& I didn't need the red shoes to get there

We all got up at the crack of dawn to get to the airport. As soon as we landed, we drove north, to Petoskey, where I was born. We stopped about an hour north of the airport to eat at The French Laundry, what used to be a little restaurant, in the little town of Fenton. I once worked just minutes from the place & they have a sandwich that is probably one of my favorites, anywhere. It's a combination some find weird; chicken salad, cream cheese, red onions, raspberry preserves & leaf lettuce in a whole wheat wrap. I think it's delicious & I cannot quite replicate it. Plus, they have new dill pickles, which I also love & cannot find anywhere in our county. If I could find some decent cucumbers, I'd make my own. But I digress.

As soon as we got out of the car to go into the restaurant, MiniMe immediately noticed the grass. She stood on the sidewalk staring at it, then crouched down to brush her hands over it, calling it "baby grass". She was shocked when I told her she could walk on it & looked at me like I was suggesting she walk on silk sheets. "I know," I told her. "I think it's wonderful, too."

We ate outside. It was about 68 degrees, but it was breezy & sunny & felt like heaven. The food was good, but the service was slow, lousy, & we had a long drive. The drive was surreal. We do have trees here in Florida, but they aren't as tall or numerous as the ones in Michigan. Even in the city, things in Michigan somehow seem cleaner. I have a theory that the process of winter, the freezing & thawing, make everything seem that way, but Florida gets such rain, you would think it'd be a wash. (ha!) As we drove, I felt like I was sitting there with my mouth open, in a haze. I was tired; I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before, but it was so weird. As my mom moved downstate when she & my Dad divorced, I made this drive many, many times in my life. There were experiences that felt like flashbacks. Little miniscule things I had forgotten; the way sunlight dapples through the leaves of deciduous trees in the afternoon, the feeling of weightlessness for that second when you launch over a dip in the road. They seem so insignificant, but I had not felt them for so long after being a daily occurrence. Like I said, surreal.

Our first destination was the home of my godparents, Craig & Harriet. Their three children are all younger than me, but all grown & gone. They lived right next door to my parents before I was born & though we went through a long stretch of time where we had lost contact, Uncle Craig tracked me down right before I met Biggie & I have never felt anything but love from them. When my Dad died we stayed with them for 3 days & it was a great comfort to me to be with people that were more concerned about my loss; that I didn't have to comfort over their loss. We really just went to be with them, in their home, in that town. Petoskey is a beautiful little town on a bay of Lake Michigan. The views are stunning. It is one of those places that if you visit in the summer you can't understand how it is not overrun with Holiday Inns & high-rise condos. Well, the average snowfall there is such that as a child we had to shovel the snow off the roof of the house so the roof didn't cave in. Most people that live there have snowshoes, because they are needed, & if you don't have a tractor, you certainly seek someone out that does to befriend, because it is inevitable that you or a loved one will need to be dug out at some point. Jobs are scarce there, & although it hasn't had the steep decline of the Southeast part of the state, it has always been of a slower pace, a simpler time.

Even though we didn't arrive until the early evening, it was still warm. MiniMe was amazed at how comfortable it was outside, with more baby grass, the breezes, the lack of the oppressive heat. Biggie looked at the clock at 10pm & was shocked because the sun was just going down. Petoskey is north of the 45th parallel, so in the summer the days are almost 16 hours long. It is something I relished as a kid. Just another one of those things MiniMe is missing out on that she doesn't even realize.

Being with my godparents gives me the illusion of growing up with many things I did not, but easily could have. The illusion that I grew up with both a mother & father, in the same home, for example. The illusion that I belong more to this place than I truly do. Uncle Craig & Aunt Harriet give up their own bed for Rick & I to sleep in when we come to visit them. The simple sweetness of this gesture speaks volumes. I was miserable with an upper respiratory virus while we were there, as was MiniMe. When she took a long nap the second day we were there, Aunt Harriet & I had a nice talk on their deck. She loves me, & I her. It is so nice to be with people that love you & pray for you, even when you speak infrequently.

The second day we were there we went to see my step-mother, Linny. She has been staying in Petoskey, with her own mother, for much of the time since my father passed. The home that was her & my dads' is in a remote town on 3 acres. She fell the winter after he died trying to clear the driveway & they didn't realize until the following fall that she had actually broken her pelvis when that happened. She had surgery to re-break the three places where it had broken & since healed incorrectly, last December. She has been staying in Petoskey, also near two of her three children, all of this time.

Visiting Linny was a strange experience for me. We have both remarked to each other that we both feel that no one else can understand the loss we feel for my Dad as we do for one another. My dad's mom is still alive, & yes, we know that she misses him, too. But her loss is almost as if she has lost a prize possession; something to be angry about, to avenge. I have not spoken to her much since my father has been gone because the conversation inevitably turns to things that were either my dad's or his father's or both & how Linny is not doing as my grandmother thinks she should with these things. I don't think it is any of my grandmother's business, & more over, I think it's a cruel place to put Linny when my dad didn't leave a will. I have developed a policy that I never really thought about that I would keep my mouth shut about things unless it really bothered me or Linny asked me. When she told me last year that she wanted to sell the house, I didn't have a problem with it. She told me the day we visited that she has accepted an offer on the house. I was shocked. The market in Michigan has been nothing short of awful, & as proof, she sold the house for the price my Dad paid for the land alone, almost 20 years ago. I don't begrudge her. It is too much for her to deal with. It's just that her children & grandchildren are already swarming like vultures because they know she will have money & that makes me ill. It's not that I want the money, it's that my dad died on the job. He never got a day off. I want him back & I can't have that. & it is his hard work that paid for that house. I talked to Aunt Harriet & Biggie about it. They understand. It's just one of those things that sucks, I talk about, it still sucks, but it will always suck, so I move on.

After two days of Petoskey, we headed back downstate to stay with my Aunt, MiniMe's godmother, just north of Detroit. We are pretty close, & I was sad that we were only staying with her for one night. She also gives her own bed to Biggie & I when we visit & it doesn't go unnoticed or unappreciated. I had made plans to go to dinner with a group of women that evening; my only activity away from Biggie & MiniMe while we were there. Aunt Mary grilled us some steaks & we ate outside. We walked down to the lake, along the shore, & sat in a swing. MiniMe begged Aunt Mary to tell her a story about Sonya. (Biggie frequently makes up stories starring Sonya & MiniMe always requests her. My story character is a girl named Isla, but she's not nearly as popular as Sonya.) Aunt Mary did a splendid job.

I went to pick up another mom that was going to the dinner & Biggie, MiniMe, Aunt Mary & her friend all went to see the movie Up. It was nice to be out, with friends, & know that Biggie & MiniMe were out having their own fun. My ankles were so swollen at this point I had to take up a valuable seat at the table to put them up. I talked with another pregnant mother most of the night, but I still got to get faces to go with names I have known for months. Just to be in a place that isn't dominated by retirees, where I'm not the youngest person in the room besides our kid, was nice.

The next morning we planned on going to eat breakfast at one of my long-missed restaurants then onto an annual tour of my favorite neighborhood in Detroit. I figured out after we got everything packed up to go that I had ruined our plans. I had borrowed my Aunt's GPS to get around the night before, & when I returned it to her car I accidentally dropped the keys to our rental car in her console. She had left for work before we even got out of bed & wouldn't be done until after lunch. I figured out where she worked, called her there, & yes, that's what happened. She called her friend who came, got the keys from her & then brought them to us. It wasn't a total wash. MiniMe spent our time waiting laying in the baby grass, rolling down the hill. Although, we didn't get to eat at that restaurant, (The Breakfast Club, for my Metro Detroit readers), & just typing about that makes my pregnant belly rumble, my mouth water.

The tour was my favorite thing that we did there. It was stressful, at times, wrangling a somewhat bored preschooler through meticulously maintained homes. The number of times I reminded her to "look with her eyes & not her hands" was too numerous to count. She was frustrated because the lure of these homes to her is the fact that they have an upstairs & I believe only one home on the tour had the upstairs open. But doing the tour changed our plans as a family. We strolled through the neighborhood, in the supposedly Most Dangerous City in the Country, with no fear. We walked under trees old enough to be taller than the houses, past houses with shiny windows, in gardens with peonies and dahlias. Biggie told me if I can find a way for us to afford it, we can move there. While my taste tends to run more toward the Arts & Crafts style, which we did get to see in the Stratton house I wrote about before, Biggie's favorite house was a federal style colonial by architect C. Howard Crane that used to belong to Jack White. MiniMe loved it, too, but I think it was more about the gracious Airdale in the backyard. "It's a Neighborhood!" she said, like she had found The Definition according to Webster.

My ankles were hideously swollen at this point, so we left to check into our (thankfully) nearby hotel. We drove up Grand Boulevard, past houses that were once as grand as those we had just toured, but were now in shambles. I fight the sorrow. I've come to a place where I can see it for what it is. I believe that the change is necessary, inevitable, & gets much more than its' share of publicity as the best example of the worst things happening. I am just happy to see them occupied. Our hotel, The Hotel St. Regis, is a place I have spent a considerable amount of time in. It just recently underwent a substantial renovation & I was pleased. While our room was small, the view was directly down Cass Avenue, & the beds were the most comfortable we slept on for the entire trip. I rested for a bit & then changed my clothes to meet Biggie's father & sister for dinner.

They fought my choice of restaurants, Andiamo's, but I was going under the advice of the women I met from the Detroit Free Press, & I didn't relent. I could go on & on about this, but just know that Canadians, well, at least the ones I married into, don't like doing anything in Downtown Detroit. I forced their hand, because I am The Mean Daughter-In-Law & I travelled several hundred miles, with a preschooler & pregnant, the least they can do is let me pick the restaurant.

It was during the Stanley Cup playoffs, so the restaurant had tried to make things easier on themselves by limiting the menu & offering a buffet. I felt gypped. We all got the buffet, which was great, but I still had like 3 different entrees in my head that I was trying to pick from before I sat down. I indulged in an Ice Cream Puff Sundae covered with Saunder's Hot Fudge for dessert. This hot fudge is a Detroit standard & is actually a milk chocolate caramel, not the plastic-y dark brown most other places serve. I didn't eat all of the pastry, but I did scrape up every bit of that stuff that I could.

My father-in-law & I tend to clash, but I think we got along fairly well; we even sat next to each other. MiniMe decided almost immediately that she loves my sister-in-law, Biggie's younger sister. She chose to have her Aunt take her to the bathroom about five minutes after we met up, which isn't like her at all. Biggie's sister is a competitive body builder, yoga instructor, & licensed massage therapist. She was discussing yoga & MiniMe piped up to say that she wanted to show her Aunt her tree pose. I think her Aunt was touched that MiniMe knows yoga & she asked me to take a picture of them doing it together. She posted it on her facebook page the next day. It was sweet. (& yes, Kristine, that's the aforementioned Christmas tree)

The following day we had plans to meet up with some friends that were going downtown for the Tiger's game, that we hadn't seen since 2004. They tend to not do much downtown, as do many suburban Detroiters, except contribute to traffic to attend sport events, & then leave right away. I suggested a place practically right across the street from the ball park. We had a nice breakfast together & they asked us what our plans were for the day, which were to go down to a newer park on the riverfront where there is a carousel & a bike shop that is owned by a friend of my from college, Wheelhouse Detroit. MiniMe begged her new friends to come with us, & they did. While Kelli B., my friend from college, was doing a bike tour of her beloved Corktown that day & not at the shop, we had a nice time down at the riverfront. We all rode the carousel & MiniMe even got to ride the token mermaid.

As we walked along the river, I marveled at how clean the water is compared to my younger days, as well as to the inter-coastal waterway here in Fort Myers. I laid in the baby grass, again, and spoke to our unborn child with my heart. If I close my eyes, I can still go back there, & I have several times since we came home.

We dropped our friends off at the stadium & went back to the hotel. We then drove out to a town to the west, Belleville, where Biggie's brother & sister-in-law live. They had a small birthday party for my mother-in-law with mostly people I know, & a few I did not. I tend to not fit into the typical doting, hovering females, but am not welcomes into the activities of the men either. I tend to stay on the periphery, where I am okay, but now that MiniMe is older, it is more obvious. After most everybody left, Biggie's sister was kind enough to give me a small yet intense massage. It was needed, but I always feel bruised the next day, she is so strong. We went back to our hotel & we all slept well.

The next day we got up & checked out of the hotel, then went for breakfast at a fairly new restaurant I had read about located in Corktown, Le Petite Zinc. It was a cool, drizzly day & MiniMe was grumpy in her slightly too small raincoat. Honestly, breakfast would have been heavenly without her whiny, testy little attitude, but even with it, our meal was the best we ate on this trip. Biggie & I both had crepes with spinach, pine nuts & a salty cheese. The coffee was strong, not bitter, & fresh. I can understand why, even on a Monday morning, the sweet waitress had to rush around briskly & take help from the chef. We let MiniMe wander out the doorway into the garden where we could still see her as she picked up stones to put into the fountain & we rubbed our bellies, sipping the last of our coffee. We took our time leaving & MiniMe validated my perspective that she was cranky by falling asleep in the car as we drove back to my brother-in-laws.

Belleville, where they live, is closer to Ann Arbor than to Detroit. My brother & sister-in-law wanted to go to Zingerman's, a bourgeois, expensive, yet good deli in Ann Arbor that is pretty famous. The original deli is located in a converted victorian home in downtown Ann Arbor. Biggie loves a lot of their mail order catalog, but detests actually eating there, because the tables are either outside in a tent or really teeny tables upstairs. He likes space when he eats & if he pays $15 for a sandwich, it should have more prosciutto on it than what he has gotten there in the past. I lived in Ann Arbor for four years, & during most of that time I did not have a car, so I know it pretty well. I suggested we instead go to Zingerman's Roadhouse, an actual restaurant they established in 2004, inside a former steakhouse. It made me feel good to help his family discover a restaurant they didn't know about as well as find a compromise between what they wanted to eat & Biggie's issues. The meal itself was a trial for me because, again, MiniMe was really cranky. At one point I did take her back out to the car to sit for a few minutes to decompress, but it was still nice.

MiniMe took to this Aunt, as well, much easier than I expected her to. It was a shock to me to have help around in regard to her & to not be the sole person her endless stream of thoughts is directed at. Our last morning of the trip, I woke up to go to the room where she slept only to find my sister-in-law wedged into the sofa bed next to her. Apparently, MiniMe had nightmares the night before & my sister-in-law just climbed into bed with her. I was touched that she would do that for her, & appreciative that I got one last good last rest before we had to schlep back to the heat of Florida.

The trip home was brutal, uneventful, & this post is bordering on novella, so I will let that sweet gesture be the end. I wanted to get all this down for MiniMe to read later & before I forgot how things were. I have proofread it a few times, I feel like there are still some things to fix, but people are pestering me about our trip, so here it is.

raising my hackles

I was thinking about one of my favorite houses in Detroit that was on the market last year for a very reasonable price. It is known by some as the Mary Chase Stratton house, who was the founder of Pewabic Pottery. I lived right down the street from Pewabic for a while & I use to go there just to look & touch the magnificent tiles that they make. I went to the Pewabic website to revisit some of those tactile memories & I got a chill. 

Mrs. Stratton was an amazing woman. She grew up in the Upper Pennisula of Michigan,in what is called Copper Country because of the copper mines. Mrs. Stratton named the company after a river where she grew up near Hancock. Pewabic is an Ojibawa word used to describe copper, or the sheen of copper, which Mrs. Stratton replicated in her beautiful glazes. 

As I was reading about all of this, I felt a breeze on the nape of my neck, though no windows were open. I was thinking about my family that comes from the same place; my father's family. I felt, very strongly, the presence of my father. I could even smell the Swisher Sweets.

I don't like to say I believe in ghosts. I want & need to believe the loved ones that I have lost are away from this world, its' pain, & in a better place. All of them were lost to cancer. But when I put my hand to my belly, my heart sends out tentacles to wherever that place is. I cannot fathom that I will be having a child that my father will never know. When I heard these words in my head, I cried, but almost immediately, I felt comfort. I felt the comfort that my father, even though he is gone, believes in me. 

I am afraid to think about the things that I want too much because I am afraid of failing. I am afraid to miss home too much because I may not be able to return. My mother reminds me often that you can't go back home. But in that fear, I look up to see MiniMe at her easel. I hear my dad's giggle. I remember him telling me that it is okay to fail, but not okay to give up. 

So I will push forward with my plans for a business that will help us to be able to go wherever we want to go, regardless of the local economy. Biggie is taking us to Michigan for my birthday & I am giddy to get there. I can't hope too hard that he will find a way to want to go back. I have to keep reminding myself that MiniMe's birthday is right after we come back so I don't forget to plan it & send out invitations. This trip is eclipsing so many exciting things, even my first ultrasound, that it is speaking volumes to me about how much I miss Detroit. I can't wait to take pictures of the places I miss & share them with you.

Swoon

E gads. In South Detroit, I mean Toledo, no less. 

Don't stop believing, 

Just hold on to the feelin'...

Our perspective...

Y'all know I'm from Detroit. You can probably guess that the majority of my family does or has worked for the industry. I like to talk about it, & I have been. But you wouldn't know that because it's been actually speaking, not typing, because I've had a nasty bout of food poisoning. Better now. But as I was saying...

My mom's mom divorced her husband after they had raised six kids because he stood up on Christmas Eve, in front of whole family, & bragged about the women he had all over the country. It was not a common, or heck, even accepted thing back then. I remember Gram taking me to Mass & how most people in the parish did not speak to her, but through other people to her. It was a sort of communicated excommunication. It wasn't just because she divorced her husband, but then she dared to remarry, without an annulment, therefore outside of the church, a Baptist. (!) She met this new husband at the job she got, in Plant 9 of the Pontiac Assembly Plant. He was a General Foreman, who worked his way up, when he moved to Michigan from Arkansas at age 15, lying about his age to get a job on the assembly line. I remember as a kid watching him leave for work in his Johnny Carson sport coats & wide ties. I remember him talking about the people he oversaw with a furrowed brow. He worried about their kids, knew their names. He got angry from time to time about someone not pulling their weight. When he retired our family threw a party for him at a little community hall that burst at the seams. He asked me perform a dance as part of the entertainment. (I took dance lessons from age 3 onward & knew I was the apple of my Gram's eye.) The first time I heard the expression "bee's knee's" was after I finished my dance at that party & it was used to describe me personally. I made a mental note to use it on one of my own kids one day.

My dad's father came to Detroit from Massachusetts, where he did his apprenticeship as a tool & die maker with Bethlehem Steel after coming back from the Pacific Front. He had an amazing ability to just know how to put things together. When I was an architecture student he was the only one who could explain how to calculate tension or compression to me, becuse he knew how my brain worked, too. He worked in various shops all over Detroit over the years, with shops slowly closing down into the 1980's as those jobs were replaced by computers. Now, it does suck, but I told him he should just think of it as validation that his brain was a machine. 

When my parents were first married, my Dad worked at Detroit Diesel in southwest Detroit. He developed an allergy to diesel fuel & had to find work elsewhere. Years later, when he moved back downstate from Petoskey, he became a journeyman & worked in the foundry in New Haven. I don't believe there is a more fundamental relationship between the auto industry & the foundry where they make metal molten & form it into engine blocks. When the foundry closed down a few years back, my Dad became a truck driver. He ran routes for dedicated Chrysler, Ford and GM & was considered an asset not only because he was a model employee, but because he understood the big picture of how what he was hauling fit into the economy.

When my mother was getting burned out from the work she did in the juvenile justice system, she too began to work on the assembly line, first part-time, at night. Then when she saw a posting for a salaried position she thought she was qualified for, she moved up. She became an auditor for the CPC (Chevy, Pontiac, Cadillac) division, travelling all over the country. I remember how our lives changed when this happened. I remember my mom going from wearing jeans to work to suits. 

Biggie is a Car Salesman. Before that, he was a Mechanical Engineer. He isn't interested in the status quo that has been available to him working in Detroit. He'd rather be with people, weighing the pros & cons of different vehicles. When we got married he worked at a Chevy dealership. When one day every single car that he took on a test drive malfunctioned in some way, he decided he needed to move on. Now, to their credit, a lot of the malfunctions were due to a lack of maintenance by the dealership. For example, cars that sat for so long their batteries would go dead & no one would have checked them. But there were other instances of door handles coming off in customers hands that made him finally leave after over 3 years. 

We both drive imports. We both take criticism from my uncles about not supporting the economy, but truthfully, both of our 'foreign' cars were manufactured in large part in North America, if not the US. Certainly more than their domestic counterparts. 

I used to look at the Renaissance Center, the large black building usually featured as a defining building, in the Detroit skyline & glower. The building was built by Henry Ford as symbol of the rebirth of the Motor City. Now it's the headquarters for General Motors, who used to have one of my favorite buildings of all, built by a firm I used to work for, as their headquarters. I hate the Renaissance Center. When I look at it all I can think of is how many people I love, or how many people that I love love, have given of their lives for this industry. My own father, who is now gone, who poured the very hearts of so many engines. My own city, who made so many sacrifices for & allowed itself to be taken advantage of, for this industry. When you stand in front of the damn thing you can't even see the Detroit River. I don't think I've ever been in the building & not gotten lost. Then there's the fact the same exact building is in both Atlanta & Los Angeles. Like we don't even deserve our own symbol of rebirth. 

Excuse me if I don't get a little defensive when you talk about the 'lazy union man'. It's a lot bigger than you know, people.  That Gram, who MiniMe is named after, left high school at age 15 to work at Willow Run constructing B-24 airplanes because she realised that if the Allies didn't win World War II America would never be the same. My grandfather came home from liberating Auschwitz to find her in the barracks, nearly fatally ill with rheumatic fever. It's a sweet vision I have of my Grandpa, who looked like the actor Van Johnson, swooping in (in my mind, he's in his Army uniform) whisking Gram off to the hospital. The auto industry is what made it possible for the United States & the Allied Powers to defeat Hitler, people. The moniker 'Arsenal of Democracy' was coined for a reason, & a city.

My point is this: I'm just one lady. There are millions of us out there. Want perspective? The recent dip in the economy has been a 0.3% reduction in our GDP. The auto industry is 4% of our GDP.

Go over to read sweet-juniper.com . He's saying it all much better than I can. 

I am a leaf

I go where the wind blows me.

This was one of those things I always said when someone asked me where I wanted to go when I was in college. I always think of it this time of year, when I'm stuck in the tropics, with no falling leaves.

Considering the current status of our lives, this phrase has new meaning. The wind was kind-of at a stand still for a while. I was feeling like we weren't going to get anywhere. Now it fells like a category 5 hurricane. Almost daily I feel our next destination is changing. I feel lost & guilty & like a bad parent. I can't figure out what is in our best interests.

Tina Joy & I have an ongoing fantasy about winning the lottery. I think it's something like more than 70% of women that do. Well, when (ha!) I win, what I would do is pretty simple. I'd move back to Detroit. I'd buy one of the many great houses for sale in the City, I'd make it sustainable. We'd start a business that would employ some of the very hard working unemployed. We'd use some of that vast abandoned land. I was thinking I'd like to start an urban plant nursery, an urban farm, a RIE Institute. Of course, I'd become a rablerouser, attending all of the Planning Commission & City Council meetings. I'd know the Master Plan, City Code, Historic District Ordinances by heart. I'd probably get myself shot.

Where we are with economics in this country right now, I can't help but think of one of my favorite buildings in Detroit, The Fisher Building. It is located on the northwest corner of West Grand Boulevard & Second Street in the New Center District. I used to park my car in the garage there & walk through this building everyday to get to my office. It is resplendent. To try to begin to describe the glorious materials I stepped on with my vinyl, Payless black mary janes everyday, would be ridiculous. The building was commissioned by the Fisher Brothers, the founders of Fisher Body Company, which became part of GM, and designed by Albert Kahn. It was originally to be the western-most building of a series of three structures, with an even taller more grandiose building at the intersection of West Grand & Second, with a sister building opposite that. The stock market crash of 1929 stopped the project & only the one tower was built. There is the General Motors building kitty corner across West Grand, the Hotel St. Regis farther east, and the Albert Kahn Building farther down Second. But the Fisher Building has always been such a standard of decadence, lavishness in architecture to me. As a kid that grew up in the last big recession, the child of Irish & Finnish temperance, this was excess.

My husband had never been there before he met me. I took him there on Saturday afternoon before we were engaged. It was empty. We felt like we were the only people in the building; that we had just happened to find the one door that hadn't been locked. We walked across the skybridge to the New Center Building to find a security guard practicing his saxaphone. When he saw us, he started playing Mona Lisa. While we danced, I stepped on a little green glass bead. I still have that bead in my jewelry box as a momento of that day when my husband grew to understand my position in this dichomtomy.


I was a girl scout that was taught to always leave things better than they were before I got there. When I left the far north & affluent suburbs to go downtown, it was a complex experience. I heard stories from an early age of the riots in 1967. I knew that people moved out of the City to escape violence. I could not grasp how it was okay for an entire City to be left to rot. I know who Aubrey Pollard was. I understand the fear & frustration. I still cannot reason with the tremendous resources being abandoned while so much mediocrity is heralded elsewhere. That's kind-of my unspoken philosophy as an Urban Planner. Why would you go & make another mess when you haven't cleaned up the one you already made?

So, I am this Pollyanna white girl who wants to swoop in & save this place. I have long dreamed of living in a grand old house that smells of lemon oil from the woodwork with trees older than my grandparents growing in the yard. I want to take my kids to Belle Isle to play in the park. I want to take them to the DIA, the Science Center, to see The Nutcracker, which I was in as a child, at Christmas. The Zoo. I love the feeling of standing on the riverfront with my eyes closed & thinking about the millions of people that made this great place. I hear their voices shouting out for justice for this place that has been orphaned by millions. I can't ignore the sound. It speaks to my heart. & I have a big heart.

My husband knows this about me & does want me to be able to try, but I am scared. So many people think I should be scared for the safety of our child, for the cost of taxes, the cost of maintaining an old home, the reality of the corruption. What I am really scared of is that it would be the wrong decision to go back because the economy is going to get worse. My husband wants me to consider moving our family to Canada, where he is from. I think of how lightened the burdens of the last 10 years of my life would have been without having to worry about the cost of healthcare, the cost of my education, & I want better for our child.

I am abandoned by my country. I am disappointed in how it has failed my family. My husband, who came here, got an engineering degree with no financial assistance. He has applied to become a citizen 3 times & has not been able to complete the process. Before he met me, the second application was lost in the World Trade Center. He has worked as a car salesman & sales manager between 60 and 80 hours a week for the last 7 years of his life. He faces racism almost daily; in Michigan where they assumed he was Arabic, in the south where they assume he is Cuban, followed by the ridiculous apologies when they find out he's Italian. He has paid around $70k into social security, & I get emails where people ask me to sign some ridiculous petition that say he shouldn't be entitled to that money because he isn't a citizen, because they don't understand their own country's laws.

I watch my husband, who does not have the opportunity to vote, watch the debates & read about the canidates for president. I love him so much. I have seen him with tears in his eyes in the last few weeks more than once. He has absolutely no problem supporting Barack Obama. Since he cannot vote, he has donated some of his very hard earned money. He has not once tried to tell me who I shoud vote for.

I had lunch with a friend today at this great restaurant that was owned by a woman from Greece. She made me the best gyro I've had since we left Detroit. She came out & sat with us & our kids because her business was so slow. After we talked for a while, the conversation turned to the economy. She had tears in her eyes as she talked about how as a child she was determined to become an American one day, because in the US anyone who works hard enough can make a great life for themselves. She said she felt cheated. She is about to lose her business.

I am broken. I am torn between standing my ground & trying to fight in this country, or leaving for Canada where I believe my family may have more opportunities. I am on the brink of giving up one of the greatest dreams of my life. It is crushing.

Detroit breeds us people...

...these people that doubt. People that are accustomed to fear & intimidation. Being accustomed to it after a while, you start to question why. When you question why, you start to find out there really isn't anything to be scared of, as long as you ask the right questions & act responsibility. But, the trick is, & this is what's getting my hometown down, you HAVE to ask the questions.

I've been reading, again. & again, today's soundtrack is brought to us by Marvin, who in case you didn't guess, is definitely in my list of top 5 people to have dinner with. Open it in a new window, then come back to read the rest of my post so you can read with the song playing in the background. I'll wait here.

From what I understand the big bank CEO's are threatening to NOT participate in any bailout agreement if their bonuses are taken away. Yes, you read that right. You know me, I'm currently trying to find the names of these CEO's. I think the FBI might be able to help me...


For others that may still be confused, this is an excellent article for you to read:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/getting-real/


Yes, I had to re-read it a few times to sink in, but it helps.


Okay, so what all these experts are saying is that if controls for oversight are put into the legislation, only banks that are failing would want to be part of the bailout. So lots of people are asking the next logical question; if banks aren't failing, why do they need our help?? This is what the White House Press Secretary said:


"With respect to executive pay, again, I'm not going to get into specific, point-by-point details on what our views are on that, other than the Secretary of Treasury said it would make more difficult to make this plan work and effective if you provide disincentives for companies and firms out there who are holding mortgage-backed securities and other securities from participating in the program. You have to remember, these are not all weak or troubled firms that own mortgage-backed securities. A lot of them are very successful banks and investment houses that have done very well, have been responsible, are holding performing assets that have value. They were not necessarily irresponsible players, and so you have to be careful about how you deal with them."


So where the "HUH?" comes in is here. This is why I am saying this is essentially a Socialist, heck, Communist, banking system being proposed. If a bank isn't troubled, why do they need our tax dollars to help them out? The reason they wouldn't want to participate is because if they aren't allowed to have bonuses, it's not worth it to them. This is because the only reason they are in the game is for their bonuses. If these firms are doing so awfully they are going to fail, why would the issue of bonuses even be an issue? You know the phrase you can't get blood from a turnip?? (I'm actually a rutabaga. Nice to meet ya.) If these vampires don't need to participate, obviously they are going to be able to get their blood some other way. So they aren't going to fail, I'd say.


Remember in my first post on this how I quoted Section 8 about how there were no provisions for oversight??? Paulson (AArgh! A$$hole!) responded with this:


"We gave you a simple, three-page legislative outline and I thought it would have been presumptuous for us on that outline to come up with an oversight mechanism. That’s the role of Congress, that’s something we’re going to work on together. So if any of you felt that I didn’t believe that we needed oversight: I believe we need oversight. We need oversight."


Yeah, he didn't include oversight because he's been proven to be someone who isn't comfortable overstepping any boundaries, whatsoever. Ya know, first thing I think of when I think of him is how meek & unassuming he is.


I am looking for what Obama's plans are in regards to this, but this is what he's said up to this point:

"First, the plan must include protections to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used to further reward the bad behavior of irresponsible CEOs on Wall Street. There has been talk that some CEOs may refuse to cooperate with this plan if they have to forgo multi-million-dollar salaries. I cannot imagine a position more selfish and greedy at a time of national crisis. And I would like to speak directly to those CEOs right now: Do not make that mistake. You are stewards for workers and communities all across our country who have put their trust in you. With the enormous rewards you have reaped come responsibilities, and we expect and demand that you to live up to them. This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall Street executives."


& as far as the GOP, well, go here: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/RSC-Alternative-bailout-Plan/


I'll just summarize & tell you it calls for the elimination of the Capital Gains Tax for 2 years. Ya know, that tax that's based on profits in real estate, cause that's what we're all making right now. Talk about giving the richest people a break on taxes & then passing the tax burden onto everyone. It also seeks to repeal the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, this measly little thing that regulates things like, oh, requiring the government to utilize only reasonable measures in balancing the budget, mandates the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve to establish a monetary policy that maintains long-run growth, minimizes inflation, and promotes price stability. It also requires the President to set numerical goals for the economy of the next fiscal year in the Economic Report of the President and to suggest policies that will achieve these goals & requires the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to connect the monetary policy with the Presidential economic policy. Oh, & there's this other thing: it prohibits discrimination on account of gender, religion, race, age, and national origin in any program created under the Act.


I think things are looking up. It seems like the lights are getting brighter in this tunnel & the need for this tunnel is becoming more & more unnecessary. For those of you keeping up on this, & especially those of you that actually HAVE called & complained: BLESS YOU! This how the system is supposed to work. We call- They answer.

Cue the music

When I was recently graduated with my Planning degree, I acquired a theme song. It was a Marvin Gaye song entitled "You're the Man". Sirusly, read the lyrics. Chills.

Then, not to be outdone in the slightly obscure Detroit 70's music scene, I've been singing Funkadelic's "Can You Get to That" all day, today, after reading about the (cough) $700 BILLION dollar bail out plan.

(Stunned silence followed by crickets.)

"I once had a life, or rather, life had me. I was one among many, or at least I seemed to be. Well, I read an old quotation in a book just yesterday. Said, 'Gonna reap just what you sow, the debts you make you have to pay.' Can you get to that?"

Yes, George. (Clinton, not The Shrub.) I most certainly can get to that.

For those of you not so in the know of the life of the Hoppytoddle, we are in the midst of a pretty big motha of a bankruptcy. See, we owned, um, eight different properties here in Florida. The house we live in we bought in 2005, at the height of the market, so that I could be closer to the shiny job I described in the previous post. We offered $9k more than the asking price, as there were 8 other offers made on the same day & if we hadn't we wouldn't have gotten this lovely place. We put $100k down. We got an offer when we had it up for sale that came out to exactly $300 more than what we owed, when everything was said & done. Oh, & I should mention that our taxes & insurance ALONE were $1100/ month, at this point. Well, see, we are still in Florida because when our purchasers tried to mortgage $10k less than what we owed on the house at the time, it wouldn't appraise. So, the deal fell through. That was way back in 2006. Fun, huh?

Then come to this past year, when we tried to refinance 2 of our properties that we bought in 2002, from adjustable rate mortgages to fixed. Yeah, houses that we've paid payments on for six years. Well, they also appraised for $20k to $30k less than what we owed.

Oh, & the suckiest. This lung disease that I have? It don't like the super humid swampiness that is, ya know, the tropics. My body does things like yawn every five minutes, since I'm not getting enough oxygen, my joints swell all up bringing new meaning to cankles, & my chest hurts like I've got one of those gothic spirits sitting on it. So I'm housebound from July to October, praying we don't lose power.

Since all of the real estate was in Biggie's name, we decided to just declare bankruptcy. We have no credit card debt. Just my student loans & real estate. This is really hard on Biggie. But a heart attack would be harder, I said. I'm one of those crazy bitches that actually likes to see her husband alive & shit. Well, most days.

(Yes, I'm feeling a little crazy tonight. Forgive the language. Consider tonight's musical selections for context.)

So we are now waiting to see how long we get to live rent free in our own house. I have a friend who's been in foreclosure for over a year now, & still in her house, so if that should happen we should have a pretty large chunk o' money. Not that it will be worth anything at that point, but hey, maybe we could buy a llama or something. The plan is to rent a house here for another year, assuming we are expecting to get pitched sometime around January, then figure out where & the heck we want to go. Since watching Sicko, my husband's native Canada is looking pretty good. It's currently looking like it's going to be a choice between Portland, OR or back to Detroit. & when I say Detroit, you should see this house. Sirusly, if you're not hip to the D, you'll flip.

Besides that, read about this supposed bail out. In case you don't know it yet, it is not the answer. It's an insult. Are we really supposed to care about all those whiny bankers out there who beat their desks with their fists about how the government needs to solve this problem or else it will cause the inevitable collapse of all business in America? Excuse me? Aren't you the guys who got multi-million dollar yearly bonuses for the past decade? Why don't you cough some dat back up? Because I don't quite see how we are in the same boat here.

I am getting seriously pissed at the panic being stoked by the media. I understand, but it is highly irresponsible. This is establishing a culture of hysteria. And this plan IS hysterical.

I'm gettin some deja vu from all this hysteria. I'm beginning to see a trend in this Doomsday, We All Need to Be Buyin' Some Livestock, Victory Gardenin', Fear Pandering. Does anyone else remember a time in the not so distant past when a certain governmental entity pressured our (actual) elected officials about how he could only save us from EMINENT DOOM if we provided him with FULL & UNDISCLOSED AUTHORITY???

Yes, from the plan:

"Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Somethin' about Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Not be a complete ranting lunatic, but hasn't it been like 6 months since they (argh!) bailed out Bear Stearns? The government has yet to do anything to cope with the credit default swaps or oversee the investment banks. & we get no time to review this strategy?

Haven't we learned what ignorance & fear can do to our nation, yet?

Please, anyone reading this: write or call their Representative or Senators. Tell them that if they vote for this bill, without the kind of deliberation that anything costing $700 billion demands, you will vote for their opponent in the next election. Try not to swear.

& leave me some comments, already. I'm impressed that I'm drawing traffic from Austrailia. Wow. I can say, "Well, I'm big in Austrailia!"