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. 

My other pre-existing condition...

Although I haven't written very much on her yet, you must know that MiniMe is by far the greatest gift I have ever been given. I think I haven't written much on her yet because I have so much to say, I wouldn't know where to start. I also have so much to say about current events I want to get some of that off my chest, first. However, in regards to current events, there is an intersection between my choice for president & how MiniMe got here.

As a Reader's Digest version, I was induced at 37 weeks. My doctor decided to induce me because she was concerned MiniMe wasn't getting enough oxygen. I could go into at least 3 more paragraphs on this, but just know that I have good reason to believe she planned to induce me all along. I have gotten third & fourth opinions, one even from the doctor who induced me's former partner, that there was absolutely no evidence that MiniMe was not getting sufficent oxygen. Induction by any means greatly increases the likelihood that a cesarean will be necessary. My doctor never told me this. I spent 21 hours in labor. I was eventually given an epidural, which only took on one side of my body, but I was still relieved. I was given pictocin & my doctor broke my water. I was making great progress when MiniMe's heart rate first was very high without coming back down, then fell dangerously low. I was rushed into emergency surgery & was put out completely. I do not remember the first time I met our daughter. I did not get to see my husband or my mother meet her for the first time.

In Florida, the rates that doctors have to pay for their malprcatice insurance are three times the national average. Because of these high rates, many OB/Gyns have stopped delivering babies. The doctors that do deliver babies average an over 30% rate of delivering by cesarean. Most doctors do not deliver babies vaginaly after a woman has had a previous cesarean. In fact, there is only one in the four counties nearest us that even presents that he would let a paitent attempt to do this. Insurance companies, as they have created this situation, are very aware that if I were to become pregnant again it is most likely that I would again be delivered by cesarean. Since I had MiniMe, our insurance premium tripled. We currently pay over $1000/month for our family's insurance.

If & when Biggie changes dealerships, we will have to pay Cobra to keep me insured or I risk being denied coverage under a new plan. If at anytime I become uninsured, it is highly likely that I will be denied under any other group plan because between the cesarean & sarcoidosis, I am considered to have two pre-existing conditions.

This is one of the major reasons I am voting for Barack Obama. Under McCain's plan, the dealership Rick works for would no longer be able to afford to cover me under their insurance plan, nor would they be required to. When I would go out on our own to find our own policy, as I have those pre-existing conditions, insurance companies would be able to either charge me ridiculously high rates, or refuse me coverage altogether. Under Obama's plan I would have much more appealing options. I would be able to stay on the plan that we are on now with no increases in cost, perhaps decreases. If we wanted to, we could change our coverage to the federal plan that McCain has enjoyed, at tax payers expense, his whole life. & if the day ever came where we actually get to move away from here, under Obama's plan, no insurance company would be able to deny me coverage due to my two pre-existing conditions. How could my decision be anything other than Obama?

There is a whole bunch of other posts to come on the story of my cesarean. I have done weeks upon months of research on my options in regards to another birth. For now, I'm just moving forward & will deal with those choices if & when they arrise. For now, MiniMe & I are kneading bread, working in the garden, reading about mermaids. We're waiting out to see if our friends & family actually like us enough to like us enough that they vote to keep us around.

A Desperate Phone Call

I mentioned before that my mom has been sending me all of these scary emails that I KNOW are coming from my Aunt Mary & her stepfather. They are chock full of lies about how Obama is a Muslim & how the handbasket is nigh. They take me all of about 3 minutes to disprove via the WSJ, snopes, factchecker.com, but I lost it on Friday. I sent her an email, that while restrained, was still pretty full o' the all caps. It's not that I don't believe that people have the right to vote for McCain, I just can't get any of the ones that are close to me to give me a reason. This makes me think that a) it's because they know their reason is illogical (i.e. he's a Muslim), not based on the issues &/or b) they are looking out for their self-interests, which just happen to be completely contrary to mine (i.e. they make more than $250k). I thought about sending an email to all of these people & letting them know that if McCain were to win, I have to move to Canada because under his plan I would have no insurance. I have TWO previously diagnosed conditions. I decided I don't need to worry about it because I KNOW Obama is going to win, but I needed to feel better. I did a crazy thing. I called my grandmother.

My Grandma Ike is 83, a widow, that lives in Saginaw, MI. Her real name is Eileen, but she & her 3 sisters all have these silly nicknames (Maryann is "Neem"?). I've never asked. Both of her parents were from Finland & she grew up in a town in the Upper Peninsula of MI so small (Kenton) that she just tells people that she's from another, slightly larger town, Bruce's Crossing. Her mother went blind at age 18 from a cavity that travelled up to her optical nerve. She still raised 4 girls in the Copper Country, largely alone. My great-grandfather was a lumberjack & built trusses in the mines. When he wasn't felling trees or in the mines, he was hunting deer. She is tough lady, but still a lady. An example? See photo below. She is holding a state record setting walleye. (record has since been broken) Notice how even in the gloves, she's holding the fish away from her body? See the sneaky smile?


The reason it's a bit dicey for me to call Gram is because we have talked all of 3 times since my Dad died over a year ago. She has been carrying on ridiculous tantrums about certain things, namely guns, that my grandpa left to my dad, that she thinks should go to her cousin. Ridiculous things. Before you get all shocky, yes, my family has guns. We are from the north. I was fed solely fish & venison for most of my early childhood that was caught or killed by my family. I ain't Sarah Palin. Don't panic.

I was my Grandpa's favorite. I would leave the kitchen full of women to go to the barn with Grandpa & Dad. Gram thought I should stay & help with the dishes. I went fishing with them while she stayed home. We have issues.


Gram is, however, a through & through Democrat. That walleye earned her this plaque, signed by the governor at the time, Engler, a republican. Gram threw it away because he signed it. She left the Upper Peninsula to go to California during WWII to volunteer for the USO, Lutheran Church, & help a very pregnant cousin whose husband was believed to be a POW. She met Grandpa in Los Angeles the day he got back to the states through a roommate. She moved to MA & married him after only knowing him for 2 weeks. She's not a wallflower, but she also can be pretty racist. I was nervous.

Gram didn't let me down. She had already voted, & voted for Obama. She is excited for him, for us. She is worried about what "these zealots" are going to do to his family. "Poor, sweet-faced girls of his," she said.

Phew.

She was glad I called. I think she feels a little better about me, now. I feel a little better about myself because at least someone in my family is fighting for me.

"Honey, Canada's not so bad, ya know," she said.

There's an old sheriff in this town

In case you needed more evidence that I live in a backwards, good old boy cow town, you should know that our sheriff, Mike Scott, is under investigation by the feds for violating the Hatch Act. Yeah, that police officer you saw on the news referring to our next president as "Barack Hussein Obama" is the sheriff of the county we pay our very high taxes to. You bet (you betcha?) I've got something to say about this...

Sheriff Scott:

I have voted for you in two elections. I have sat next to you in Mass on more Sundays than I can count. I counseled your girls on the significance of Palm Sunday & you witnessed the baptism of our precious daughter. You are a member of my community, Sheriff, & I am concerned about you.

I understand & agree that you should have the right to support the candidates of your choice, but I take serious issue with your choice of speaking at the local visit of Ms. Palin. You should know better than anyone else the power of your uniform. Your choice to wear your uniform on this day was clearly an attempt to validate your presence & words as the Sheriff of Lee County. Your vote is your own & is made as Michael Joseph Scott, not Sheriff Mike Scott.

To say that your choice to use Senator Obama's middle name was innocent of any implications is petulant & insulting. Whether or not you intended for your choice of words to incite hatred, it has been pointed out to you that it clearly did. You have more opportunity than most to take responsibility when you do something wrong, and make no mistake, Sheriff Scott, what you did was wrong.

I believe that you are an intelligent man, but let me be clear. This has nothing to do with a double standard. This has everything to do with spreading hate. How am I supposed to be comfortable with our police department being headed by someone who personally perpetuates hate?

In our very racially polarized county, I am certain that you are very aware of the effect of your words regarding ethnicity. There has been a great amount of discussion, in even the local media, regarding the false accusations of Senator Obama's connection to terrorism to the extent that I believe it would be more than fair to say you must be aware of them. Even if it was not your intent, it has been made evident to you that your words have been seen as spreading hate. Especially while in uniform, it is a primary responsibilty to not only refrain from contributing to, but to prevent the spread of hate. I believe it is your obligation to find a way to truthfully address this situation responsibly. Let me make it easy for you: even through the expenditure of millions of dollars, no one has been able to uncover any credible connection between Mr. Obama and terrorism. There is no need to even address your intent by using his full name. Due to this diligence, you can say with conviction that Senator Obama does not have any connections to nor is he himself a terrorist. Until you do, know that I will vote for any and all of your opponents in any future elections. I cannot allow my family to be protected by someone who spreads hate.

Let me know if you've got anything to add...

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!"

Feminist my ass

I've been reading a lot of blogs, editorials, and commentaries on Sarah Palin over the last few weeks, as I'm sure many of you have. I know mine is not a unique opinion, but I have finally been able to verbalize what it is that bothers me so much about her. She's a bitch.

I know, I know. It's not nice to call someone you've never met names like that. I don't care. Let me explain...

In the spring of 2004 I left my municipal job to go back to consulting. I was excited to go work for a woman who had worked her way up, creating a Planning Department in an notoriously good old boy South Florida engineering firm. Let's call her Peg. Peg fought hard for me to take some time off before I came to work there, getting me paid vacation time, because she knew I would hit the ground running. At my 90 day review she gave me a raise. She was extremely pleased with my performance. Peg told me she was excited that she had found me because she was looking to retire in a few years & she wanted someone to take her place. She told me she believed that I possessed the ability to do the work as well as manage the politics of the office. Then she told me that she was glad that I got away from my boss at the City because the day that I turned in my 3 weeks (yes, I was trying to be nice) notice, my old boss had called her to say, "You know she's going to leave as soon as she gets pregnant." Peg shook her head over how mean this was telling me she was glad I didn't have to work for that woman anymore.

To be fair, I have no idea if my old boss actually said this, though it is possible. It is completely possible that Peg pulled this out of her ass.

I worked very hard, until almost 7pm every night, & wooed an important project to the firm that I had wanted very badly. Although I was hourly, I only claimed one extra hour a day. I felt the prying eyes of my peers on my back.

I got pregnant the following October. I actually did a pregnancy test in a hotel while attending a state conference. I didn't tell my boss until December. Other women in my department had kids. Peg looked the other way when they came in late or had to leave frantically to rescue sick kids. I didn't feel like I had anything to worry about. When I was put on bedrest 30 weeks into my pregnancy, Peg changed me to a salaried employee so that I would be able to keep my benefits. I was permitted to work form home. My billable hours were around 20 hours a week during that time. I found out the fiance of a man that worked at the firm was looking for work as a nanny. We had them over for dinner, talked about parenting philosophies, & we agreed on a price. I was relieved.

MiniMe was born 3 weeks early by emergency cesarean after 21 hours of labor. When I tried to turn in my paper work for my short term disability insurance, I found out I didn't have any. I went through my files & found photocopies of the forms that I turned in when I started working. Apparently HR never took the money out of my checks to pay into the program. I had never noticed the $1.12/week wasn't being taken out of my check. So now not only was I not going to get that money, I also had to find a way to pay my insurance premium while I was on leave. When Peg called me to see how things were going I told her about this. She basically told me it was my fault for not verifying money was being paid into the program.

When MiniMe was just 6 weeks old, I called the nanny to ask her to come meet her. She told me that her soon-to-be husband was uncomfortable with the prospect that she might be home alone with my husband. Basically, my response was, "Huh?" Maybe it was more of a "Wuh?". I was floored. I was scheduled to present my pet project at public hearing in 3 weeks. I had an infected incision and a teeny baby that wasn't nursing correctly. Now I had to find someone, somewhere to take our precious girl. I found a wonderful Montessori school that had an infant program that followed philosophies I loved. It was $350/week.

When I went back to work, I was miserable. MiniMe was barely eight pounds. I would go to nurse her on my lunch hour & cry. I would go home in the afternoon & sit with her for hours, working on nursing. Because she was so tiny, I was only allowed one four hour stretch of solid sleep. After that, I had to nurse her every two hours, or pump & have my husband give her a bottle. My husband worked an average of 70 hours a week during this time. I was working 6 hours a day & flailing. Although I had my own office, I didn't have a lock on my door. When I pumped, I put a fluorescent post-it that was 3" by 6" on my door that said "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT OPEN!" People ignored it. I was told I needed to go to the women's locker room to pump. It made people uncomfortable to know what I was doing in there.

Another project manager criticized me for getting up at 5:15pm to leave a meeting. When I explained that I had to go pick up my daughter, he said, "Can't you just get someone else to pick her up?!" My husband had to work until 8pm, the school closed at 5:30, I was full of milk. The meeting was consisting largely of them discussing their golf games at this point. I don't golf. I looked at him & said, "No, Dan. I have no one else to call. Unlike you, I do not have a wife, or heck, even a spouse that stays home. I AM the wife, Dan!"

The landscape architects for the firm were largely four recently graduated men that sat in a big square of cubicles in an isolated area of our building. I had problems with them all along. They had photoshop images with each others heads pasted on figure skaters & a little putting station. They billed twice the hours they quoted to my projects & were shopping on ebay. One day when I was leaving their area after discussing review comments, I thought I heard the sound of a cow mooing. I ignored it. To get to the kitchen I had to cross by their area. The cow sound, followed by the snickers of fraternity boys, would be heard every time I passed by. When I complained to my stupervisor I was told that I must be misunderstanding something. Yeah, because between my 7 years of college & multitudes of animal toys in my house, I have no idea what a cow sounds like.

I went back to work full time between December & April. I don't know how I did it. In April, I begged Peg for mercy. She asked me what I needed. I told her I needed to be done by 2:30pm & was fine with being hourly, as long as I kept my benefits. She said fine, as long as I was there at 7:30 every morning. I don't remember much about this time of my life, except that I was moved from my office with a door to a cubicle between administrative assistants and interns. My clients would come all the way from Israel to be embarrassed at the conditions I was given to work in. Peg quit being my direct supervisor & I was now overseen by someone I had been told I would never work for when they hired me. When I had my review he told me I was costing the company money, being part time. My billable hours were at 81%. The man reviewing me was at 65%. When I confronted Peg with this she told me he was right, I wasn't coming into work on time. It made no sense to me. They were moving me to a smaller cube. I felt like I was in Office Space & needed to track down my stapler.

My husband & I had decided we wanted to move out of Florida. We decided that signing a contract to keep MiniMe at the Montessori for a year wasn't a good idea. The tuition would be almost half of my salary. I turned in my resignation & two days before my last day, Peg repeated what my previous boss had said. "I didn't think she was right that you'd really trash your career after you had a baby."

That's the kind-of feminist Sarah Palin is. She's had to hand babies off to someone else to take care of, but been able to afford to pay someone she can trust. She holds herself up as a woman who can "have it all", without acknowledging that it's not a level playing field. She allows someone to use her as a pawn, because she's pretty. She agrees to sell out other women, mothers, hell, even her own daughter, for her own ambition. She agrees that families in this country don't deserve healthcare unless they can afford it, that they should leave their children with people they don't feel comfortable with to pay for that healthcare, and even if a woman is raped, she should still be forced into this situation because it isn't fair to the baby to not be given a chance. I'm not even bringing up the issue of that if the woman is unfortunate enough to have to have a cesarean to bring that baby into the world she will be labeled as having a pre-existing condition that will slap her with higher insurance premiums for the rest of her life. That's for another post.

I'm not saying that women don't have the right to go back to work if they choose to do so. I am saying that for some women, it isn't a choice, & Sarah doesn't even acknowledge that. Even women who can chose to stay home with their children do so at a risk to their careers. What about the men that do so? She stands on a platform of "family values", when she refuses to consider legislation that will help every family have the same opportunities for their children. Sarah perpetuates the system that ignores the best interests of my child, just like Peg, she's a bitch.