Snow Daze

Holiday greetings to everyone. I'm so excited that we have SNOW just now!! How often does THAT happen in December?!

Had a great talk with my good friend SLM recently, speaking of snow. We decided that anybody who is not us should not be driving in it. Because we both learned in Michigan winters, with snow and ice and wind, oh my! And therefore, our snow driving skills are superior. Especially when you consider that most of the folks on the road in the West just now learned to drive in California.

I had breakfast with another great friend of mine-- Big D-- this morning. He rode his bike on the icy streets. I drove my light-weight no-traction-anyway little car. We figure the only thing we have in common about transportation right now is that we both get out and walk on the hills.

And, while driving (very slowly) to meet him, I saw a lot of driving that made my teeth hurt. Idiots thinking that because they drive a truck with big-ass wheels, ice does not affect them. People who drove nice and slow and safe while moving, but didn't give themselves enough time to stop the vehicle (and thus went straight through the red light while the rest of us who DID manage to stop safely just watch them slide past). You know you're in the Pacific Northwest when the folks who accidentally slide through an intersection on a red light wave their thanks to the cars on either side for not hitting them. In Chicago, the fugcker flying through on the red just flips everyone else off on his way past.

Anyway, back to the great conversation I had with my friend SLM. We also came up with yet another awesome word to add to my personal vocabulary list: passenjerk. Because we've both had the misfortune to be stuck driving some fool and his opinions around in our cars. In fact, my X used to get more angry at me and be a bigger jerk toward me when we were driving than at most other times (there are exceptions). I think it was because he knew I couldn't escape at those times. Sad but true. If you're going to have a big-angry or difficult discussion? Don't do it while one of you is driving. Please. And make sure your breaks are working well beforehand. Trust me.

In the meantime, I'm really enjoying the wind and the white and the sparkly silence that come with winter weather here. Even the sun is more exciting when it snows beforehand. So, as I've been saying to my clients and friends alike: Happy Everything!!

Waiting for Forgiveness

I've been ill the last week. I'm definitely getting better, but it's been eight days since I could say I really felt functional. And I've still got an overabundance of green snot.
Eww!

Those eight days covered the first of the month-- the day I have not one but three rent checks due. Rent for my storage space. Rent for my office. Rent for my apartment. Friday was the day after thanksgiving. I had big plans to get a few of those rent payments made then-- the 30th of November. But I stayed overnight with family in another town, and had about an hour of time at home-- frantically unpacking, repacking, petting grumpy cats, feeding hungry cats, feeding hungry me, trying to get my contacts to function in my eyes, and on and on like that-- before I got back in the car and drove another two hours to my next big holiday gathering of the weekend.

The rent didn't get paid.

Monday was the first. By Sunday, I knew I was sick. I didn't leave my bed much. I think I made it downstairs for food once or twice. Oh, on Monday I did drive out to the storage unit to make that payment. It was a painful trip, but I needed another couple boxes of kleenex, so I made it happen. I had a client planned for Tuesday-- I thought I'd pay rent when I went to the office then. By Monday night, I called my clients for Tuesday AND Wednesday-- to reschedule. I was that sick.

My Thursday client called to reschedule, too. She is on meds that repress her immuno system. Neither of us wanted her to get sick. So I didn't get into the office on that day either. That night, I realized too late to call my office landlord that I never did let her know what was going on with the rent check. That it was really late now. And I felt like shit.

In the midst of that thought process, as if I thought of it because she thought of it-- she called to ask me what was going on with the rent check. I never wanted her to have to do that. And I felt shitty about not getting it to her on time. Shitty that I was relying on her goodness of heart to not charge me tons of late fees, and for it to be okay that I just was too sick to remember to pay her somehow.

So I called back, but she didn't answer. And I've left her a payment-- and called twice a day since Thursday for one reason or another. And she hasn't answered any of my calls, nor returned any of my messages. I'm being a pest, and I know it. But I made a mistake. And I feel bad. And I want her to tell me that it's okay. That things like this happen, and it isn't a big deal. I want her to forgive me so that I can forgive myself.

Intellectually, I know my landlord probably wouldn't have cashed the check by now anyway-- but we have a contract, and I broke it. I broke it enough that she had to follow up with me about it-- and I didn't follow up with her first. I left her a check on Friday-- the fifth of the month.

The worst part is that I actually tried to take care of myself on Saturday. To sleep enough to finally get well-- and I slept long enough that I totally missed going to the bank before it closed to deposit money to COVER the checks I wrote for rent. I hate being in debt. I hate being afraid of writing checks and buying food on credit. And right now, I can't even find someone to buy my car for it's actual kelly-blue-book value. I find myself praying that the auto-payment on the car loan won't come out until Tuesday-- after I've had a chance to put money I don't have in the bank.

I know the world is in recession. I know everyone around me is feeling the pinch. I saw it all coming early enough to have done something about it, too. But somehow, doing everything I could wasn't enough, or wasn't the right thing at the right time. Somehow, here I am in as big a mess as everybody else, with student loans and car loans and credit card loans and family loans to pay off, and a new business to get off the ground... and no income.

I know that part of why that payment was late is that I spent the week hoping for a miracle. Hoping for enough clients to have appointments and pay me for them that I'd have money in the bank to cover my expenses. And someday, I know I will. I love what I do, and it's important and valuable work. The clients I do have love my services and return as often as they can. It's a huge compliment. Exciting.

But as yet, it hasn't covered my bills. So I'm downsizing. Trying to clear out my storage unit. Trying to sell my car. Trying to live on what money my business DOES bring in. Daydreaming of a time when I can build my own home, and include space for renters, maybe even space to see clients there, so that all my income doesn't come from one place. So that I can start to put money away for retirement. So that my lifestyle really does support Mother Earth.

Because the home I want to build will be insulated enough to keep out summer heat and keep in winter warmth with only the help of a zero-emission masonry fireplace. A home that collects rainwater for household use, and reuses/harvests gray water in sustainable ways. A home that I feel safe sleeping in at night, and that has spaces for me to welcome friends for a visit now and then. And a root cellar to store foods away, so that I can spend my money on local farmers and in-season produce, and benefit year-round from having done so. Maybe even find time for a garden of my own. And grow my own herbs for the healing teas and tonics and ointments that I make.

Maybe then I'll finally feel like I've managed right-living with the Earth. Maybe by the time I do all that, I'll even be able to afford health insurance again. I'd like that. It's been a few years since I had any, or dental, or eye. And my teeth could use a good cleaning.

But for now I wait. And hope that by the time I act, it won't be too late for the Earth and all her children to forgive me for not having acted sooner. For squandering her resources and mine-- back when I didn't realize there weren't any more resources coming to fill those now-empty mines and forest lands and bank accounts...

I hate waiting.

T is for Timid

Haleleujia Brother! I am here to comfort the sinner, and return the stray man to the Pope. Let him whose...

ever see the movie "Cat Balou" ... a lot? It was one of my favorites for about six months there somewhere in the dank depths of my pre-teen weirdness. I don't know if it explains something, or makes me even scarier... but it's TRUE.

And today, I am here to tell you that it is HARD. HARD. HARD to communicate to people in the office without stepping on landmines of the shitastrophic variety. Land mines. In the office. Hidden. Evil. ...or, to quote an office-mate of mine who happened to be talking about the way my email made her feel about our relationship... Icky.

Yes. I made the mistake of letting her know that I was getting frustrated after her sixth attempt to reschedule me to a new time and/or date for an appointment. Even spread out over the two appointments we tried to set, that's pushing it. But she didn't ask for feedback, or maybe the moon is in Saturn again, or maybe she'd just been told the same thing by a REAL client, and not just the upstart new office-mate who was doing a trade-- my services for hers-- and it rubbed her the wrong way.

Sigh. I decided that rather than jeopardize my comfort (and everyone else's) while working in the office we all share, I'd take full responsibility for our "miscommunication" and apologize.
A lot.

I think she has forgiven me, and decided to move magnanimously forward without holding any bad feelings for how I insulted her. I am grateful, Yogisan. I am also going to write scathing criticisms of the Icky in the Office Communication Network on my private blog-- because it makes me feel a little bit better about things.

Sad, but True. Just like my pre-teen fascination with corny Westerns with wimpy female leads.