Money Matters

I better not let Suze Orman hear me say it, but I’m not very good with money. I’m not saying I don’t have any money skills--I’m a thrift store shopper, bargain hunter, and make-it-from-scratcher---but I’ve also historically been impulsive and generous without being judicious sometimes. Relationships and right now are just more important in my life than long-term security has been, so it’s usually feast or famine in my world. It’s hard to believe I’m as fiscally challenged as I am because I have spent much of my life with people who know how to get, save, and pinch the bejesus out of pennies (and nickels and dimes and dollars). My brother John used to take the brunt of my bad money management, because he loved money (his first bank was a tiny combination safe) but he also loved me and didn’t want to see me suffer when the famine hit. I clearly remember one Christmas when his pockets weren’t deep enough to fend me off, poor kid. We were shopping and I saw a genuine, artificial ruby brooch and earring set that our red-loving grandma just had to have. My money supply was depleted, but I wheedled my brother into “helping” me make my purchase. It pained him to pull every one of those coins into the light, but he did it anyway. In Judith Viorst’s Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday, our bad-day boy just can’t keep a hold on his cash. That’s because it’s super hard.

http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Used-Rich-Last-Sunday/dp/0689711999

http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=502

Moving Day

The first time I moved I was days old. No trauma there. The next move was different. I was nine and we were leaving the only place anything had ever happened to me. It was where I learned to climb (and practically live in) trees. It was where I woke up to Christmas morning. It was where my schools, friends, and special places were at little more than arm’s length and the only place I’d ever called home. Leaving, even for a new house I’d seen built, was the most painful experience of my life until then. Parents try to make light of those times, but kids know what’s what. The new place might have a bedroom just for me, but it wouldn’t have a ramshackle grape arbor in the backyard where I could play house for hours. The never-lived-in house would have beautiful decorating but none of the floors would be scuffed-just-right wood and there was no raised porch to jump from. The new neighborhood would have friends I hadn’t met yet, but they wouldn’t be the Romaldos or the Tagaliers or the Mocks. None of what I would come to love about the new place could make up for losing the old place. At least not right away. Judith Viorst, wise to the ways of childhood, understands. In Alexander, Who’s Not (Do you hear me?) Going To Move, she validates what it’s like to be a kid and experience loss. I wonder if she writes big kid books.

http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Whos-Hear-Mean-Going/dp/0689820895

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Viorst

Have A Nice Day

Some people have more drama in their lives than others. I know because I am their queen. Most people lead fairly normal lives with occasional dramatic bumps in their functional roads. I do not. Realizing I have some Murphy’s Law brothers and sisters out there, I give my college students one free absence per semester and tell them if trauma regularly occurs in their world ( and you know who you are), to save their one day for when space junk falls from the sky and crushes their car or a tornado rips down the street missing every house but theirs. In other words, if they have lives anything like mine. I realize not everyone agrees with my worldview. There are those who fervently believe you bring or create your own circumstances and all that matters is your attitude. There are also those who feel I manufacture drama because I love it so. Um, no. I truly long for the boredom continually eluding me. I didn’t “bring” the drama when my teenage son flipped off a trampoline last year and split his shin knee to ankle with bone showing. I didn’t “create” the drama when my toddler picked up some vicious rogue infection from a tooth breaking through and her face swelled like the Elephant Man. But that’s my life and why I’ve always felt a kinship with Judith Viorst’s disaster boy in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Maybe I’d have better luck in Australia.

http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Terrible-Horrible-Good-Very/dp/0689711735

http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/family/alexander/author.html