Disaster zones

Lately it seems that Nature bites back big time. The latest is the swath of tornadoes and storms that hit the U.S. midlands, part of the south, and the eastern coast.

The American Red Cross does some very good work. I know they get bad press occasionally and my grandmother hated them over some weird little thing about care packages when my grandfather was fighting in the East Pacific in WWII. But mostly I see them doing good work under difficult conditions. And no one is perfect.

I don't have much money to give, and I can't really go dig out the debris because I'm not physically that strong. But I can give blood. I used to give it routinely back in Seattle. So I'm going to find the closest Red Cross blood donation site and let them take a pint.

At least it's something.

If you want to see what you can do, or look for someone who was in the path of the storms, go to The American Red Cross web site

The definition of family, part I

"Of all of these things, the greatest is love."

As everyone knows by now, my natal family is gone. I lost my dad in 1978, my little brother in 1983, and my mom last summer 2010. Yes, there are relatives, but none of them is as close to me as the most distant and lurk-ful of the Betties.

And therein lies the rub. My family believed in blood family but not in non-blood family (I think there were only two exceptions over the years). So I have no roadmap to follow. Simply learning to think "I still have a family" is no easy feat for me.

I have a friend I've known since I was 11, and we still communicate, but she has strong family bonds and her bonds to other friends are stronger than mine. Yet, when we are in contact it's like the intervening time — which might be years — didn't happen. Leah lives in Wisconsin.

My best friend is a man I've known since my junior year in college. We've been involved. We've been best friends. We've been furious with each other and said things that in most relationships would be unforgivable. And we've sat with each other thru death and grief. We've shared a house with another friend and an apartment between the two of us and for most of that time everyone thought we were an item, even tho' we had separate bedrooms. I didn't know that he was still in love with me until years later when he broke down after seeing me with the man I'd moved in with. (Stupidest decision ever, but that's another story.) Steve lives in Seattle.

I love the whole world

You cannot be sad when you watch this video. It's probably my favorite. It's the Discovery Channel "Boom De Yada" song. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/NqV3clvlC4Q

Stars

Stars. I never look at them anymore, but they actually are quite ... beautiful. –Men in Black

Do you ever find yourself so wrapped into a routine that you forget how you got there in the first place? When something you did because you enjoyed it becomes becomes habit?

For example: I spend a lot of time on my laptop. Nowadays, I surf the Internet for the most part. And even that has become a mindless task. I started spending all this time on the Mac writing for myself and doing work for others. When I surfed, I was looking for specific information, or discovering fun things, such as LOL cats and XKCD. But now I surf through and past these fun things, as a habit, forgetting to even pause long enough to enjoy them.

I read an article that suggested that the more time you spend in front of a screen — either computer or tv — the shorter your attention span becomes. And I think it's true, at least for me.

As a matter of fact, I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on writing this post.

Watching tv and surfing the web consume time, but  they seldom make you think.

The Internet contains amazing information, pictures, and people, a digital universe. And I hardly look at the stars any more.

Can't find it in the classifieds

Wanted: Help. 

Help with bringing order to my apartment. Help with finding work. Help with paying bills. Help with not getting so consumed with anxiety over these things that I simply pop.

I have a couple of small projects coming up, but not with anyone who can afford to pay me full price. Yes, I do have a sliding fee scale. Extremely small businesses and individuals get a break, because they have very little spare cash. And that's who I seem to be working for right now. When I work.

The money I had left from before, plus the money my mom gave me, plus some of the other is shrinking much too quickly. It was a lot of money, but between me and the estate, it's going, going. 

Health insurance is just about prohibitively expensive for me. If you take even one medicine routinely, you can't get individual health insurance; you have to buy it from the High Risk Pool. Which is far more expensive in Houston that it was in Oregon. And I have a much higher deductible. I'm thinking of doubling the deductible so I can lower the monthly cost. The cost went up significantly when I turned 50. Lucky me.

My rent is not cheap, but it certainly is not the most expensive around here. If I want to go significantly cheaper, I'd have to move into a unit that is too small for my stuff, or even for an actual dining table, or I'd have to move to places that I don't really want to live.  And rent is going up at the end of my lease in a couple of months.

I have credit card debt, because I've been unemployed for a long time, except for bit and pieces, and I've had expenses. 

If Mom's house doesn't sell soon, or if I don't get some real income soon, or if I don't win the lottery soon, I'm going to be hurting big time.

I am one scared kitty right now.