Downsizing or Just Letting Go?

Each year as I go through the annual orgy of spring cleaning, I promise myself that next year it will be easier.  Then I make choices about what to put back on that shelf I just cleaned and what to get rid of.  Some years I'm afraid that the IRS is going to think that no one person could give that much stuff to Goodwill, and decide to audit my return.  So I stop giving when I reach the upper limits of what the average taxpayer in my income range donates.


I still give a lot to Goodwill, but my winnowing is different this year.  Cleaning is still necessary, but has begun to feel more like an irritating burden than a regular chore that I just do.  So now, I've determined that the less "stuff" I have, the easier it is to stay one step ahead of the Health Department.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a candidate for the "Hoarders" television show.  But after a lifetime of slowly acquiring stemware, flatware, and other such items, their siren song has muted.  Or maybe my hearing just isn't what it used to be.

Thanks to online auctions such as Ebay, I can appeal to someone else's avaricious tendencies in exchange for money to pay off the credit cards that I racked up in order to buy the stuff in the first place.  And as the size of my family dwindles and they move to far-off locales, the dog doesn't really need to drink his water from a crystal goblet or lick his grain-free kibble from fine china plates.       

I don't have a Chicken McNugget shaped like George Washington to sell, but the clothing I saved for the time when I'd fit into a size 5 again are also on the block.  The Longaberger baskets that my group of Navy wives drooled over and held parties to afford have collected enough dust in my closet.  I've decided to get the family photographs, that hide with glued edges and inked descriptions in dozens of albums, scanned and give the digital copies to the kids.  But I fear that things like the black fiberboard funeral cards with their gilded lettering from the 1800's will disappear into a drawer and be lost forever.  Some things take longer to let go.

Stuff has lost is glittering attraction as time becomes more precious.  Even the multiple levels of my townhouse have begun to annoy me.  Smaller, spare and utilitarian spaces call to me.  I even fantasize about simply traveling - with no permanent abode to return to.  But this is beginning to sound like a metaphor for death, this journey to a small space.  So I'll pick up the dust cloth (microfiber now) for at least one more spring and keep listing my auctions until the superfluous items are gone, and I learn how to work all this stuff that is supposed to make life more streamlined.   

AN UPLIFTING CONFESSION

For various reasons, I’ve gone to an actual movie theater and seen more films this year than ever before.  That may be bucking the current home theater trend, but market conditions have converged to convince me that the higher ticket costs aren’t always an extravagance.

Specialized cable television packages are convenient, but not a great deal IMHO.  I was a Netflix customer for awhile, but my angle was to join once or twice a year for a couple of months and “catch up” on all the films I hadn’t seen.  But then the price nearly doubled, and the service was tiered so that the convenient PC streaming membership offered a more limited selection than the physical mail-in DVDs.   I find it well worth the savings to order a movie online and pick it up at the convenience store a mile away for about a dollar.  The theater is reserved for either films that are best enjoyed on the big screen format or those that I just didn’t want to wait to see.

So this year, I had more interest in watching the orgy of self-congratulation better known as “The Oscars”.  I haven’t seen the big winner, “The Artist”, yet.  Perhaps it will surprise me, but I don’t know how excited I can get about a movie with virtually no dialogue.  With that said, it follows that most of the stars and movies I’d seen went winless.  Except for “The Help”.

I touched briefly on this movie in an earlier blog (“Cry Me a River…or a Poopy Chocolate Pie”), and I really wanted to see both Octavia Spenser and Viola Davis take home a statuette.  Davis lost to perennially amazing Meryl Street, whose performances I can rarely fault.  Am I alone in feeling there ought to be a limit to the number of Oscars awarded to the same person in a lifetime? 

And then I heard Spenser state what she wanted to do if she won the Best Supporting Actress category:  to get her “girls” lifted.  She described it as having them stapled to her shoulders, so that when she turns 70, they’ll be in just the right place.  Her refreshing candor was especially striking in a setting where enhancements and augmentations are much more the norm than the exception.  Signs of aging are often the kiss of death in any business where the perception of beauty is synonymous with a youthful appearance.  Somehow, I don’t put Ms. Spencer in the Botox/Restylane/liposuction crowd.

When one of my books hits the New York Times Bestseller list, I’ll confess my own plans.  But in the meantime, go ahead, Octavia.  If it pleases you, if it improves your self-image, just do it!

My Life as a Car

I bought a car today.  Normally that would be an exciting time for most people, but for me, it felt like the end of an era.  It made me think about all the cars that have transported me throughout my life.

My parents' cars in the 50's are lost in the mists of time.  I only remember them as large and roomy until the day they moved up the ladder to owning TWO cars when dad bought a Hillman Minx.  Most people have never heard of that make or model, but he bought it because it was little and inexpensive.  It was the car I learned to drive on.  Black, tiny, and with a stick shift, it circled the Memorial Stadium parking lot in Baltimore until dad pulled out the orange cones and made me learn to parallel park.  Teeth-chattering jolts caused outcries from my parental unit as I learned the subtleties of the clutch pedal.  Not long after I got my driver's license, dad totaled it by rear-ending a vehicle driven by a friend's mom.

It was time to shop for a replacement.  At the time, I had no idea how iconic his next purchase would be.  All I knew was that when I saw him come home with a dark green 1965 Ford Mustang, I was awe-struck.  It was so out-of-character for him.  In retrospect, I think he was in the midst of some middle-age craziness.  He bought a corduroy cap and would ask me to accompany him around town.  Perhaps he just liked being seen in his trendy new vehicle with a seventeen-year-old blonde in the passenger seat.  I would do it to humor him....and to get him to say yes when I asked to drive that car.

The green Mustang was eventually replaced by a red Mustang, but by then I was driving my fiance's white Buick Skylark while he was attending Naval Flight Training.  Just before we were married, he bought a Jeep Commando that whirled over the white sands of Pensacola, Florida and took us to the Redwood Forest in California.  But as the size of our family grew, it outlived its purpose.  We bought a Volkswagen Dasher wagon with "leatherette" upholstery.  Soon we needed a second vehicle and added a red Toyota Starlet as a commuter vehicle.  It cost $5,000, tax and title included.

As the fights increased in the back seat of the Volkswagen from three kids in too-close proximity, in 1984 we bought our first minivan:  the space-age looking Toyota van.  It had a sunroof, a moonroof, three rows of seats, and a cooler.  It even made its own ice cubes.  Every kid in our neighborhood wanted a ride in that van.  I was the default driver for swim meets and anything else.  It survived being shipped to Puerto Rico for a tour of duty there.  By the time it was shipped back to the U.S., for a tour in Louisiana, it wasn't long before there was one less passenger.  The car was still around, but I was the one being traded in for newer model.

Piecemeal part time jobs provided the money to attend evening classes at Tulane.  One rainy afternoon on the way to class, it hydroplaned, jumping the muddy median, rolling onto its side and careening into oncoming traffic lanes, spewing No Nonsense pantyhose all over Interstate 10 (one of my jobs was as a part-time merchandiser).  Fortunately, I was okay, and complained to the police officer that I'd torn the sleeve of my new blouse as my arm scraped the roadway while the car was sliding.  My dad came to the rescue and gave me the money to buy a Honda Civic hatchback just before I landed a job with State Farm Insurance.

I worked as a auto claims representative for seven years until I was promoted into management.  One morning, my son woke me and said, "Come on, get up.  We're going car shopping."  I never intended to buy a car that morning, but was lured by the siren song of a 1998 Honda Accord EX with soft, plush leather, a sunroof, and a sound system from heaven.  As soon as I saw it, I was a goner.  I've loved that car, feeling like a princess every time I've gotten into it.  It owes me nothing after fourteen years of luxurious driving, but time has ravaged my car much as it has me.

My Silver Queen's surface has faded as the clearcoat wears and it leaks in a hard rain.  Cold weather and hard turns evoke groans from the CV joints and boots as well as the engine.  The valves have begun to leak and the yellow engine light has glared at me for nearly a year, demanding a new 02 sensor.  It was only a matter of time before it would break down on my weekly treks to Port Deposit, and I worried it might happen while the grandkids were in the car.  I hadn't had to make a car payment in nearly ten years.  So, reluctantly, I went car shopping.

The price of gasoline rises relentlessly, so I decided to go for a hybrid.  I could've gotten a car with lots of interior bells and whistles, but had to make hard choices.  It pained me to leave the Honda brand that I've loved so much, but the Toyota Prius is the mileage king.  So I defected...sadly.

I'll miss my luxury car and, strangely, this is the first car I've ever owned that is NOT a manual transmission - a stick shift.  The strange, spare interior is a plastic egg.  I have to LEARN how to drive it.  It is an alien creature that rolls silently at low speeds and has an all-electric drive for traffic jams and bumper-to-bumper crawls.

Don't think that I bought this car because I'm forward-thinking and mindful of the fragile ecology.  I wish I could present myself that way.  I bought it because my income is half of what it was when I was working, and because the price of gas and everything else I need keeps rising.  The bell curve of life is now on its downward curve, and I learn to adjust what I can.  I don't have a name for this strange vehicle yet, but the voice in my head keeps saying, "The queen is dead.  Long live the thing."        

Off-Key: The 2012 Grammy Awards Show

Was I the only one who felt the 2012 Grammy Awards Show was seriously uneven and off-balance?  Granted, I'm no professional music critic nor do I fall in the 16-24 age demographic, but this is an event that I enjoy every year.  And this year's show had more minuses than plusses IMHO.

I'm sure there was a lot of shuffling to include the last-minute tribute to Whitney Houston, beautifully performed by Jennifer Hudson, but did anyone else notice that there was no mention of Soul Train's Don Cornelius or Etta James during the "In Memorium" segment? 

If you are over 30, do you find yourself wondering who more and more of the "celebrities" are that make their way down the red carpet?  And why does the media continue to give air time to such wannabees as Amber Rose, whose only claim to fame is that she dated Kanye West and Wiz Khalifa?

I'm not a fan of singer Chris Brown, but I found myself laughing at the outfits that his back-up dancers wore.  My daughter aptly characterized them as flying squirrels.  And, please, I don't need two performances by Brown when so many others could have been included. 

Is anyone else convinced that male country singers who always wear cowboy hats are doing so to cover their balding heads? 

Alicia Keys and Bonnie Raitt joined for a lovely tribute to Etta James, but the transition from Raitt's naturally aging face to Reba McEntire's Gelfling stretched smile was unsettling. 

Some of the older stars had supporting acts to bolster their failing voices.  Tony Bennett certainly needed help, and Paul McCartney could have used some for his "My Valentine", a sweet song that he wrote for his new wife, Nancy Shevell.  He managed to redeem himself mightily, however, when he closed out the show with a dead-on performance of "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" with Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl and Joe Walsh providing the guitar shredding.  I guess the lack of celebrity recognition works in reverse too, as droves of clueless young viewers revealed their ignorance by asking "Who's Paul McCartney?" on Twitter.  Last year's tribe of the musically uninformed tweeted, "Who's Arcade Fire?"

It was fortunate that the show ended on such a high note.  The lows included Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj, who both failed to impress despite the blue raspberry hair and the aren't-I-shocking Roman Holiday number.  It felt like Minaj was trying to out-Gaga the curiously understated Lady Gaga.

Aside from Hudson's tribute performance, one of the most enjoyable segments was the robust farewell performance of Glen Campbell who is retiring due to the progression of Alzheimer's disease.  A showman to the end, he was rewarded with a standing ovation after he ended with, "Now I'm going to go somewhere and shut up." 

Also remarkable was the 50th anniversary tribute by the surviving members of The Beach Boys.  Despite Brian Wilson's disturbing what-am-I-doing-here facial expressions, the segment was impressively supported by Maroon Five and Foster The People.

I'm hoping next year's show won't have the notes of desperation that surfaced frequently, perhaps as performers watched songstress Adele collect SIX Grammies.  The strobe-lit efforts to make the show appear to be taking place in a club, complete with Dangermouse and light stick-waving fans fell flat.  So for 2013, please, less we're-so-trendy and more of the awesome mix of music that the show exists for in the first place.

The Pet Health Care Crisis: Are Rover and Fluffy Driving You Off the Financial Cliff?

Owning a pet is seen as an essential part of living by most of us in the U.S.  The latest statistics estimate that over 60%  of households have at least one.  That works out to over 75 million dogs and 85 million cats...not to mention birds, hamsters, and other species. Our reasons for owning a pet vary, but most would rate their unconditional love and companionship high on that list.  Yet most new or would-be owners have no idea of the real price tag for those wagging tails and purrs. 

If you're lucky, your pet will live a healthy life, consuming relatively inexpensive grocery brand food and submitting to an annual check up with vaccinations.  Most will not be that fortunate.  Each species comes with its own requirements, but it wasn't until my own dog fell through the rabbit hole that I discovered how expensive it can be.  And we've just begun our journey on the path of chronic, on-going care.  I adopted then-five-year-old Bullet through a shelter and have cruised for about four years without much outlay other than food and the recommended shots.  My biggest gripe was the cost of kennel boarding during my frequent visits to family in other states.  His tab for a week's stay exceeded my roundtrip airfare.

But then he fell ill with liver problems and a week of boarding, CAT scans, blood work, IV hydration and prescription meds left me with a $1300 bill.  I took him home and even after the number of medications decreased from four to two daily, he needed a prescription dog food in addition.  I knew I needed to do some research on how to manage these ongoing costs, and thought I would share the results with you.

There aren't a lot of companies on the market that make prescription dog food.  The two main producers are Hill's and Royal Canin.  They don't go "on sale" and coupons are few and far between.  Even with the relative ease of internet price-checking, I found little difference when shipping costs were figured in.  About the best I could do was to check the manufacturers' websites for occasional promotions and email them for a few coupons.  Sometimes, I could shave a few percent off the price by going through Ebates (a popular shopping portal that I've been using for years) or sign up for a Frequent Buyer/Scheduled Shipping discount where the retailer gives repeat customers a small price break.  So, I went from the bargain price of $20 for a 40 lb. bag of Purina Dog Chow to $55 for Hill's Prescription Diet L/D Canine Dry Food for a 17.6 bag that my 80 lb. dog devours in 3 weeks.  If you're really pinched, you can find a few recipes for homemade dog food for different health conditions, but I personally found this too tedious.

The biggest money-saver was obtained through researching the medications.  Let me say up front that I love my vet and the great care that the employees give Bullet.  But in the real world they are a business, not a charity.  They need to make a profit to stay afloat, but if I can find a way to save without compromising my pet's care, then that's the way of the free market.  I was shocked to find a popular OTC liver protective medication that was costing $164 per month through my vet, available on Amazon.com for $98 including shipping.  And after reading through online discussion forums where people with similar situations offered the benefit of their research, I discovered Diamondback Drugs (diamondbackdrugs.com), a compounding veterinary pharmacy in Arizona.  They responded to my inquiry with the news that they can ship the liquid form of the drug for under $55 for a month's supply.  That's a savings of about 65% on a medication that he will likely have to take for the rest of his life.

The prescription drug he takes....it's an off-label use for dogs...runs about $54 for a month's supply.  I went through the same process, but the best I could find so far is also from Diamondback Drugs.  If I buy 100 capsules, they can save me nearly $30. 

There are other ways to save too.  If you are willing to change veterinary providers, there is a program called PetAssure that can save you money.  There's the option of pet insurance too, but most of us don't think about it until there is a crisis which then becomes a pre-existing condition. 

Your local ASPCA or Humane Society may offer periodic rabies and other shot clinics as well as reduced spay/neuter programs at greatly reduced prices.  Sign up on their webistes to be notified for the event dates.

Even though there are some ways to save, don't adopt any pet unless you are willing to care for them properly.  Food, medical care, grooming, flea/tick preventatives and a myriad of other possibilities can strain or even destroy a household's budget. 

It was surprising to find that only 21% of dogs and cats are adopted from a shelter, with the remainer acquired from friends, family, pet stores and breeders. Between five and seven million companion animals enter animal shelters nationwide each year and of that number, three to four million are euthanized.  That breaks down to five out of every ten dogs and seven out of every ten cats in shelters being destroyed ANNUALLY - simply because there is no one to adopt them.

So think long and hard before you decide to get a pet.  And if you do make that decision, browse sites like petfinder.com and visit your local shelter and rescue organizations.  Did you know that 25% of the dogs that enter shelters are actually purebreds?  Chances are, you'll find your next best friend at one of them.

***Bella, the beautiful 12-month-old Labrador/Great Pyrenees mix female dog in the picture above is currently looking for her forever home.  If you'd like to see if you and Bella could be a match, please contact Jessica, her foster care mom, at jessica@dogsxlrescue.org.  Dogs XL Rescue is a local, Baltimore organization that can be reached at info@dogsxlrescue.org or http://www.dogsxlrescue.org. 
     

At Last, Etta James is at Rest

My musical tastes are all over the map, with the distinct exclusion of opera, so it's not surprising that I can listen to Hot Chelle Rae and Etta James on the same day.  The legendary James travelled a road that ended as roughly as it began, succumbing to leukemia, dementia and kidney ailments.  One of music's original bad girls, she never knew who her father was, although famous billiards player Minnesota Fats would neither confirm or deny the possibility, saying he just couldn't remember everything.  Her mother was a con artist, substance abuser and only an occasional presence in James' life.  The singer was raised by a church-going couple who owned the rooming house where her mother once lived.

She sang in her Church choir, performing solos so distinctively that Hollywood celebrities were known to attend, just to hear her voice. But Etta, then known as Jamesette Hawkins, found it impossible to resist the siren song of rhythm and blues.  She described her ambitions as ''I wanted to be rare, I wanted to be noticed, I wanted to be exotic as a Cotton Club chorus girl, and I wanted to be obvious as the most flamboyant hooker on the street. I just wanted to be."

She was "discovered" singing with her girlfriends on the street corners of San Francisco when she was just 15 years old, by bandleader Johnny Otis in the 1950's and toured with his band, earning $10 a night, after forging her mother's signature on a permission slip that verified she was 18.  In 1959 she signed with Chicago's Chess Label and belted out her hit songs while touring with the likes of Fats Domino, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Into the late 1960's, she recorded "Tell Mama", a groundbreaking soul album filled with the fusion of funk, gospel and rock.  But James' success was always pitted against her drug demon, heroin.  She was drawn to it, seeing uber-cool jazz icons like Billie Holiday among others using the substance.  But her drug use nearly destroyed her, landing her in jail and sapping both her money and her talents. After years of addiction, she cleaned up and clawed her way back to a measure of popularity again in the 1980's.  Her battles continued as her weight see-sawed wildly and she fought an addiction to painillers.

Arguably her most famous recording, "At Last", was the song that newly-elected President and Mrs. Barack Obama danced to at the inauguration in 2009.  James reportedly was rankled at not being invited to participate in the event, complaining that singer Beyonce wasn't the right one to sing her anthem.

James had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, awarded four Grammies as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame before her health spiraled downward.  She was 73 years old and an American original. 

For the Love of Bullet

A few years back, in dead-of-winter February, I pondered getting another dog.  I'd lost Razoo, my Siberian Husky, when he escaped his sitter's yard and was struck by a car while I was on a house-hunting trip in another state.  Several months before that, I'd sadly said goodbye to Nanni, my rescued Husky-Malamute. He was a huge dog with so much hair that I'd originally named him "Annie". After I got him home and brushed him, I had to give him a less feminine name.  Losing both so close together was a double whammy that left me vowing to put my pet-owning days behind forever.  But after a year or two I'd begun to miss having at least one around.  I've always loved big dogs.....the 60-85 pound variety, and I started browsing sites like petfinder.com.  That was my downfall.

There's nothing like a photo of a wistful pooch without a home, and there he was....another ice-blue eyed Husky-Malamute mix, and a hard-to-place senior dog to boot.  He was found wandering the woods of Frederick, Maryland, scrounging food in freezing weather.  It's not unusual for Huskies or Malamutes to be lost.  They are escape artists who love nothing better than to get out of the house or yard and just RUN.  And when they finally stop, they're usually far from home.  Believe it or not, they are intelligent.  But their willfulness makes them difficult to train.  They'll obey if they feel like it.

So why would I want another of these beautifully idiotic dogs?  I have no excuse.  Alec Baldwin may be some women's blue-eyed husky, but a blue-eyed husky is my blue eyed husky.  The homeless dog's handsome face reigned proudly on the Animal Shelter web page and I chuckled at his name...Bullet.  The next day I drove to the shelter for a "meet and greet".  He paced around the enclosure, only briefly acknowledging me.  The shelter attendant warned, "This breed of dog is hard to handle, and they're not very affectionate."  He was partly right, but they agreed to let me adopt him since I'd had two of his breed before.

During the first six months, he was fearful and elusive, possibly due to past abuse.  But as we closed in on our first year together, he became more comfortable and then downright affectionate in his own goofy way, waiting patiently at the door for my return whenever I left the house.  We've been together for nearly five years, and the quiet voice in my head that periodically reminds me of his age chimes in more regularly now.

The voice rose loudly this past week while I was visiting family in Alabama.  Bullet hadn't seemed quite himself for a day or two before I left and I alerted the vet's staff to keep a watchful eye.  Sure enough, they called the day after I left, advising that he wasn't eating and was running a fever.  Blood tests revealed evidence of liver dysfunction as his gums and eyes yellowed.  Ultrasound scans showed a liver mass and a nodule or gallstone obstructing his bile duct.  Surgery was risky and not likely to help.  Living on a modest income, I had to decide how much I was willing to spend on an aging pet for an uncertain outcome.

So I returned from Alabama today and exchanged $1300 in order to bring Bullet home.  He's on a prescription diet and taking four different medications for the next month in a dice roll to see if this less invasive trial will work.  If it keeps him comfortable and happy for a few more months or years, I'll consider it money well spent on my faithful companion.  And if not, at least I've had time to say goodbye.