She Used To Be My Girl

When I was in college I got sick of waitressing & did a stint at a copy store. While working there, I noticed another girl that worked there with dyed black hair, wearing Doc Martens. She was snarky enough that I noticed, & when I overheard her talking about going to see The Cure on a cigarette break, we became friends. Her name is Natalie, she used to be one of my best friends, but she isn't anymore.

When I was still in school she lived in a house right across the street from campus & I lived 20 minutes away, so I would hang out at her house between classes. We'd go through pots of coffee, packs of cigarettes, & watch Buffy The Vampire Slayer instead of studying. I don't know when she stopped taking classes, but she sort of just gave up on graduating, it seemed. After I graduated, she became a manager at the copy shop. She moved on to other retail jobs. She had crappy boyfriends & so did I. But we talked almost everyday & shared a lot of formative experiences through our twenties.

She dug my Artsy-Fartsy genes & we would hold "NBA nights" (No Boys Allowed) where we would make 5 course meals, make frozen girly drinks, do bong tokes, and make crazy things. We would take things to the pawn shop so we'd have enough money to go to the bar. One summer night she had a BBQ at her house & I had helped her get ready all day, but had to work some stupid 6-8pm shift at the copy store. She told me to just leave my sweet dog, my beloved Casey Jones, at her house while I worked. "He'd be fine." Well, when I got back to her house, Casey was missing. After a frantic hour of searching for all seven pounds of him, someone showed up with him. I ended up having to take him to the emergency vet clinic because someone had given him beer. Should have taken it as a sign.

After I graduated we still kept in touch. My first job out of school was for a non-profit, so I was actually making less than I did waiting tables. When I did start making money though, I was excited to be able to buy Natalie some nice Christmas & birthday presents. She had lived in Paris one summer & I was so proud & she so happy when I bought her this 3-foot wire sculpture of the Eiffel Tower from Pottery Barn that I knew she had wanted. I bought her a huge glicee of a Mucha print, had it matted & framed & sent it to her. I liked to do things like that for her. She appreciated it. 

When I met Biggie, Natalie was the first of all my friends to meet him. She was skeptical until she saw his hair. Good hair genes are hard to pass up. Of all of my friends, she was the only one who actually came to visit me when I moved in with him. She & Biggie got along famously. When he decided he was going to propose, it was Natalie whom he consulted with on my ring. When I moved out of my house, she helped me pack a little. I still have a box of my Keith Haring prints & personal photos that she boxed up. On the top she wrote, "Pictures of You (I Miss You)". 

During the planning of our wedding, Natalie was pretty broke. Had she not inherited most of my furniture when we moved to Florida she wouldn't have had much in the way to sit on. I paid for her bridesmaids dress. I didn't care. She did things like take care of me the morning after my bachelorette party when we had to be out our hotel at 11am & I still needed to sleep, but lived 1200 miles away. 

The winter after I had MiniMe, Natalie lost her job, they didn't give her her last paycheck, & she had little hopes of finding a new job. She was going to get evicted. We had just bought our house which had a huge bedroom & bathroom off the garage. I bought Natalie a plane ticket to Florida. Biggie had her come to work with him. She drove our "Home Depot Mobile", a 1995 Cherokee that ran well but needed a paint job. When they came home from the dealership, she would help me, a new mother that worked full time, by cleaning the kitchen after dinner so I could get MiniMe to bed. She also helped me with the mopping, vacuuming from time to time. We charged her no rent & let her drive the car for free. She lived with us from December to August. 

We had told her we needed her to find a place to live because we were putting our house up for sale & trying to move out of state. Things had gradually degenerated at that point to the extent that she didn't really eat dinner with us anymore. I rarely saw her at all. I'm sure it was hard for her pride, living in our house, going to work with Biggie everyday. I had tried to talk to her, but honestly, some things she said did piss me off. She had managed to find the money to fly home for Mother's Day, for example. I didn't try to pry into the situation of her finances, but considering I didn't have the cash to buy plane tickets, I did speak up on that one. We had asked her to water our plants & walk our dogs when we went to North Carolina for a week. We came home to dead tomato plants & dog shit all over the floor. Biggie had bought a used car that a customer had traded in for her to drive pretty quickly after she had moved in. She never had it plated or insured until the week she moved out, & even then, he really had to give her an ultimatum. I was embarrassed. I didn't understand why she was doing this.

After she moved out, we had made plans to meet for lunch. I was going to go pick up some sandwiches for us & meet her up at the dealership. Biggie had moved on to another dealership at this time, so he wasn't working with her anymore. When I called to ask her what kind of sandwich she wanted, they told me she had called in sick that day. When I called her cell phone she didn't answer. She did call me back a few days later, apologizing to my voice mail, calling when she knew I wouldn't answer. I was hurt. I waited a few days & called her back. I got her voice mail. Weeks became months & she still hadn't called. When we were coming upon her birthday in November, I told Biggie I was going to call her. He told me not to. When I asked why, Biggie told me that he didn't think Natalie cared as much about me as I did about her. He told me mean things she had said to him about me. Stories about things I did in college that husbands don't really want to know about their wives. Stories that were elaborated & embellished to be specifically awful. She told him she & her boyfriend use to snicker about my relationship with my dog & how I was just a little too attached to him, insinuating something out of middle school urban legends. It hurt to hear him say these things, but I could hear her voice in my head saying them. I knew it hurt him to hear them. I felt betrayed in a way I never had before. I felt taken advantage of.

I hadn't thought about Natalie for months until we moved & I saw her writing on a box of "Maturnity Clothes". At first I wanted to go find a sharpie & fix the misspelling. Then I was annoyed that her writing was on my box of precious things. Then I wondered where she is now. If she still has the nice gifts that I bought for her, driving the car we bought for her, if she thinks of us at all. I remembered that she is in the home movies from MiniMe's first Christmas, her christening, her first birthday. What will I say to her about this person? Then I thought about how surely one day someone will hurt MiniMe the way this friend hurt me, & there is nothing I can or will be able to do to stop it. I'll have to teach her that it's okay, I've decided. Because in the end, I did what my heart told me to. I helped someone whom I thought was my friend, not out of guilt or for gratitude, but out of love, & there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in that. 

 

Ready to Fire The Pimps

It's on the market. Our old home. For $187,900.00. 

In case you just landed here because of a random google search for something about pimps, our former home, that we let go back to the bank because we couldn't sell it for what we owed, that we had an offer on a year previously for $333k, is now for sale for less than half of that.

All over our county there are foreclosures, short sales, abandoned homes, bank owned property. There are some pretty great deals. But I think I've decided that I don't want to own anything for a while. See, I'm firing the banks.

There are so many people that I know, have read about, hear about through friends that have tried to renegotiate the terms of their mortgage, sell for slightly less than what they owe, these types of things, & the banks refuse to work with them. The banks are offered a certain amount of money to walk away from the previously negotiated situation. They refuse. So the people end up, like us, in bankruptcy, or in foreclosure. The banks end up having to pay attorney fees, cleaning, painting, lawn maintenance crews. In the end, these properties are sold, by the banks, for hundreds of thousands of dollars than they would have settled for, & the owners' credit wouldn't be in the toilet. It makes no sense.

The banks that are refusing to work with us are then asking for our tax dollars because they have so many derilect properties that they can't sell for what they own them for. It is absolutely the worst example of sound business practices I've ever seen. 

I forgot to elaborate on why I was so upset about the houses we've seen in Cape Coral. They are not built well. It feels like if you lean up against the wall you will leave a dent in it. There are miles & miles of these houses. Biggie says that because the cost of land was driven up so high so quick, the only place left to cut corners was in the construction. I think he's right. But although you can't tell from looking at the pictures I posted of the mafioso house, that's what it feels like. So we have a whole City full of abandoned, poorly built houses. I want out of here.

Less Hate, More Love

When Andy Cook came to interview me for his blog, he made me realize something that made me feel like the biggest idiot. He asked me what sacrifices our family was making either as a result of the recession or to get us through. I stopped to think, besides the bankruptcy, besides my serious lack of new clothes, besides not getting haircuts, it'd have to be Biggie. 

He's always worked a lot of hours. When he would hold them up as proof of the sacrifices he makes for our family, I would scoff. He did this before I was in his life. He would still do it if I weren't in his life. The difference now is that it isn't a choice, but a necessity. Before things started to go bad with the economy & all, if I asked him to take a day off, it wasn't a problem. While the other salesmen would get fired for showing up five minutes late, Biggie can just call them & tell them he wouldn't be in that day. No consequences, other than he didn't sell a car that day. They like him at his dealership that much, & it's not because he's cute. It's because he's an awesome salesman.

Everybody knows the jokes about car salesmen, lawyers, mechanics. How they are immoral, liars, leeches. While I'd like to think most people out there wouldn't use these stereotypes as justification to treat these people rudely or somehow subhuman, after being with Biggie for eight years now, I can no longer be so optimistic.

Maybe it's the economy getting everybody down. I think it's more that since there are such fewer buyers out there, he can't tell people to leave when they are nasty. They are nasty, though.

There have always been the ones that don't want him to wait on them because they think he's Hispanic. Then there are the ones who are just brazen enough to ask him where he is from. They get all frustrated & flustered when he's tells them Ontario, because it doesn't tell them what they want to know. Then there's the people who he actually tells them that he's Italian & they actually apologise because they had assumed he was something somehow insulting. 

There are people that are on the lot, walking around cars, that he walks up to & says hello. Just hello, I'm here if you have any questions. Some people ignore him. Literally act like they don't hear. Some people mumble that they don't need help, they're just looking. Some people tell him to leave them alone. People have actually told him to Fuck Off. For saying hello.

Biggie doesn't do as well as he does as a salesman because he manipulates people. Don't get me wrong, he does manipulate some people, but he saves it for the people that deserve it because they are mean or stupid. The biggest reason that he does well is because he listens to what people say, he doesn't let them buy more car than they can afford without caution, mostly because he doesn't give up. He assumes people come into a dealership because they want or need a car & he does everything he can to get them one that works for them. Sometimes this means spending four hours going on test drives, or searching on the Internet for the car for someone, or pushing the finance manager to try yet another bank to approve a customers loan. & in these times, he spends a lot of time in the finance office. 

People have been being really nasty to him lately, though. People screaming at him, that he's a liar, because there has to be something he is doing that is keeping them from getting a $250 a month payment on a $30,000 car with no money down over 5 years. Trust me, as soon as we find the place on the planet where 250 x 60 = 30,000 + interest, we'll be letting y'all know. 

Biggie is the kind of person that goes out in the parking lot to look at our waitresses car when she tells us that a body shop has given her an outrageous estimate. He's the kind of person that goes into the repair shop to get an extra hub cab for the guy in the produce department at our favorite store because he lost one. He's the kind of guy that drives 40 minutes out to the little old lady's house that can't figure out how this new fangled electric car starts, again. He's the kind of guy that answers a customer's questions about their lease or transmission or suspension on his cell phone while standing in line with his family at Disney World.

So, in the event that you find yourself in a car dealership, do me a favor. Recognize that the person, or people, trying to help are in fact, people. They don't get paid unless you buy a car, & if you have to humiliate them to do that, well, that just sucks. Yes, I know some of them out there that are assholes, just don't assume that they are. For my sake.

Home Hunters: Foreclosure Crisis Edition

A major portion of the stimulus package consists of the previously mentioned Neighborhood Stability Program (NSP), that provides down payment assistance as well as rehabilitation funding in areas hardest hit with foreclosures. For my Australian readers, Florida led the nation in 2007 with the highest percentage, 16.5%, of High-Risk Negative Amortization Loans. Lee County, where we live, has a foreclosure rate of over 11%. 

I really want to get out of here, but I have to balance what I want against the best interests of our family. We, well, mostly MiniMe & I, are looking at houses. I really wanted to be in downtown Fort Myers as there is a public arts magnet elementary school there. The girl just held yet another concert in our living room tonight where she sang her original work on jellyfish, which poetically emphasized that jellyfish indeed do not have hearts. She's 3, for crying out loud. She plays guitar & piano. No joke. No, I don't force her to sit & practice nor does she take lessons. But I digress. The point is that it seems like an arts magnet elementary + she = positive feelings about school.

The area we are now looking at houses in is the city of Cape Coral. It's killing me, my peeps. I mean, I'm a fricken Urban Planner. ("Um, we know that, crazee ladee. You ramble on about it in every fricken post!") I'm from the bellweather of failing Urban Policy. But, Cape Coral? There is a book about it entitled, "The Lie That Came True". It honestly was a real estate scam that so many people bought into it actually got built. If you look at it on google earth it's freaky. It's a bunch of crazy manmade canals to nowhere. The streets are all number names to the extreme ie. NE 12th Place, NE 12th Street, NE 12th Court, NE 12th Avenue. & it's in several of my textbooks as the perfect example of sucky suburbia. There's a fairly popular heavy rock band from there who entitled one of their albums "Cape Coma" as a reference to the city. I feel like I am one giant sellout. 

I can't ignore the incredible deals on homes in the City of Cape Coral, however. For the same amount of money, or less, we could buy a home that is twice the size of the one we are renting. I spent one Saturday afternoon driving round with MiniMe and Grammie & came upon an unsettling revelation, however.

The first home we went to look at is owned by Fannie Mae. It is  4 bedroom, 3 bathroom two-story house that was built in 1999. It is on a canal, has a 2-car garage & a pool. It's listed for $214k. Sounds nice, right? Well, it's not. 

When we walked into the house I was immediately struck by the prominence of the colors, or lack of them. The home is decorated in entirely black, white & grey. When the agent started discussing things that could make the house better, I suggested perhaps a centrally located globe with some neon lettering around it. He was all, "I think I've seen that somewhere before!" Um, uh-huh. 

Take a lookie at this gem of a bathroom. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the bathtub is pretty much in the middle of the room. Faux black marble? How about badly airbrushed fiberglass? Combined with the etched glass mermaid (which MiniMe seriously swooned over), complete with exposed nipples, I would feel obligated bathing there as if I were expected to put on some kind of show. 

But hey, if I did there was the built in radio/intercom system! When I asked the realtor if he knew what it was for, he lodged into some explanation to the effect of, "See, back in the 80's it was considered classy to have built in radio systems..." I cut him off. "No! This is for Issac Hayes!"

I was waiting for Tony Montana to show up, but I guess he's moved on.

See, people love me!

I often get asked if I have considered making things to sell to the public at large at craft shows or on etsy. It always makes me think of my Grandma, MiniMe's namesake, who frequently got requests from my friends to make things for them that she had made for me. A very few times she did oblige, but for the most part, she had a canned response that she only made things for those she loved, out of love. She said taking money for something was just too much pressure. 

When grandma died there was quite a volume of fabric that she had acquired. If I needed a shirt or a skirt to go with another fabulous piece, she would rifle through her cabinets to find a fabric that I might like that she could craft into what I needed in a single afternoon. I completely took it for granted until she was gone.

I currently have a backlog of my own. About three new jumpers for MiniMe, some sweet organic knit I scored off ebay for leggings or twirl dresses, two different groups of fabric for a vintage mommy & child apron pattern I found. Oh, & three pairs of pants to hem for Biggie. (BOR- ring!) I am still trying to find places for things in the new house. MiniMe's craft drawers are barely able to be opened, they are so in need of purging. Someday, my sweet Singer.

Dear, Sweet Kristine sent us a package last week. I had requested a hat, as we were going to be going on a trip to somewhere cold that has since been cancelled, & Kristine knits. She went above & beyond, not only making a hat that MiniMe has decided resembles her & my favorite vintage Strawberry Shortcake character, Blueberry Muffin, but also a little version of an apre-bath wrap, in Hello Kitty of course. There was also a matching person-pillow, who has since become Rosebud's, & a lavender belt with musical notes on it. It's almost like Kristine knew I had said that if we put the kid's gold collection on her from her christening with certain pants, it would make the perfect LL Cool J costume for Halloween.

The wrap was tried out immediately. MiniMe decided she had to wear the hat, too, since it matched so well. After the pictures were taken, a rowdy game of Hide & Go Squeak was played with Dad, while MiniMe pranced about happily. 

I have to say, while I love getting gifts, I love giving them so much more. It is awesome to open Kristine's flickr account & see her daughter in something I made for her, even though I've never actually met her. But, I will. Soon. They are coming to the Even-Farther-Down-South in the next month. I am so excited I seriously am already contemplating what color roses I will get from the farmer's market for the dresser in the guest room. Yep. I've lived in The South too long.

The Rutabega & Turnip Club

I know I can't be the only one to see the ridiculousness here.

A preface:

My mom has a baby brother, the youngest in her big Catholic family, who lost his job in Michigan 2 years ago & moved down here to find work. He & his teenage daughter moved in with my mom. He found work. My mom wanted to buy a smaller house & saw that the market was going downhill. She decided to go ahead & buy a smaller house while my uncle would rent her house. She only charged him around half her payment. She saw that she wasn't going to get anywhere close to what she owed on her big house based on what was happening to us. She decided to let the house go back to the bank. Before she did, she did try to negotiate with the bank. She bought the house in 2004 for $220k & owed $173k. My uncle offered to buy it for $150k. The bank didn't take it. 

Yes, I have an affinity for rutabagas. I identify with them. I detest eating them, however. My love of the rutabaga comes from an analogy my dad made. In his Finnish culture, rutabagas are a staple, so there were many situations when I was a kid where I was sitting at the dining room table starring at a serving of them through teary eyes. A few times my dad slathered them with butter, trying to convince me they were great. Eventually, one evening he caved & they were never again put on my plate. He told me that as time went on, with us living separate lives for the most part of my childhood, rutabagas came to make him think of me. When I was in college, during one of our kitchen table talks, I launched into a diatribe on how rutabagas, turnips, cabbage & cauliflower were all in one smelly, gas-inducing, gross food category for me. My dad found this hilarious & told me that he couldn't help but think of the phrase, "You can't get blood from a turnip". He always saw it, as you're supposed to, as that the darned turnip just doesn't have it within itself. It's not being stubborn or selfish. The blood just ain't there. That's how I was about the rutabagas.  So the phrase became applicable to me, in some crazy mixed up way. When I would talk to my dad about my marriage & how Biggie was expecting something of me I just couldn't bring myself to do, my dad would say, "Well, Rutabeggie,..." We never had a talk about it. I knew what he meant. He got me.

A few weeks before my dad died, MiniMe came home with a photocopy of a definite root vegetable, colored with red & purple crayon, decorated with sequins. She was just over 2 years old at the time. When I asked her what it was she clearly replied, 

"Disco Rutabeggie". 

I LOVED it. It gave me one of those smile in my belly & heart feelings only parents & grandparents can get. I was saving it to send to my dad because it was just too priceless. I knew he would put it up in his truck & drive all over the country smiling at his girls' girls' silliness. He died before I could send it.

But, back to the banks. 

Our former home is no longer ours. If you were to go to the county tax appraiser's website & search for our last name, the same staggering list of eight properties comes up, but it's not right. (I though about using the word correct here, but I opted for right. It's more fitting.) There were a few things left in the house that we hadn't gotten out yet that I still wanted. Like the 4.25hp self-propelled mower I bought when we bought our first house, that I used up through my sixth month of pregnancy, & that my dad had taken all apart to clean, tune up & sharpen the blade when he came to visit me. I wanted to give it to my uncle as a gift. It's gone. As are our chaise lounges, planters, a floor lamp. The bank took the stance that the house was abandoned, changed the locks, & put those things in the landfill. I've got half a mind to go dig them out. It's so stupid & wasteful & lazy. & not right.

My mom's former house is up for sale for $46,500.00. 

I've thought about how it makes me feel to have been through this experience. It just doesn't make any sense. It gets worse.

I have a possible opportunity for a job. Two incorporated cities here are seeking to hire qualified people to run their Neighborhood Stability Programs, which I am very qualified to do. These programs give down payment assistance & rehabilitation money to people buying bank-owned or foreclosed properties. Ridiculousness: Currently we qualify for reduced cost preschool for MiniMe for me to go back to work & to buy a house through the program. If I took the job, we no longer qualify for either. Um. Work & never see sweet girl or stay home, send her to school on the cheap, & get a new house?

So, what was wrong with our money? If the bank had taken our buyers' $334,000 for our old home a year back, wouldn't they be in better shape now? I can't help but wonder how much the attorney charged the bank for the whole foreclosure process. Maybe they would have needed all these tax dollars to help them out if my money was good enough. Wait a minute. I pay taxes. I'm confused. My money wasn't good enough for the bank to take to pay for our house last year, but my money that went to pay taxes is good enough? 

Can't wait to see how much they list our house for. That's sure to send me to the liquor store.

I'm starting a club. When I get my sewing machine up again & some of Biggie's pants hemmed I've decided I'm making up some Disco Rutabega applique t-shirts. If you want one, you have to pay the membership dues. (cost of bourbon & root beer to drink while making said shirt)

We have infiltrated the perimeter...

Our new place is in a gated community. When I say gated community I don't mean a place where you pull up to get in & have to punch in a code or call the people you are coming to visit. This place has guards (we like to call them Condo Commandoes), 24 hours a day. We have to have a barcode sticker on our cars to get in the gate without pestering (& really, they subtlely let you know) the Commandoes. I don't like it.

The primary reason I wanted to live here is because there are over 9 miles of walking trails here. By walking trails, I mean paved paths through true conservation areas with actual trees, not just telephone poles with shrubs on top (aka palm trees). The community is also on a slow-moving river that connects to the intercoastal & in the winter manatees migrate up into the river because it's warmer. There are complementary kayak rentals for residents. We are going to be checking this out as soon as we can find a way to try it without MiniMe. 

But there are two golf courses here. Very swanky golf courses. With golfers that meet a certain demographic that seems to lead them to believe they can look down on individuals they feel don't meet their criteria to deserve politeness. Case in point: MiniMe & I headed out for a stroll down to the playground with our dogs. It was a good mile to mile & a half walk. After a week of moving, I thought she'd be glad to be outside for a long time with my undivided attention. They have bathrooms on the course that are locked, opened by keys for the golf carts. MiniMe, being 3 years old, can't always anticipate very well yet that she might have to go to the bathroom before we reached the playground & doesn't quite understand why someone would lock her out from a toilet. As we were walking, there was one such bathroom directly across the street from our path & she very clearly asked to please use one. Thankfully, there were golfers at the bathroom. When I explained to MiniMe that the doors were locked & one of golfers were going to have to let us in, she walked right up to one man & asked, "Can you please let me go to the bathroom?" She was polite. She was brave. She was assertive. I was proud. The guy first acted like he didn't hear her, so she persisted with her previous request, but now proceeded with "Excuse me!". The guy finally looked down his nose at her, literally, gave her a one-sided smirk, & said, "Are you walking your dogs in your pajamas?" Completely bypassing her request. Completely oblivious to her manners & genuine patience. I was trying to get the dogs on a shorter leash, so I was too overwhelmed to actually speak up before that group rode off on their carts, snarkily chuckling at how smart they are that they can demean a 3 year old. The starter was just on the other side of the building, thankfully, so I asked him to let her use that bathroom. He seemed a little put out, but did grant us access. 

I have to explain that I was once the assistant manager at a private golf club in Ann Arbor, where the likes of Tom Monahan, Bill Clay Ford are members. I'm not a golfer, but I worked as a waitress in the clubhouse for 2 years & the members were so pleased with my service & attention to detail that I was put in this position. I can't imagine any of those members ever hesitating to allow a child access to a bathroom. 

This brings us to a brief discussion on gated communities. I don't like them. They don't make me feel safer. They don't make me more likely to approach a neighbor or wave at a passerby while walking the dogs. I do those things anyway. I don't like my visitors having to be screened before they can come to my house. More than anything, I don't like the idea that someone has to be qualified to be where I am. I'm not the first person, certainly not the first planner, to bring this up. I'm just reiterating my opinion, now more enlightened from the experience. I don't like someone else deciding who can be a part of my community. 

I've thought about some way I can say something that isn't redundant or obvious about the whole contrived community, here. What I've come up with is that I want to take a moment to recognize the blog community I am becoming a part of. The community where my old friend can stop by & catch up, where my neighbors know me by what has been written instead of the cars we drive, our dogs, or as the ones who never take their garbage cans back in & darn it, we've got to report them. I like this community where I can ogle over Rebecca's darling Fable, marvel at Sarah's preserves, worry over Ivy, giggle at Mimi, even offend Jim. It's much more diverse than reality while still maintaining some sort of relativity. 

But hey, the view out our backdoor is pretty swell...