itself around one of the take up clips. I finally bypassed the clip. I got the tension properly adjusted. I oiled everything. It's a crappy machine and doesn't do much, but it keeps things sewn up.

So, if the damned thing doesn't drive me bonkers, being finiccy and breaking threads, I'll work on dresses today. Maybe...

heat

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Two times, during the year, I'm reminded how far above sea level I'm living.

One is the dead of winter, especially on a cloudless night. I feel only the thinnest veil of atmospheric protection from the infinite, bitter cold of outer space.

The other time is summer, about mid afternoon, when the sun is much too close and much too strong. Plastics disintigrate in a season. Plants struggle for air and water.

We're having a too early, week-long heat wave. It's been over ninety fahrenheit, every day. The evening temperature was dropping enough that my fans could pump in some cool air overnight, which I would trap behind closed windows and doors for the day.

But last night, it never really cooled. The collected heat in the earth radiated out all night. The air was still. I literally whimpered as I tried to go to sleep.

It's dawn now. The thermometer reads over seventy, which is an ideal daytime temperature. But it's not enough to collect inside the house to keep it cooler than the outside air at midday.

It's going to be miserable in here today. And forget working outside.

I'll keep the fans on high speed for a couple of more hours. Then, I'll turn some off, to save electricity. The others will work at minimum, just to stir the air.

The ducks are nearly adults now. The chickens are dwarfed by them. The chickens have their feathers now, but they're only a quarter the size of the ducks.

The ducks have their fat pads, for floating. They feel the heat worse than the chicks do. They pant. They spread their breasts and bellies in any shaded, especially damp, ground.

I water every night. This heat came way too early for my sprouting garden, and for the clover seed I sewed in the front yard. Tiny sprouts struggle, just to stay alive. I shredded old newspaper in my cross cut paper shredder. I sprinkled it on the parts of the garden that are most exposed to the heat. When I water, the paper absorbs the moisture and releases it overnight. It shades tender sprouts. It reflects sunlight. Some mornings, I find the ground still damp until nearly noon.

I need to finish the duck pond soon. I'm drying it out in this miserable and indifferent heat. Then, I'll layer it with old sheet plastic for insulation from sharp rocks, twisted metal, broken glass and other debris in that back yard. I'm planning to line it with a swimming pool cover I bought on eBay.

I've stacked large slabs of our old, concrete driveway. The city subcontracted street renovation. I asked the guy with the jack hammer to save me the slabs. Ma and I dragged the heavy monsters into the back yard. I built lawn chairs, a table, and the base of my pond's waterfall with them.

I'll cover the stacked slabs with plastic, and cover that with pretty, pink flagstones I've collected from the neighborhood. I'll run a swamp cooler pump hose up the stack. The pump will sit in the water, at the base of the "fall."

It should look nice, be a good home for my gold fish, and provide swimming space for the ducks. Digging the hole was miserable, but we loosened the earth with the rototiller we rented, back when it was cold enough I was rototilling in a hail storm.

The heat is taking its toll on me. I'm weak and dizzy. I'm drinking fluids all day, to stave off dehydration (about three litres per day). But when it's this hot, my aging, sickly body just can't cope.

Yesterday, it just gave out. I napped for four hours. It wasn't restful. I battled heat in unconsciousness and woke dripping with sweat and weak.

I only hope the forcast for next week provides some relief.

We had so much spring rain that weeds have grown to outrageous proportions. They'll dry in the heat. A passing car, a thrown cigarette butt, and the whole city could catch fire.

It could be a bad wild fire season, if this week is an indication of the summer to come.

I've let all my ducks and chickens out into the yard for the day. I have fifteen, collectively.

Now, I'll go hoe away some of the piles of dirt from around the pond, so I can lay the plastic and then hoe the dirt back to weigh down the edges.

All I can do is wait for this to pass. But the misery makes patience difficult. I'd kill for an air conditioner.

home

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This has been a difficult period of adjustment for me: the idea that I have a stable, safe home that won't disappear overnight, due to the whims of forces I can't negotiate with, let alone control. So much of my life has been devoted to hustling to keep a roof over my head. I've had to placate landlords, dodge crazy neighbors, sell plasma for rent money, guard my place with crowbars and baseball bats, cajole cops who assume I'm suspect because I live in a bad neighborhood.... blah, blah, blah.

I still freak out every month when the landlord comes for the rent. He's a prissy, snotty, negative closet queen. He lives with his mother. He has a chihuahua, which he treats like a fragile jewel. He's a devout catholic. He REAKS of overpowering aftershave. And he's a bimbo. I can barely stand him. And he always has something negative to say. Last month, he sneared because I've planted marigolds. Go figure.

I'm always sure I'll have to pack to move, every time he's coming for the rent. I let Ma deal with him, mostly. The best I'll do is put in a guest appearance, so he'll know I actually live here. Most months, I hide in the back with the sequestered cats, dogs and chickens.

Once the ducks are big enough, there will be no hiding their quacking, of course.

The baby ducks & chicks are doing fine and growing like weeds. Soon, they'll be big enough to let run free. I'm waiting 'til they can't squeeze through chain link.

Anyway, my point is: we've lived here nearly a year now. I'm just now getting my head around the concept that this is my home, that I have every right to be here, that "they" are not going to bust in here at any moment and order me to move on.

Because I'm starting to relax, to trust my security, old traumas are surfacing: crises that demanded my clearest thinking and wit. These were times when I just had to solve the problem of trying to keep myself, my stuff and my animals safe and alive. I couldn't afford the luxury of freaking out, crying, getting angry, being scared, etc.

Now, I'm remembering those times and feeling the emotions. It's pretty difficult, but I figure it's healthy and healing, in the long run: no sense trying to avoid it, anyway; it'd take too much energy.

The same is true of Ma, of course. I'm starting to understand how she ticks, and she I. We still have some rough patches. I often feel cheated of her time and attention; her job drains her something awful.

I'm alone here a lot. When she gets home, I'm full of things to tell her. And she just wants to get her clothes off, throw on a bathrobe and slippers, and veg out in front of the tv.

I don't want to socialize. I don't want to drive around on my scooter. I don't want to expose myself to other people's damage. I want to stay home.

But it means I try to dump all my stuff on Ma, who can barely handle her own stuff.

I'm trying to be patient, both with her and with myself.

I have a very active mind, and a lot of ideas.

Which is why, of course, I should be writing more.

I've been putting in the garden. Last weekend, Ma helped me cut corrugated, metal sheeting into panels and assemble a roof on our back porch/animal kennel. Looks very good. And it's more substantial than the sheet plastic I put up last year.

And I found a game I bought: Speedy Eggbert and Speedy Eggbert II. They were bundled by egames.com for twenty five bucks. Yea, it's a lot of money for a silly game, but I just LOVE it! I come in from working hard outside and try to solve the colorful, noisy puzzles. It's a series of mazes, with booby traps and treasures. Nobody gets killed. There are weapons, of a sort (if you can call glue bombs weapons). But nobody dies -- not even the adversaries. It's cartoonish and clever. I can design my own mazes. And it's challenging for memory, logic and precision skills. I'd buy it for any kid. It must be relatively easy, as I can do it -- with great difficulty. By the time I'll have finished II, I'll have forgotten most of I, and can go back to play it all again.

It's a catharsis, really: my whole life resembles Speedy Eggbert: I'm just trying to go from Point A to Point B, without getting clobbered on the way.....

Anyway, I have a back porch to organize now, and plants to water, and laundry to finish. The sun's finally up, so I'll be starting now.

Y'all have a good day.

baby day?

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Well, my order of chicks and ducks was, presumably, mailed out yesterday from a hatchery in Texas. They could be here as soon as this morning. I hope so. Two days without food & water is hard on babies. Whenever they come, I plan to take a water dish and some baby crumbles with me to the post office to pick them up. My postal carrier says he'll try to bring them here, if he can. The PO will call when they arrive. The latest they should be here is tomorrow.

I have a small "chicken shack" built already. The two ducklings and the chick are already in it. They're getting too big already. The duckies are half grown already. The chick already has flight feathers. They'll be moving out in a couple of weeks, I'm thinking.

Been working my tail off in both the front and back yards. I was out front, watering flowerbeds in the driveway, when a guy with a clip board came up to the fence yesterday. Seems the city has had a complaint about "trash, in both the front and back yards." He looked around at all my hard work and said, "but I don't see anything." I explained that I'm working on an animal kennel in the back yard and that there are tools, tarps and lumber back there, but that's only temporary. We finally decided the complaint must be about my container garden (all pots are disguised in tall baskets and I've planted in a wheel barrow and 2 zinc washtubs) and about my compost piles in the back. He was satisfied that I had done nothing wrong, so he made some notes, took down my name and phone number, apologized for troubling me, and started to leave. I thanked him and told him I'm grateful that he was so mellow about it all.

People can see me out there, every day, working all day. The yard's rototilled. I'm climbing ladders, shoveling, raking, hammering....all DAY in the sun! I mean, if there were old car parts or beer cans or fast food wrappers or tall stands of weeds, I could understand. But someone actually narced on me FOR WORKING IN MY YARD?!?!

No, I can't afford a gardener. And I don't have any able-bodied men to help me. And this is HARD work: man's work, I'm doing.

I'm so mad, I can't see straight!

If you see a decrepit, old lady, huffing and puffing in her yard all day, OFFER TO HELP HER! DON'T call the CITY on her! ...and I bet they think they're "christians!"

bite me!

So, my tarps came last night, via UPS. I can cover the chicken/duck house I've built out back. I can begin covering the roof over the back porch. I can line my pond, once I'm done digging it out (I'm pretty close, but it rained on the loose soil in the bottom, and I've been letting it dry before I try to haul it out of the hole.

I'm ready to plant the back garden now, soon's I have time.

Well, sun's up. I should be heading out there....

Amen!

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While the yuppies fret over their fancy dinner parties, someone at the SF Chronicle wrote something cathartic. I wish it were true, not just humor.

I posted it here http://dailyrogi.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_dailyrogi_archive.html#111331097853276901

I have reservations about posting it, as military and "intelligence" bots sniff my blogs for signs of validation for the Homeland Insecurity paranoia. I could be in deep doo doo for posting this, y'know.

But I've been a Unitarian for a long time. And, except for the ridiculously improbable names of the brothers & sisters portrayed, find it quite plausable that a group within the UUA could cook up an activist group such as the one described.

More likely, they're forming committees to decide whether to donate funds to relief organizations. Anything to keep one's hands clean and one's arms distance the closest encounter.

Which is why I'm not an active UU. Well, I'm an active UU. But I'm not involved with any congregations/fellowships.

The sun's bright this morning. My first daffodil will probably bloom today. The pond's almost dug out. I've removed the old, torn plastic sheeting from the chicken wire enclosure I made off the back porch. I'm waiting for my tarps to arrive so I can fashion new waterproofing, both for the roof and for the pond, which is nearly done enough to fill.

The baby ducks are almost half grown. The chick, who is a Polish Mop, has silly tufts of feathers sprouting from her head. The other babies will be shipped from Texas tomorrow, and the postal carrier has been alerted to their arrival. He'll TRY to bring them, but the USPS may be calling me to come pick them up. He told me where I'll be going to get them. It's not far. And the scooter's all gassed up & the carb's adjusted for warmer, spring weather.

In a couple of weeks, the whole back yard will be planted.

About my teeth: several people have emailed me, suggesting dental colleges. The local university has none. My only option is a clinic, at $25 per visit. I'm screwing up the courage to go this month. Plus, I'm awaiting my payment for the Kicked Out Queers broadcast, to pay for the visits. I have to go this month, before that payment appears, and they actually think I earn a lot more money than I do.

It's warm now. A six am ride on the scooter won't be as uncomfortable as it would have been a month ago. I have to be at the clinic that early. At least, the first time.

moan.

I don't know how people are supposed to get there, if they don't have cars, etc. No busses run there at six in the morning. I'm lucky I live relatively close by and have the scooter.

My food stamps were halved this month, for no reason. So I'll have to call, go in, straighten that all out. Can't afford to lose my medicaid for a red tape reason.

Well, Ma has the tv on in my room, listening for weather reports. I guess it's safe to start breakfast now.

dying of neglect

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Ma & I are making noises about going down to Mexico, so I can get my teeth fixed. 'course, the Dept. of Homeland (in)security is going to make that harder soon; I'll need a passport to get back into the US. jees.

Medicaid no longer pays for prescriptions. This surprises me, as the pharmacy lobbies in this country are very powerful and make good bucks off of us.

Ma sent me this article:

Life Without Health Insurance Gets Costly
Wed Apr 6, 8:41 PM ET Health - AP
By MICHAEL P. REGAN, AP Business Writer
NEW YORK - When Arnaud Durieux needed to get his teeth fixed about six
months ago, the freelance Web designer caught a flight from New York to his
native France.Since he has no health or dental insurance, he figured this was his best
option to get good care at a good price, even factoring in the cost of the
airplane ticket. The French dentist charged him about $500 for the crown,
compared with the $2,000 he says it would have cost him in New York.

"I usually go back (to France) about once a year. So while I'm there I get
my medical checkup and any dental work I need," said the 37-year-old
Durieux. "It's still cheaper for me to get all that work done in France than
getting insurance here and doing it the American way. It's unfortunate, but
that's how it is."

Durieux's is one of many unique strategies that the 45 million uninsured
people in the United States employ in an attempt to keep themselves healthy
without going broke, as medical and health insurance costs have soared in
recent years.

Premiums for family coverage in employer-sponsored plans rose 59 percent
between 2001 and 2004, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, compared
with a 9.7 percent growth in consumer prices.

The escalating costs are expected to keep the ranks of the uninsured growing
for years to come. A study by researchers at the University of California,
San Diego, published Tuesday by the policy journal Health Affairs, predicts
that 56 million people in the U.S. — more than one in four American
workers — will be uninsured by 2013.

For many younger people who are uninsured, the good health that usually
comes with youth makes the risks tolerable. But as middle-age and the aches
and pains that come with it encroach, so do fears of huge medical bills from
a catastrophic illness or accident.

"It worries me all the time. It doesn't settle well with me," said C.J.
Holm, a 42-year-old New York woman who is looking for a part-time job that
offers health benefits until her new catering business brings in enough
money for her to afford coverage.

She beat ovarian cancer in the 1980s — but has had to skip regular checkups
because she can't afford them."When I think about it, I feel really guilty," she says.

For Nancy Twigg, a 38-year-old author and newsletter publisher in Knoxville,
Tenn., being uninsured means looking up her symptoms on the Internet when
she gets sick, peppering friends who are nurses and pharmacists with
questions, and treating whatever she can with over-the-counter medicines.

If disaster strikes, she has faith she'll be covered by a service called
Samaritan Ministries, a group of Christians who send money each month to
members of the network with high medical bills.

"We are happy to know that it goes to a family in need, rather than a large
insurance corporation," she said.

When doctor's visits become unavoidable, she has found a doctor who offers a
discount to self-pay patients and recently gave her $1,000 worth of drug
samples to treat a case of shingles.

"Had she not done this, I would have just had to tough it out," she says.

Such toughing it out is an all-too-common phenomenon for people with no
insurance, according to Stuart Schear, director of next month's Cover the
Uninsured Week campaign, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Research shows that uninsured people usually put off care for as long as
possible, Schear said.

"If they are having a health problem, they try to see
if they can wait it out. Often that is to their detriment," he said.

"It's estimated that nearly 18,000 people in the U.S. probably die each year
because they do not have health coverage," he said.

Experts say most of the uninsured population is composed of people whose
employers don't offer benefits, but who make too much money to be covered by
public-health programs and not enough to afford their own coverage.

High medical bills are the second-leading cause of personal bankruptcy,
Schear said.

Yet there is a significant number who simply gamble they won't incur medical
bills high enough to justify the soaring costs of insurance.

Paul Keckley, a health-care economist and director of the Vanderbilt Center
for Evidence Based Medicine, says research shows this group of gamblers is
about 15 percent to 18 percent of the uninsured population and is definitelygrowing.

For some, "I think there's maybe a suspicion that modern medicine, quote
unquote, is like modern food: There's a whole lot of chemistry and
technology involved and if you can get natural in your approach, perhaps
you're better off," he said.

He said other people for the most part are structuring their own benefits.

"Some will tell you 'I think I can negotiate directly with the doctor or
hospital and get a better deal.'"

That's how Bonnie Russell, a legal publicist in San Diego, looks at it.

"You gotta look at this stuff pragmatically," she says. "I knew that when I
was younger I would be betting against myself. That's what insurance is
about, betting against yourself."

But after being diagnosed with skin cancer recently and paying for the
treatment herself, she said she had "one of those gut-check feelings" and
was looking into insurance policies.

"After I got this I thought that, as time marches on, you gotta rethink it,"
she said. "But I had a good run."

creepy

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Go over to http://rriverstoneradio.blogspot.com/ and read my comments. I'm just sick.

time change

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Well, I was confused, yesterday morning, when it wasn't light out at 5am. Took me awhile to get oriented.

We tried leaving the dogs out for the night last night. I dragged their dog house, with blanket inside, around to the front porch and had them get in, so they'd know it was there.

At three this morning, Porkchop was barking, running from the very back fence all the way up to the front gate. I finally pried myself out of bed to shut him up. Taz was sleeping meekly on the hassock by my bed. She'd pushed her way through the chicken yard gate to come in through the dog door.

I figure Porky found himself alone and got nervous. So he was barking at any sounds, trying to scare away monsters.

I went out and barely mumbled, "Porky!" He came immediately. So, he's sleeping on the dog mattress, beside Taz on the hassock.

Not bad, for a first night in the wilds of Old Towne.

But I can't go back to sleep. And Ma needs all the rest she can get; this week's going to be all-consuming, at her job.

My job is to keep her fed, with packed lunches and hearty breakfasts. It's also my job to keep her in clean clothes. At home, her entire time will be consumed with recovering from -- and resting up for -- work.

She'll have next weekend off, but will need to sleep for a good part of Saturday. Sunday, she'll be preparing her taxes.

So, I'm on my own this week. I'll be responsible for all the household chores. And there's the garden planting, of course.

And the pond: it still needs the loose soil dug out and shaped. I'm thinking I could use one of my large tarps as a pond liner. I was going to use sheet plastic, but the UV will rot it quickly under water. So, I'll use the plastic as a liner with a tarp on top.

When the tarps come, I'll also need to climb up on the back porch roof and attach those. But I'm sure as hell not doing that unless someone's here to haul my broken butt to the emergency room, if I fall off the roof. Jees...

Most of the front yard is planted. I have two yard-square patches, on either side of the sour cherry tree I planted in front of our living room window. I can't afford to buy bamboo, which is Ma's preference, based on previous discussions. So, I'm planting an ornamental, red corn I have. It's one of those miniature corns they sell for Thanksgiving. I'm growing minipumpkins out there, so why not, right?

Today, I'll probably start around the perimater of the back yard. I want the entire garden lined with marigolds, to ward off bugs. And I'm planting tall stuff: amaranth and sunflowers for gourds to climb. It'l help keep wind down and dust out. And it'll hide us from the neighbors better. Or hide them from us?

I want to start planting the real vegie/herb spaces (apx. 40 sq. ft.) in about a week. That way, by the time the baby poultry is out there (about sixty days), the seedlings will be too tall or big to eat. I want my poultry to run in the garden. They can bug there and the poop is fertilizer. Plus, ducks are really good at eating weed seedlings.

I'm leaving a large patch of wild, volunteer grasses. The grass grows nearly a foot tall and is great for poultry to sleep in during the day. They'll feel sheltered. And it's cooling on those hot river rocks everybody out here seems to think makes good ground cover. It's actually very hot and hard to weed. I'm covering every inch of that damned gravel I can. That's why I planted melon/pumpkin mounds out front: the vines will umbrella those hot rocks that heat the house all summer. That's also why I want to plant tall plants around sun-exposed walls: keep the heat out.

I made a batch of blueberry icecream last night, with Ma's help. I got a freezer on eBay. I'll churn it today. Smells really good.

I also cooked a cheap pork butt roast yesterday. I'm thinking pork tacos. I'm also thinking pulled pork barbeque.

My main goals this week, beyond chores and yardwork, are to not kill Ma for being thick-headed from fatigue. It's going to be like living with a person with dementia. The Ma I love and remember will be overlaid with exhaustion and won't be thinking right. It'll be frustrating. She won't hear half of what I say and won't understand most of it, when she does. I take it personally when I think people aren't listening to me. She won't be able to listen.

My food stamps will be here in about 5 days. I'm looking forward to a grocery marathon at the cheap grocer's. I've pretty much given up on our local grocery: meat's horribly over priced and poor quality; they never mark down produce, dairy or bakery. The selection's poor. They're fine for a few things, but it's worth my while to scooter to that discount place.

Cats are out in the mild darkness. I'm about to pour my second cuppa and sit on the porch to watch them sneak around the garden like spies. I think they like the adrenaline rush of pretending they're getting away with something.

planting

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Well, I planted a twenty five foot bed, next to the neighbor's wall. I don't like her, peeking out her window blinds at me. So, I'm growing ten foot tall amaranth, eight foot tall sunflowers and morning glory vines & gourds, to climb the tall stuff. I also sewed some marigold seeds in the bed.

I moved my planters out to the driveway. My neighbor's devil grass is taking it over. I already rototilled, lightly, over the area, to loosen most of the roots. I raked it out. I covered it with black sheet plastic, to kill the remaining roots. I'm disguising, and weighing down the plastic, with my planters. In a year or two, the devil grass ought to have died.

I built a "chicken shack," for my baby birds. I had a large, wooden packing crate I was using as a brooder, but it's a little small for the babies to walk around in. They need to exercise a lot, or they'll get spraddle legged. I turned it on its side and nailed a plywood "porch" to the front. I nailed an old dog blanket around it for insulation, covered with a sheet of plastic. I built a chicken wire and wood frame to front the box, like a little porch. It has no bottom, but has a chicken wire and plexiglass "roof." Their water is out there, away from where they sleep. They're out back, in my chicken yard, in the straw. I keep them warm with an old waterbed heater, which has a thermostat, sprinkled with hay, in the back, bottom of the box. They also have a red flood light I bought cheap after xmas one year. I put their crumbles food inside a cat food dispenser, so they can't get it too dirty. They're comfortable back there. My next order of poultry chicks is scheduled to be sent out on April 13th. So, by the 15th, they ought to have lots of company in there.

I'm getting a lot done, but I always have the nagging feeling of so much more to do. I haven't begun to plant the back yard yet; it's too early. I'll wait 'til after April 15th, the frost danger deadline.'

I've ordered a BUNCH of plastic tarps off eBay. Theyr'e pretty big: 10x10 and 5x7. The smaller ones will cover the back porch I built. There are ten of those. I'll also use them to cover our outdoor tent area, where I'll be barbecuing. The bigger ones, I'll use to construct a larger storage and sitting area. And I can use one to cover Ma's car in the driveway. They'll last a couple of years or so. The sun eats everything here. And what the sun doesn't rot, the winds tear up. So, I know they're not permanent, but they're going to help a lot. I want all my gardening, bicycles, tools, etc. covered, protected and out of the neighbors' sight. And I want shade: for people and pets.

It's nice to have a budget. True, all those tarps, sixteen or so, only cost me about forty dollars, but, a year ago, it might as well have been four thousand. I just couldn't have justified the expense.

My tools have rusted from exposure to weather. I keep them oiled, but there's only so much one can do without a shed or garage.

So, tarps aren't a luxury to me.

I haven't been writing, because of the Bed Crisis. The mattress pad came undone. I pulled it out from under the bottom sheet. But the springs poked me in the hips and I couldn't sleep. So, I moved out to the living room and slept on the futon couch I assembled. Ma slept in her room, which is where the good computer is: the one I use to write blogs, etc. I get up too early and would have woken her, writing. I get so busy during the day, I don't want to stop to write.

The bedding's washed, the featherbed is on top of the mattress, and clean linens are on. So, we're back to sleeping in my room, together. She's asleep, so I can write.

I'm going to have a yard sale soon. Probably in a month. I often buy stuff in "lots" on eBay, so we have extra curlers, sun hats, lipsticks, etc. And we both have stuff we don't need that we can sell.

But, first, I want my garden in. I figure, if I do about twenty feet by two feet, per day, I'll have it done in about two, three weeks.

We have lots of rain barrels. And we flush the toilet with our collected shower water. So our water bill for the garden shouldn't scare the landlord. I even flush the laundry water into the garden.

And, in about 2 months, the back yard will be full of young poultry, including about six ducks with their own pond. It'll be nice. The garden will be grown enough that the chicks and ducks won't eat the seedlings. There will be shade. It'l be quite pleasant, I hope.

I guess that's about it for this post.

yard work

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I got on my scooter yesterday, hunting for marked-down Easter candy. No luck. I did find some towels for the kitchen cheap; they don't look like easter, but were labeled that way and so marked down.

I went to our local pet store. In the past, they had colored chicks during Easter. I was hoping they might have some marked down. Nope.

Well, I got really brave, screwed up my courage, and took off down Isleta Blvd, deep into the south valley, all the way past Rio Bravo, to a bait and feed store I know. I got two Pekin ducklings, colored pink. I also got a Polish mop chick.

On the way back, chicks in a paper sack with holes punched that I put in the plastic bag hanging from my handlebars, my chain popped off. Pretty scary: I thought it was broken, at first. I fixed it, worrying about the babies who might be too cold or thirsty.

I made it home, driving hell bent for leather: faster than I normally do. The bumps and vibrations hurt my feet and lower legs something awful.

I got the chicks in. They live in a wooden crate, lined with sheet plastic and an old dog blanket. I have a water bed heating pad on the bottom, covered with metal grates. I rested a plastic box over this, sprinkled shredded paper, added food and water. It was a bit too warm, at first. But I finally got the temp. below ninty five degrees and all are well.

I take them out so they can nuzzle me and imprint on me. The ducks bite my lips, ears and eyelids. The chick just snuggles. She's only a couple of days old; the ducks are a week, today. They're stronger than she.

Antonio, our neighbor across the street, got a new drier. His old one's timer is broken. Since his kids do the laundry, they often forget to shut it off. Ma and I dragged it over here last night. I'm removing a table and stuff I had sitting next to my washer on the back porch. I'll put the drier there.

I'm also looking through the crates and bottles of seeds I was storing under the table. That's this year's garden, if I can remember what everything is. I probably won't. Often, I sew seeds with no idea what they might be. I'm always pleasantly surprised by what takes off.

I gather seeds while I'm out walking or scooting. I bring them home in my purse, wrapped in whatever works. Often, I have seeds all over my back packs, fanny packs and other bags. I tuck them in the crates with the other seeds all winter. By spring, I have no recollection of what I got and from where.

I'm working on the part of the yard I've enclosed in chicken wire, an attempt to keep Grace from throwing rocks at any of my cats which might go in her yard. It's gotten cluttered and disorganized over winter, as I just set things outside, but found it too cold or wet to really do anything beyond the basics. So, things need straightening. It's a nice space, when it's not disorganized. I'm finding the damage minimal. I should have it together in a day or two.

Of course, I just heard wind howling outside. The sky's dark now. It could rain. That would mess up my plans.

As long as the drier's in, out of sight, and I rake up some dog poop and bring in some laundry on the line, I'll have a good start. There's laundry in the machine to do. Ma's running out of work clothes and is wearing the oddest outfits. I'll have to take care of that. I'm the only one who can work our stubborn, beat up washer.

Ducklings are peeping; they're awake now.

I'm tired and hurting from the rototiller still. But, in a few weeks everything will be ready for planting. It already is, but I'm waiting til after April 15, when the danger of frost is, presumably, over. I'll sew some frost resistant stuff sooner, of course.

It'll be nice, having a drier for bad weather days when the clothesline is a problem. And it'll help with lint on towels and blankets. Other than that, I could continue living without it. Seems stupid, having a clothes drier in New Mexico. There is NO humidity, most of the time. Clothes can dry in minutes in the sun.

Well, Ma will be up soon. There'll be breakfast to make. And I need to lug the drier in as soon as she wakes. Don't want to wake her now.

If the sun comes out this afternoon, I'll let the ducks and chick come outside for awhile. I turn a laundry basket over them in the yard. They can paddle in the pet drinking bowl, chase bugs, nibble grass, eat gravel. It's good for them, in small doses. Ducklings can drown as long as they still have down. They get water logged and sink. But the pet drinking thing has rocks in the bottom; they can touch their feet to them, stand and hop out.

It'll be nice, having a duck pond, when the little varments are feathery enough to swim unattended....

glorious morning

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Well, sunrise was marked by a fat, waning moon which drifted through a turquoise sky and tangerine mists.

The whole yard's dug up with the rototiller. I have a "truck" garden patch that's about twenty five feet square, at the back, west corner of the property. I have a triangle, apx. 12 feet, on the opposite corner, for ornamentals. Ma dug my pond. It's horseshoe shaped, apx ten feet long, three feet wide and about two to three feet deep.

We dug flowerbeds along the driveway: against the house, to shade it from summer sun and against the neighbor's wall, because it freaks me out to see her staring through her blinds at me when I'm sitting on the porch, smoking a cigarette. So, I'll be planting sunflowers, gourds, morning glory vines and anything else tall enough to block the view from her windows.

I also dug along her fence, in the front driveway. Her devil grass has taken over almost half the driveway there. I'll rake it out as best I can and cover it with sheet plastic, weighted down with lumber and tubs of plants.

We worked in spitting snow, hail and rain Saturday. Paul came by for a couple of hours. I fed him steak and baked potato. We were mostly done by then; we had little to do yesterday. Paul and Ma dug flowerbeds in the front yard, too, plus two pumpkin/squash mounds. I want to cover the rocks out there with umbrella leaves. The rocks heat quickly, and all day. The heat transfers to the living room wall and makes it uncomfortable all night. We're either planting bamboo or sunflowers against that wall, to shade its southern exposure.

My neighbor, Robert, gave me three sour cherry seedlings that volunteered in his yard. They're just about ready to bloom. I've planted them around the front yard, too.

I'm sore and tired, of course. Wrestling a rototiller around that hard, rock infested mess was a real job. But, I figure: two days of intense pain is worth not having to hand till and weed that mess all summer.

I got drunk yesterday afternoon. I got a deal on Corona beer; we had limes from the marguritas I made for the writer and his wife. I even threw back two shots of Cuervo. Ick!

I put on my witch's hat, with the grey wig, and sat on the porch in my satin night gown and red, terry bathrobe. Ma thought I was quite amusing. I'll try to find the jpeg and post it here.

Stu's talking about coming next weekend, with plant starts and some compost, to help me plant. I'm going ahead with the "spite fence" this week. Sunflowers can stand frost. I'll go ahead and plant them, the amaranth and a few, other things.

We started the day with a scooter and bicycle trip to Rowland's Nursery. I got some pansies, some lobelia, and a pretty, lavender daisy-like thing Ma liked. We also got heirloom yellow pear tomato seeds and some interestingly-shaped radish.

We moved on to Walgreen's for Ma's vitamins and a brace for her wrist; she pretty much hurt herself with the tiller, and it's hard for her to ride her bike without wrist braces.

Then, we hit the cheap grocery by the river. I got some real, rib eye steaks for supper.

We came home and started digging. I loaned the tiller to the next door neighbors when I finished. They've been really nice to us, as has the guy across the street. He helped pick up and will drop off the tiller.

I served just the steaks for supper, with horseradish and sour cream. Just perfect!

I collapsed into bed early and slept fitfully. The muscle and joint soreness was, of course, exascerbated by the oxygen deprivation from alcohol. Middle of the night, I finally got up to hunt down b-complex and some asprins.

Now, I'm fine. Tender, weak but fine.

All the weeds are gone. The rocks are in piles in the yard and will decorate the pond. We still need to scrape out the loose dirt there with the hoe and shovels.

I'll have the pond ready before the ducklings lose their down and can safely swim in it. And my gold fish will be thrilled...if you can thrill a gold fish...

Very satisfying, all in all. Shows you how secure and safe I feel: I could let down my guard and get snockered, for the first time in a long time. I really got to celebrate our home, the spring, our relationship, the hopefulness of planning our lives together...

All my planters have flowers in them now. It is already looking quite lovely out there.

Here's the jpeg. As you can see, that front tooth finally fell out.

http://rriverstone.com/images/witchrototiller.JPG">
http://rriverstone.com/images/witchrototiller.JPG

Drizzle

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Well, if it just drizzles for a few hours this morning, then quits, I should be OK with the rototiller. 'course, if the back yard turns to mud soup, it'll be challenging...

It's 4:30am. Porky and I have been out on the front porch already, having a cigarette and coffee. It's a gentle rain, barely wetting the concrete on the porch step.

All the weeds are chopped. Ma and I did it by hand, using the neighbor's hoe as a scythe. I've raked most up and have them drying in the driveway, so I can seperate out the large rocks for landscaping around the pond I'm building.

Some parts of the yard can't be tilled: there are just too many large rocks. But these areas are small. One is a slight mound. I'll put a table and chairs out there, facing the pond. There are natural paths, too.

So, I'll work with the land as it is, rather than try to force it to be as I want. Wherever grasses and weeds have grown well, I'll plant. Barren ground will stay that way.

I was laughing: as I chopped weeds yesterday, I heard neighbors' weed eaters in other yards. All that wasted gasoline and electricity! And, later, they'd be complaining that they never have time to go to the gym to work out.

Now, don't get me wrong: it's hard work and my arms are sore. But it's meditative work. It's wholesome. Weed eaters are so loud and obnoxious, they're more like an assault than a garden chore. You can't think! Your arms buzz and your head rattles. A hoe just whispers and swishes through the weeds, occasionally chiming against a rock.

Even with all their lawn equipment, my neighbor's yards are, for the most part, more overgrown than ours. Interesting.

I'm starting to get excited now. I can visualize the corn over there and the gourds in that tree and the ducks in that tall grass and marigolds.

It'll be fun to have dinner guests sitting out there. And the cats will love having a shady jungle; they'll never want to hop the fence to poop in Grace's funeral home yard.

I can imagine the bees and wasps and lady bugs and mantis.....

There's a sense of real satisfaction from being self sufficient. It's a pleasure to gather eggs in the yard. Feels good to take a load of sweet smelling cloths off the line.

I have a juicer, I found in someone's garbage. Ma drinks fruit juices every day. It's nice to make it for her. I use the pulps in other cooking, too.

Ma had some guests over the other day. He wrote a play she's working on and his wife is a retired teacher, as is he. I made "Navajo" tacos. I made everything from scratch. Since Ma isn't supposed to eat wheat, I made the fry bread with reduced wheat (you need only enough gluten for it to swell like a balloon in hot oil) and spelt flour. I cooked a cheap chuck roast, marinated in beer, cumin and cilantro. We made pico de gallo (a form of raw salsa, made of tomatoes, onions, garlic, lime juice, jalepeno peppers and cilantro) and guacamole (basically the same, but with avacado). I made a bastardized tortilla soup/posole (pork/hominy stew).

I even made flan, Mexican almond custard, covered in caramel sauce. I accented it with dried: rose petals, lavendar, safflower and sprinkled it with almonds. Now, THAT was GOOD!

Those guests are STILL raving about the "feast" they had here! I even served marguritas. Oh, they were tickled! They said it was the best meal they had while they were here.

I almost killed Ma as I made the meal: she's slower than I am at chores. She's a bit clumsy. And her head is so full of details about her job, she can't retain new details about preparing a dinner party. I began to understand why Martha Stewart is characterized as a perfectionistic bitch. It has to be done RIGHT! And one has to be able to count on one's staff to do their jobs...

Well, although we left each other that morning, exasperated and grumpy, by the time Ma brought the guests home on the bus and I met them in the street, the meal was fabulous and waiting cheerfully for them.

I, of course, was tired. Yet, I charmed the pants off of them, even Ma. And, after they all left, I even put the food away and washed all the dishes.

I just wanted everything RIGHT, y'know? I burned a steak and a roast and made 2 experimental flans that came out horrible in the process, but that's just extra pet food in a situation like that...

The writer asked me how many days it had taken to prepare it. I replied honestly: it had taken 3 days. He said, if I do this on an ordinary occasion, what on earth do I do for Thanksgiving and Christmas? I grinned.

Even though I spent them alone here this year, I still cooked a spread. I go all out, when good foods are marked cheap during the holidays.

Well, it's almost 5am. I want more coffee and another cigarette. Should be light soon. Hope the rain slacks off. I still have weeds and rocks to rake up; it'd be easier if they weren't wet.

My arms are sore....

hello again

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I can't explain why I haven't been writing. Oh, sure: there have been lots of distractions, other priorities, chores and projects. But there always are, and I never let it keep me from writing before.

I think it's a combination of factors. A couple of people -- one, in particular -- at KUNM read my blogs and I've let their abusiveness and bitterness silence me in certain areas. I don't want them to know what is going on in my life. Also, there's this huge elephant in the living room that I can't write about in any blogs with my name on them. I have a "dummy" name for a blog on the subject. But the subject affects most aspects of my life, and I find it difficult to ghettoize one facet of my experience. But it's not "my secret;" it's someone else's. So I can't integrate that factor into my regular writing, lest I expose that person.

Makes it kinda fractured, y'know?

Anyway, spring's here. For the first time since she died, I didn't plant something on my daughter's birthday on the Vernal Equinox. Felt kinda bad about it. Ma pointed out all the gardening I've already done: I've sewn wild flower seeds in the front yard, planted three cherry trees, made a bulb bed....

We're supposed to rent a rototiller this weekend. Ma took the weekend off. I'm supposed to pick it up after 3:30pm tomorrow and bring it back before 9am on Monday, for sixty bucks. That's nearly three days for the one-day price.

But I'm having difficulty, finding someone to help me pick it up and bring it back. I'm afraid I'll have to haul it home on my scooter trailer. I hauled home a ten-foot tetherball pole, with concrete attached, one day. I'm not afraid of the weight. But it's someone else's property, y'know?

Anyway, a couple of guy friends are talking about coming over this weekend to take a turn on the tiller. I've promised them steaks and baked taters for helping. Might even buy some beer.

We have a HUGE yard: plenty of room for the duck pond I'm digging, lots of vegies, and still have dog yard, chicken yard and human hang out.

I've ordered poultry from a hatchery. I'm getting Japanese silkies, my favorite bantam chickens. And I'm getting some ornamental, "oriental" chickens. Even ordered a beautiful rooster. And I'm getting frizzle chickens and mops. Ought to be quite a wild flock of birds.

Ari, my araconda, is laying green eggs, daily. Stubs had a bad infestation of poultry lice. They drove her so crazy, she lost weight and stopped laying. I finally examined her and found her literally crawling with thousands of the little bastards. So, I got out my boric acid and sprinkled it where they take dust bathes. A week later, she doesn't have a louse on her! And I ordered some diatomaceous earth which just arrived. That'll keep any cooties off my birds.

OH! I've ordered 2 ducklings! Just white, Pekin ducks: nothing fancy.

The poultry should arrive around April 22.

My health's tolerable, but not good. My right, front tooth is slowly falling out. It flaps and wiggles and pinches and itches and I can't stop fussing with it.

I'm thinking of learning a way to make myself some dentures, to hide the cosmetic damage. I may even make something for the molars, so I can chew again.

Dental care costs me twenty five dollars per visit. It's just too much money, with a mouth full of rotten teeth.

There's more. Obviously. I see I really need to recommit myself to my blogs. There's a lot more.

But, it's five thirty in the morning. It's warm enough I can pad around in sweats. The yard's full of rocks which must be gathered to keep them out of the tiller blades. I still have weeds to chop, so I can see the rocks....

With first light, I'll be out there, I'm thinking.

I'm sorry I let my loyal readers down, by not posting for about a month! That's the longest I've ever gone, not writing in this....

Poor, white and pissed

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I wrote the author:

Hi!

Awesome commentary. Gotta tell you, though: I'm pretty tired of being called, "trash." I see myself more as leach food.

At any rate, I'm copying your commentary into my http://livinginthehood.blogspot.com blog soon.

I volunteer at a community radio station here. It's at the university. Talk about yer smug liberals! Lordy!

Anyway, thanks for tellin' it like it is!

Joe Bageant: 'Poor, white and pissed: A liberal guide to the white trash planet'
Date: Tuesday, February 22 @ 10:32:11 EST
Topic: Conservatives And The Right
By Joe Bageant

If you are reading this, it is very
likely you are a liberal, maybe even an outright screaming burn-down-the-goddam-country commie --- in which case I say, "Come sit by me comrade! (Especially if you are a fiftyish blonde.) Like most lefties you probably live in an urban area, or someplace with reasonable cultural diversity. More than likely you are educated and can read this without moving your lips. Maybe you even live in the freethinking People's Republic of Berkeley, or bustle along under the fabled lights of Manhattan where you can see independent films and buy such things as leeks and soy milk at your grocery store.

I, however, live in a town where it is easier to find chitterlings, ponhaus and souse in the grocery store than a leek ... and where Smokey and the Bandit still plays to packed movie houses year after year. My hometown's claim to fame is the 1983 "Rhinehart Tire Fire" in which five million discarded tires burned for nine months, gaining Winchester, Virginia, national news coverage and EPA superfund cleanup status. The smoke plume was visible in satellite earth photos, the cleanup took 18 years and the fire stands as my hometown's biggest event of the Twentieth Century. As for intellectual life, this is a town where damned few residents ever heard of say, Susan Sontag. Even though our local newspaper editor did manage a post mortem editorial on her, which basically said: Goodbye you piece-of-New-York-Jewish-commie-[language]! Most townspeople reading the paper at their breakfast tables were asking themselves, "Who the hell is Susan Sontag?"

They would ask the same thing about Daniel Barenboim or Hunter S. Thompson because they've never been on Oprah, either. Our general ambience was well summed up by a visiting Atlanta lawyer who looked around town and observed: "Dumb lordee, I reckon!" This, from a guy who's seen a lot of dumb crackers.

Laugh if you want, but this is the red state American heartland everybody is talking about these days.

Is it possible for a higher class of person to live in American places like Winchester, Virginia? Not really. Only the local old family business elite and well-paid plant managers transferred here find such a place livable---the former for their social status and the latter in the safe knowledge they will be transferred out someday.

Most of the rest of us stuck in Winchester are what used to be called the traditional working class. These days, when we are called anything at all, it is White Trash. Poor working whites, people with only a high school diploma, if that. Nationally we are at least a quarter of white U.S. workers, thirty five million in all by the government's own shaved-down numbers.

Nobody knows for sure in a nation that calls millions of $7 and hour janitors and marginal contract labor people with no insurance or benefits "independent businesspersons" and "entrepreneurs."

Small independent business people are, we are told, "the backbone of America's economy." If that is true, then it's a sorry-assed thing because we are talking about citizens who bring down maybe 25-30K a year before taxes. With both spouses working. I told my freelance janitor friend Gator that he was the backbone of the American economy; he said he felt more like its [language].

In any case, my people are not the people in the cubicle next to you at work (though they might well be cleaning it at nights when you are sleeping.) Mine are not people complaining about paying off their college loans, or who got the best parking spot at their office campus complex. They have different problems entirely, mostly related to truck payments. They are people like my old tree service boss Danny, who cut off a finger working with a chain saw, wrapped it in a MacDonald's foil wrapper and ran to the hospital to get it sewn back on. Or any of the thousands of people in this town who smash apples into apple sauce or boil them into vinegar at National Fruit Products, performing soul-grinding shift work year after year with no opportunity ever to be promoted, or of getting health care. All they get is the seasonal layoff when all the apples are smashed and the millions of gallons of vinegar bottled - working class people going nowhere in a town that smells of vinegar.

One of the problems we working class Southerners have is that educated progressive Americans see us as a bunch of obese, heavily-armed nose pickers. This problem is compounded by the fact that so many of us are pretty much that. Call it the "Dumb-crackers-lordee-I-reckon" syndrome. But liberals err in thinking this armed and drunken laboring species is an exclusively Southern breed. No matter where you live in this nation you will find us. We are the folks in front of you at the Wal-Mart checkout lugging a case of motor oil while having a nicotine fit. But even in such democratic venues as shopping, our encounters are limited because we do not buy designer beer and you do not buy ammo or motor oil by the case.

And if we aren't in the checkout line, then we are probably waiting on you as clerks. With our bright red regulated vests and nametags we do not look poor or desperate. But I can tell you that Roy, the smiling, wise old guy in an orange vest in the plumbing department of the local Home Depot - the guy who knows everything there ever was to know about plumbing, is limping around at 67 on bad knees with two bone-grafted discs from life as a construction laborer is working solely so that he can have health insurance. Not insurance from Home Depot, mind you, but so his entire paycheck can pay the private insurance he must have if he doesn't want to lose the rundown bungalow he and his wife bought right after the Korean War to medical bills. And that bungalow is now in such a bad neighborhood that only the slumlords who dominate our city council ever make an offer, and even then not much. He's been losing ground for 25 years, not that any of the tanned middle class suburban customers here or anywhere else give a good goddam.

This is solidly red state neo-con Virginia, where people have a ready explanation for Roy's condition in life: As Jimbo the newsstand owner here says, "They are losers who can't cut it in the greatest society on earth. Darwin was right. Gandhi was wrong. Tough [language]!" Jimbo is the same guy who once advised me to "Always kick a man when he is down; it gives him incentive to get up." I sometimes think it was the meanest thing in hell that made America's little working class towns such as Winchester.

Paw, am I a paradox?

To be poor and white is a paradox in America. Whites, especially males, are supposed to have an advantage they exploit mercilessly. Yet most of the poor people in the United States are white (51%,) outnumbering blacks two to one and all other minority poverty groups combined. America is permeated with cultural myths about white skin's association with power, education and opportunity. Capitalist society teaches that we all get what we deserve, so if a white man does not succeed, it can only be due to laziness. But just like black and Latino ghetto dwellers, poor laboring whites live within a dead end social construction that all but guarantees failure. If your high school dropout daddy busted his ass for small bucks and never read a book in his life and your mama was a textile mill worker, chances are you are not going to be recruited by Yale Skull and Bones and grow up to be president of the United States, regardless of our national mythology to that effect. You are going to be pulling an eight-buck-an-hour shift someplace and praying for enough overtime to make the heating bill. A worker.

The political left once supported these workers, stood on the lines taking its beatings at the plant gates alongside them. Now, comfortably ensconced in the middle class, the American left sees the same working whites as warmongering bigots, happy pawns of the empire. That is writing working folks off too cheaply, and it begs the question of how they came to be that way. To cast them as a source of our deep national political problems is ridiculous. They are a symptom of the problems, and they may be making it worse because they are easily manipulated, or because they cannot tell an original idea from a beer fart. But they are not the root cause by any means. The left should take its cues from Malcolm X, who understood the need to educate and inform the entire African-American society before tackling the goal of unity. Same goes for white crackers.

Nobody said it would be easy.

Don't laugh, you're next!

Middle class liberals, or affluent conservatives for that matter, are hard put to understand poor white working class culture. With our guns, God and coarse noisy aesthetic, (let's face it, NASCAR and Shania Twain?) we look like a lower species, a beery subset of some sort. The truth is that poor white working culture is not a subset of any other American class. It does not operate below the middle and upper classes, but parallel to them. Just as there are few ways out of it, there are few ways in. Its inhabitants are born here. The educated left cannot easily get inside. When it comes to access, liberal social academics are camels passing through the needle's eye, though I've never met one who would admit it, or even knew that observing is not necessarily understanding.

Consequently we find many books/studies focusing on ethnic minorities, but few credible ones about our defiant native homegrown poor. To my mind, it is impossible to be tenured and have street cred, but then I am just a prejudiced redneck prick from Winchester, Virginia, otherwise referred to as "Dickville."

Yet this place from which and about which I write, could be any of thousands of communities across the U.S. It is a parallel world created by an American system where caste and self-identity are determined by what one consumes, or cannot afford to consume, education and of course, the class into which one is born. Like most things American, it was about money from the get-go. The difference is that some of us have known this truth from birth and on brutal terms. For instance, few middle class Americans today ever sold newspapers on the street corner at age twelve to pay for school clothes or carried coal to a dirty living room stove all winter. I did both. They never sat down to a dinner of fried baloney and coffee after cold hours on the street corner.

If this sounds like some Depression era sob story, let me say that it was in 1959-62. And right now I can find a hundred people in my neighborhood who did the same, or some kids still doing it (often Latino these days).

My point is that there are and always have been a helluva lot of us know-nothing laboring sons out here, whether more fortunate Americans acknowledge our struggles or not. But they should. You see, it's like this: When the heartless American system is done reducing us to slobbering beer soaked zombies in the American labor gulag, your sweet ass is next.

Everybody loves the Dalai Lama, but nobody loves po' me!

Ain't no wonder libs got no street cred. Ain't no wonder a dope-addicted clown like Limbaugh can call libs elitists and make it stick. From where we stand, knee-deep in doctor's bills and hoping the local Styrofoam peanut factory doesn't cut the second shift, you ARE elite. Educated middle class liberals (and education is the main distinction between my marginal white people and, say, you) do not visit our kind of neighborhoods, even in their own towns. They drink at nicer bars, go to nicer churches and for the most part, live, as we said earlier, clustered in separate areas of the nation, mainly urban. Consequently, liberals are much more familiar with the social causes of immigrants, or even the plight of Tibet, than the bumper crop of homegrown native working folks who make up towns like Winchester. Liberal America loves the Dalai Lama but is revolted by life here in the land of the pot gut and the plumber's butt. Can't say as I blame them entirely, but then, that is why God created beer. To make ordinary life more attractive, or at least stomachable.

Whatever the case, helping the working poor does not mean writing another scholarly paper about them funded by grant money. That is simply taking care of one's middle class university educated self. Yet the cause of dick-in-the-dirt poor working white America is spoken for exclusively by educated middle class people who grew up on the green suburban lawns of America. However learned and good intentioned, they are not equipped to grasp the full implications of the new American labor gulag---or the old one for that matter. They cannot understand a career limited to yanking guts out through a chicken's ass for the rest of one's life down at the local poultry plant (Assuming it does not move offshore.) Being born working class carries moral and spiritual implications understood only through experiencing them. It comes back to street cred.

The census bureau keeps numbers on the working poor. Universities conduct studies and economists rattle off statistics. If studies and numbers alone could solve the problem of working poverty, then rip-off check cashing would not be one of the hottest franchises in the country and Manpower would not be our largest employer. Yes, and if a bullfrog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass. Reason and social science are not cutting it, and numbers cannot describe the soul and character of a people. Those same ones who smell like an ashtray in the checkout line, devour a carton of Little Debbies at a sitting and praise Jesus for every goddam wretched little daily non-miracle. (If that last part does not make sense to you it simply proves my point about the secular liberal disconnect.)

A good start on healing this rift might be this: the next time those on the left encounter these seemingly self-screwing, stubborn, God-obsessed folks, maybe they can be open to their trials, understand the complexity of their situation, step forward and say, "Brother can I lend you a hand?" Surely it would make the ghosts of Joe Hill, Franklin Roosevelt and Mohandas Gandhi smile.

More crap about values

Before I am asked the more specific question, "What the [language] do you think middle class liberals should do then?" I'm gonna answer it.

ORGANIZE! Quit voting for that pack of undead hacks called the Democratic Party and ORGANIZE! Howard Dean is just another millionaire Yale frat boy---(Daddy was a Dean in Dean Whitter) ORGANIZE! Quit kidding yourself that the Empire will protect professionals and semi-professionals such as yourself and ORGANIZE! Spend time on a Pentecostal church pew or in a blue-collar beer joint and ORGANIZE! Join the Elks Club and ORGANIZE!

Realize that there is no party whatsoever in the United States that represents anything but corporate interests and ORGANIZE! Start in your own honky wimp-assed white bread neighborhood group and ORGANIZE! Knock on doors and ORGANIZE! Move heaven and earth and hearts and minds and ORGANIZE! And if enough people do it, it will scare the living piss out of the political elite and the corporations and they will come to club you down like they did in Miami and Seattle. But at least you will have been among the noble ones when the history is written.

There now. I've got it out of my system.

Given that every damned utterance or word published about America these days has to have political implications and relevancy to the crooked 2004 elections, let's talk about the much discussed political anger and "values issues' of hitherto faceless self-screwing working class folks. Tell ya what. I have both prayed and been [language]-faced six ways to hell with these people and I am NOT seeing the much bally-hooed anger about the values most often cited, such as gun control, abortion or gay marriage...True, these are the issues of the hard-line Bible thumpers and fundamentalist leadership that has harped on them for decades. And the politicians love that crap. And apparently so do the media pundits.

But here in this particular heartland, once I step away from the fundamentalist crazies, I am simply not seeing the homophobia so widely proclaimed by the liberal establishment. Hell, we've got three gay guys and at least one lesbian who hang out at my local redneck tavern and they all are right in there drinking and teasing and jiving with everyone else. As my hirsute 300-pound friend Pootie says: "Heck, I have a lot in common with lesbians!" (I would concede however, that homosexual marriage, was just a bit too much for some of the working class to accept in the 2004 elections. It was the visuals.)

The working class people in my town are angry, but not especially angry at Queer Eye For the Straight Guy, or unseen fetuses. I think working class anger is at a more fundamental level and that it is about this: rank and status as citizens in our society. I think it is about the daily insult working class people suffer from employers, government both national, state and local, and from their more educated fellow Americans, the doctors, lawyers, journalists, academicians, and others who quietly disdain working people and their uncultured ways. And I think working class anger is about some other things too:

It is about the indignities suffered at the hands of managers and bosses---being degraded to a working, faceless production unit in our glorious new global economy.

It is about being ignored by the educated classes and the other similar professional, political and business elites that America does not acknowledge as elites.

It is about one's priorities being closer to home and more ordinary than those of the powerful people who determine our lives.

It is about suffering the everyday lack of human respect from the government, and every other institutional body except the church.

It is about working at Wal-Mart or Home Depot or Arby's wearing a nametag on which you do not even rate a last name.
You are just Melanie or Bobby, there to kiss the manager's ass or find another gig.

It is about trying to live your life the only way you know how because you were raised that way. But somehow the rules changed under you.

It is about trying to maintain some semblance of outward dignity to your neighbors, when both you and the neighbors are living payday to payday, though no one admits it.

It is about media-fabled things you've never seen in your own family: college funds set aside for the kids, stock portfolios, vacation homes...

It is about the unacknowledged stress of both spouses working longer, producing more for a paycheck that has been dwindling in purchasing power since 1976.

Yes, it is about values. It is about the values we have forsaken as a people---such as dignity, education and opportunity for everyone. And it is about the misdirected anger of the working classes toward those they least understand. You. And me.

By the way, the working people I am talking about are not entirely unhappy with life, just angry to a certain degree at this point (and bound to be angrier when the Bush regime finally runs the nation's economy off the cliff.) They simply resist change because for decades change has always spelled something bad---9/11, terrorism, job outsourcing...always something bad headed toward worse.

Arise oh pissy liberals!

It is one helluva comment on the American class system that I get paid to speak, write about and generally expose to liberal groups the existence of some 250 million working Americans who have been fixing America's cars and paving its streets and waiting on its tables from day one. As a noble and decent liberal New York City book editor told me, "Seen from up here it is if your people were some sort of exotic, as if you were from Yemen or something." Jeesh!

This is not to berate educated liberal America---well, OK, a little. But if liberal America has been somewhat too smug, my working class brethren have been downright water-on-the-brain stupid to be misled so easily by the likes of Karl Rove and the phony piety of George Bush. (And god dammit Pootie, Saddam did NOT attack the World Trade Center!) However, liberals and working people do need each other to survive what is surely coming, that thing being delivered to us by the regime which promised us they would "run this country like a business." Oh hell, yes, they are going to do it. So the left must genuinely connect face to face with Americans who do not necessarily share all of our priorities, if it is ever to be relevant again.

Once we begin to look at the human faces of this declining republic's many moving parts, the inexplicable self-screwing working class voter is not so inexplicable after all. God, gays and guns alone do not explain the conservative populism of the 2004 elections. College educated liberals and blue-collar working people need to start separating substantive policy issues from the symbolic ones. Fight on the substance, the real ground zero stuff that ordinary working people can feel and see---make real pledges about real things. Like absolutely guaranteed health care and a decent living wage.

And mean it and deliver it.

Whoa ho! It ain't gonna be easy, because poor working class Americans, like the rest of us, have become fearful, numb, authority worshipping fools reluctant to give up the mindless heroin of cheap consumerism...just like you...just like me. They'll never come to us, so we must go to them. Which means working the churches and the wards and the watering holes, the Kiwanis Pancake Breakfasts, our workplaces, and lo! Even the beeriest underbelly of the America ... where nice liberal middle class people do not let their kids go for fear it will damage their precious little SAT scores. Again, nobody said it would be easy.

Brotherhood. Solidarity. Compassion.

Too idealistic? Futile? Maybe. But if these are not worthy goals, then nothing is.

Delivering on all this in a peaceful orderly fashion will be a bitch. So hard in fact that I do not much intend to participate. [language] it.
I've wanted an out and outright armed revolution ever since the November elections. But that's another matter and the guy listening in from Homeland Security right now can go take a flying [language]. Write to me in Gitmo, y'all! Just address it to "Joe from Yemen."

Copyright 2005 by Joe Bageant
Joe Bageant is a magazine editor and writer living in Winchester Virginia.
He may be contacted at bageantjb@netscape.net.

This article comes from The Smirking Chimp
http://www.SmirkingChimp.com
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saving health care for the poor

You are reading http://livinginthehood.blogspot.com

If the House and Senate accept President Bush's proposed $60
billion cut for the Medicaid program, some of the most
vulnerable Americans would go without basic health care
services.

With nearly three-quarters of Planned Parenthood clients living
within the federal definition of poverty, the Medicaid program
is a critical part of the health care safety net we provide. And
as Planned Parenthood affiliates are the leading providers of
affordable reproductive health care services, we are doing all
we can to prevent cuts or caps for Medicaid that translate to
cuts in benefits and services for our patients when they need us
most. We're lobbying state and federal elected
officials...working in coalitions...and mobilizing supporters
like you online and in communities across the country.

Join our effort and urge your member of Congress not to
dismantle the health care safety net that more than 50 million
Americans rely upon.

(http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/budgetmedicaid/uidius4y55ji8w)

If you speak out today you will be supporting...
* health care coverage for 25 million children - more than one
in four
* basic health care services for more than 13 million low-income
working parents
* the largest source of public funding for family planning
services

We have an opportunity to really make a difference in the lives
of millions of Americans. The president's budget is merely a
blueprint. Congress is not bound to the president's requests.

Between now and early March, the House and Senate Budget
Committees will develop budgets that will include funding levels
for Medicaid. Your voice and support are needed during this
crucial time.

Join Planned Parenthood in protecting Medicaid and health care
for America's most needy.

the Old Man's dying

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I've hadMugwart since the early '90s. He was born in my apartment in New Albany,
IN, right across the river from Louisville, KY. He had three moms: his
own, my cocker/basset mix Tica and me.

He used to be able to leap five feet in the air, to catch a plastic
tarantula on fishing line. He, his sister and mom and dad used to walk
all over the farm we lived on in Pekin, IN. Through the woods, in the
meadows.

Mugwart was the first to discover that, when I pulled in my line from
the water, there'd be a bluegill on it. He took to wading out into the
cat tails to catch fish as I reeled them in.

He could climb the barn's poles to the top rafters. He loved riding in
my Winnebago camper and would spend hours sleeping on the dash board.

He adored dogs.

He's nothing but bones now. He weighs nothing. His eyes are dull and his
fur's matted. He's so week, he can only walk a foot or two before
collapsing.

I put him out in the front yard, near the animal water. I had him in a
cardboard box lined with towels. But he crawled out and is resting in
the shade of a planter, by the water dish.

It's the first time he's been out front in a long time. I try to keep
the cats in the chicken yard, so Grace, my nasty neighbor next door,
won't throw rocks at them.

But he's not able to climb the wall into her yard. He'll be fine out
there. He needs to sleep in the sun.

I'm pretty sad. It's hard, watching a personality being stripped down to
a struggling organism.

Taz has killed two chickens in as many weeks. That was hard, too.

She has a muzzle now, as does Porkchop. She'll wear hers any time she's
near the chickens from now on. They both wear them for walks.

I need to get Porky his rabies vaccine soon, so I can submit the
paperwork to animal control.

The judge dismissed the warrant I had. I have to return to court on Mar.
1, for the original citations. But, since the animal control officer no
longer works for the city, I'm expecting the charges to be dismissed.

My radio program came off pretty well, I think. Ma's very proud and is
being very affectionate.

I'm editing it to burn to CDs to give to the participants and to submit
for a broadcasting award.

They say I'm getting paid for it, too, soon as the paper work clears at
the university (which could take a month.)

I'm planning to concentrate on gardening and writing now. I owe Paul
Ingles some "Your Top Stories" interviews for his program.I

've just been resting, yesterday and today. Ma & I got the flu last
week and are still pretty weak and coughing.

I keep going out front to check on Mugwart. I expect he'll be dead
before nightfall. Ma said she'd help me dig his grave. I expect I'll
bury him right where he dies: in the sun, in the front yard, near the
water dish, with chickens around.

I've ordered some hatching eggs: mixed barnyard. BUt I have my eyes on
some Muskovie ducks: giant, quackless ducks. I'm also watching Japanese
silkies eggs. They're my favorites.

Life goes on.

Ma and I are discussing the possibilities of moving to California in the
next, few years, if we can find suitable employment and a town with less
than outrageous rents. good luck, huh?

Well, that ought to keep my readers from emailing and callign,
complaining they never heard the outcome of my legal troubles.

I have LOTS to write about the Kicked Out Queers broadcast. It'll be in
the rriverstone radio blog. I didn't DARE write any of it before the
broadcast; I was afraid they'd pull the program, honest to gawd! sheesh.

But I'll catch u up on the behind the scenes stuff soon.

It was a wonderful experience, finally.

kicked out queers promo

You are reading http://livinginthehood.blogspot.com

I'm sorry, but MSNTV can no longer hear RAM files of broadcast quality. Darn it!
http://kunm.org/cgi-local/stream/streamit.pl?str=021405KickedOutPromo.rm

War on the Poor

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Eric Garcetti: 'Bush transforms the war on poverty into a war on the poor'
Date: Wednesday, February 09 @ 09:58:52 EST
Topic: Economic Policy
By Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles Times

President Bush refers to himself as a wartime president, and he has shown resolve not to back down on the battlefield. But the budget he released this week waves a flag of surrender in another war, the 40-year "war on poverty."

The budget announces cuts of 28% � or $1.4 billion � from our arsenal of critical social programs. The largest and most vital to Los Angeles is the Community Development Block Grant. As more cities draw on poverty-fighting grants each year, Los Angeles' allocation has steadily decreased, from $88.6 million in 2003 to $82.7 million this year. Under the proposed cuts, our allocation would plummet by at least $15 million.

Alongside previously proposed cuts to Section 8 housing assistance, these reductions send a stark message to the country's poor, its elderly and its urban youth: You're no longer our problem.

In Los Angeles, these grants pay for after-school programs, home repairs for the elderly in blighted neighborhoods and intervention programs for youth on the brink of joining or already in gangs. They spur economic development projects and fund outreach to the homeless.

Now the president wants to cut these groups off from the prospects of economic recovery. That represents a radical departure from a nation's commitment to its most vulnerable citizens.

In the prosperous decades after World War II, the nation found too many Americans still without access to decent housing, education and economic opportunity. Later, from President Johnson's declaration of a war on poverty in 1964 to the expansion of federal anti-poverty programs under presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter, a national consensus emerged supporting the federal government's power and duty to alleviate disenfranchisement and powerlessness in our poorest urban and rural areas. Even President Reagan, a conservative hero, expanded block grants.

The programs Bush intends to cut enjoy bipartisan support in Congress: Conservatives often favor block grants, which allow local governments to set their own agenda to fight poverty.

Federal officials have suggested that the cuts are intended to hold local governments "more accountable." The Department of Housing and Urban Development already conditions grants on oversight and meeting exacting standards.

Even more perverse, the president himself has called the country's attention to causes that his own budget abandons. His State of the Union address admirably underscored the fight against gang violence. But the organizations that struggle to do what Bush called "giving young people, especially young men in our cities, better options than apathy, or gangs, or jail" rely on block grant funds.

The president has also sworn to end homelessness in a decade, but block grants finance the city and county's homeless services and make up 20% of the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

New ideas are welcome in the struggle against poverty. Fiscal discipline will be necessary to balance an overstretched budget. But this budget attempts neither. The war on poverty has suddenly become a war on the poor.
Eric Garcetti, who represents the 13th District on the Los Angeles City Council, chairs the city's Housing, Community and Economic Development Committee.

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

Reprinted from The Los Angeles Times:
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President puts faith in religion-based social services

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President puts faith in religion-based social services
Date: Tuesday, February 08 @ 10:01:16 EST

Topic: Economic Policy
Bush favors private aid with a moral dimension at the expense of more traditional programs.

By Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON � In the latest sign of a philosophical change in how the government should deliver social services, President Bush's new budget would cut some traditional aid for the poor in such areas as housing and health coverage.

At the same time, some religion-based programs that promote such goals as sexual abstinence and marriage and provide mentors for at-risk children would enjoy increased federal aid.

Both the shift away from long-standing social welfare policies and the willingness to step up spending on programs tied to religious organizations reflect the fact, analysts said, that the administration is more comfortable than many of its predecessors in advocating social service strategies with a moral dimension.

Administration officials said Monday that the increases � although generally smaller than the cutbacks � would be made in part through payments to faith-based organizations, a hallmark of Bush's self-described "compassion agenda."

An additional $150 million, for example, is proposed next year for programs aimed at treating drug addicts, keeping at-risk boys from joining gangs, and the mentoring of prisoners' children and newly released prisoners, among other items. Much of this money would be directed toward faith-based groups.

Programs for marriage preservation, "responsible fatherhood" and sexual abstinence would get about $280 million more.

Additional tax breaks would encourage personal contributions to charities.

The size of such increases appear minor, however, compared to the estimated $45 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years and other reductions to food stamps, community development grants and housing for the disabled � cuts that social service advocates said Monday could bring major changes to the lives of many aid recipients.

But administration officials said the increases in faith-based funding reflected the philosophy of an administration eager to find what they viewed as better ways to deliver services.

"The president has chosen to go with the programs he thinks are the most effective and, of course, he has continued to maintain a strong belief that partnerships between government and America's armies of compassion mean a lot in the lives of our poor," said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Towey called the Bush plan a "compassionate budget in a tight budgetary time," and officials noted that many of the traditional social service programs such as public housing vouchers remained mostly intact.
But advocates for the poor challenged the administration's reasoning.

"The administration wants to abandon commitments that the federal government has made to serve low-income families, and to replace those practical commitments with very small pots of money and lip service about the faith community," said Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, an alliance of social welfare agencies and labor unions.

The debate over the role of faith programs comes after Bush won reelection campaigning to increase government funding for religious charities that he maintained were often better at serving the needs of the poor than entrenched government bureaucracies.

Bush enjoyed broad support from conservative evangelicals drawn to his faith-driven views on moral issues.

The full scope of the proposed budget cuts was not clear Monday, and some advocacy groups cautioned that some faith-based organizations might suffer a net loss of federal dollars.

Still, in pronouncements by the administration Monday, faith-based programs were among the well-publicized winners.

The same division in the Department of Health and Human Services where the marriage and abstinence programs would be increased faces a $719-million cut overall.

"This budget signals a substantial increase in the redistribution of federal dollars to faith-based organizations dealing with topics like marriage and abstinence and away from secular organizations," said Paul C. Light, professor of public service at New York University.

Light sees the Bush budget as part of a slow but steady trend to fund conservative churches and organizations that have a clear social agenda, often at the expense of secular nonprofit organizations and traditional federal aid programs.

At HHS, the head of the Administration for Children and Families, Wade F. Horn, said that this year's budget showed a real commitment to topics such as marriage, child support, fatherhood and sexual abstinence for the unmarried.

"At the end of the day, those initiatives will be there for the benefit of kids," Horn said in an interview.

Horn said his agency had long provided funding to church-related organizations such as Catholic Charities that offered a range of social services.

"I think what's different now is that we try to remove as many barriers as possible" for smaller, independent faith-based organizations that have never participated in federal programs before, he said.

"Now what the president has done is put out the welcome mat for faith-based organizations," Horn said.

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

Reprinted from The Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-services8feb08,1,7817542.story
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