I'm Still Here - I think.

Somewhere beneath several piles of reports and deposit slips and sales tax receipts, I am doing payroll, company income and state sales taxes reports for the historical society (my paid job) and the Friends school (my volunteer job).

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I haven't quit blogging, at either spot; just under a mountain of tax stuff to finish in the next several days. See you all soon, I hope!

Cosmos Revisited

Wow!

Several weeks ago, when I was at the end of my rope, dangling over a bottomless pit of despair, I received an email which pointed me to a wonderful video, where - upon visiting YouTube - I found another. They were from the Symphony of Science web site. I signed up for their e-mail notification messages. Today, an email arrived telling me about the latest video, and once again I found another one. The first two videos snapped me out of the downward spiral, which started me on the road to recovery. I have long admired Carl Sagan, so am happier than a pig in mud with the new videos. Hope you like them as well.

Rude Beggars

Good eats.

When I was a girl and we lived in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, we had a neighbor, Mrs. May (referred to as ‘Miz Widder May’ by locals), whose mentally retarded adult daughter lived with her in a cabin a few miles away. Her daughter, Ruby, would wander down the lanes, through the fields and woods, across the ‘hollers’, on ‘haintins,’ or visits.

Mrs. May wasn’t a widow. Her husband had left her with the infant Ruby nearly forty years previous when their child was diagnosed as retarded. Ruby had had a stroke when she was in her late thirties, and her speech was slow and slurred. (The unkind teenage boys my cousins hung around with called her “Mush-mouth.” My aunt told her boys that if she ever heard them call Ruby that name, she would skin their backsides and rub them down with salt.)

Ruby visited us one spring afternoon, carrying an apron full of mushrooms she had collected at one of the sycamore sinkholes near their farm. She also had a couple of softball-sized purple vegetables with her. Ruby called the mushrooms dog-peckers, a name which sent my brothers into gales of laughter and made my mother blush almost as deep a color as the purple softballs. (The mushrooms turned out to be morels, which another neighbor, Aunt Dessie, showed me how to cook, since Mama had never seen them before.)

Mama asked Ruby about the purple softballs.

“Shaysroobegguzz.”

Mama asked Ruby to repeat what she said, but more slowly.

“Daze…rude…begg-guzz.”

“Rude beggars?” More howls of laughter from my brothers. Mama shot them a look that would have stopped a train in its tracks. Brothers decided there was something urgent they needed to see outside and ran from the room…and from Mama.

“Cloznuf,” Ruby answered, grinning at my mother’s confusion. I’m certain Ruby left our cabin feeling sorry for the children who lived there, having a mother who couldn’t hear right.

Of course, you realize the purple softballs were rutabagas, or Swedes; also called yellow turnips. Mama didn’t know about those, either. She knew turnips, of course, and thought Ruby’s gift might be unusually large, dark purple turnips, so she told my aunt later. She laughed at herself for misunderstanding Ruby. So, from that day on, the purple softballs were rude beggars.

When I was ‘haintin’ the grocery a few days ago, looking for cheap eats, I picked up a rude beggar, a head of cabbage, a couple of leeks and some carrots, determined to make something tasty with them. I turned them, and a few more ingredients, into soup on New Year’s.

I made so much of it, I’ll be eating it for at least a week. It was better today than it was yesterday, as most soups tend to be, getting better as they age.

Naturally, I’ve named it Rude Beggar soup.

(c)2010 Martha McLemore

Sorting Posts, Packing Out

Original image here

As I noted in the previous post, I started The Crow with a different purpose in mind than what it seems to have become. I'm splitting off the more personal posts to a separate blog, where I will continue to write about the reclamation of my life. Although not to everyone's liking, I need to keep writing these posts, to sort out what happens, and track my progress. Perhaps my daughter will someday find value in them. I'll keep The Crow for less personal matters and for "random observations."

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If interested in reading the other material, which will probably be pretty dull, send me your email address and I'll pass along the URL to the other blog.

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Thank you all for your responses and friendship.

(PS: Oil man comes in the morning; husband has helped, for which I am most grateful. Turned up the heat as soon as I got home. Warm is good.)

How I Got Here (A Very Long Post)

When I started this blog in October 2008, I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted it to be. Mostly, I wanted to start writing again. I wanted this blog to be a place where I could express whatever caught my fancy, no matter what. I didn't expect that I would write about such personal matters as I have done recently.

I also didn't expect my life to take the negative turns that it has, nor to be overwhelmed with trying to cope with so many changes in a short period of time. When my husband moved out in April 2008, my household income dropped by 65%, a huge surprise, though it shouldn't have been. I knew the disparity between our paychecks. My car required an enormous repair bill that took several weeks for me to pay off, eating holes in my budget. Heating oil prices skyrocketed, along with gasoline prices; another big hit to my budget, which was already stretched thin. With higher oil and gasoline prices came higher food prices. I was placed on new medications for my diabetes and hypertension, though most of that was covered by the insurance my husband still carried for me, which helped tremendously. My homeowner's insurance jumped by 27% when it came time to renew it, because - my agent told me - the insurance industry was hit hard with mortgage defaults and somebody had to make up the loss.

Then my daughter became emotionally ill and there were serious problems with my grandson. He was institutionalized in a residential treatment facility and she was admitted to a mental hospital several miles away. When she was released, she came to live with me, followed six months later by grandson, when he was released. There were now three people living on income that scarcely supported one person. I do not regret bringing them into my home. They both needed a place where they could feel safe, and I needed to know they were okay.

Money I had saved to pay real estate taxes (didn't have all I needed, but was close) was eaten up by the resulting increase in living expenses. When income tax time rolled around in April 2009, I was stunned to see that I owed almost $600 to Uncle Sam. I filed the forms but had no money to send with it; still don't.

Shortly after that, my car needed more repairs and new tires and an exhaust system; a little over $1,000, this time.

Then my doctor told me I had had a heart attack and ordered an expensive nuclear stress test to determine the extent of the damage. Although the insurance coverage I had through my husband paid most of the cost, I still had almost $1,000 in co-pay.

I began sinking deeper into another depression, which had started around Christmas 2006, when it became overbearingly clear that my ailing (well, I thought it was only ailing at that point) marriage had died, and grew worse when I realized the nature of my husband's deceptions. Things just kept getting harder and harder to bear. I started having anxiety attacks and was paralyzed with fear. (Fear isn't gone; it sits at my elbow as I type this.)

Terrifying memories of childhood homelessness and other effects of poverty took over my emotions, adding to my inability to think clearly. I began having dreams of being hungry and cold, and living in barns, and abandoned houses again, of having neighborhood kids shining flashlights in on us as we sat in the dark, calling us - aw, hell, you don't want to know all this crap. Neither do I, but I have no choice.

Where, before husband moved out, I was keeping my head above water, financially speaking, I began treading in deeper and deeper water. Even so, I was keeping my nose up, which kept the worst of the anxiety at bay.

Then I did two very stupid things. Husband called and said if he was to renew the health insurance coverage on me, he needed a copy of my 2008 tax report. I panicked. I didn't want him to know I couldn't pay my taxes. I was ashamed because I didn't have the money to pay them, so I did the first stupid thing - well, not the first stupid thing, but the first stupid thing since the middle of the year - and said, No, that's okay, we're going to be finished with the divorce soon, so don't bother. What, in the name of God and all that is holy, made me say such an incredibly STUPID thing? Shame? Because I did not have the money to pay the IRS?!
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The second STUPID thing I did was tell him he didn't have to continue paying spousal support. First of all, that wasn't my call to make. Those payments were mandated by the court, through Domestic Relations. Neither of us is allowed to make changes to the order on our own. We are supposed to petition DR for any changes to be made. I was in the depths of serious depression when I said that, trying to appease, to please. When he reminded me, later, of what I'd said, instead of saying, "Hey, look, I wasn't thinking clearly when I made that unbelievably dumb remark, so no, you cannot stop those payments unless DR says so," I stood by what I'd said...and gave away a third of my income.

I briefly considered suicide, very briefly. I'm not that selfish, and besides, there are too many things I haven't done yet. Maybe later.

I also briefly considered committing a felony, so that I would have a guaranteed place to live, and warmth and food, but I don't think I would do very well in prison. Yeah, I know I wouldn't. Maybe they'd let me sleep there in winter?

Finally, I got angry, mostly with myself. I decided I've had enough of this and am going to fight back, stand up for myself, starting by telling the woman in the mirror what a complete ass she's been for putting up with all this garbage for all these years, especially the last three years.

I don't know what I'm going to do to turn things around, just yet, but I know how to research answers and find resources. There has to be help out there for people in my predicament, even stupid people like me.

And I'm going to ask my husband to help me buy heating oil, so I can turn the thermostat up from 58 degrees (Fahrenheit.) That's just too darned cold.
(c) 2010 Martha McLemore

Where'd They Go?

Thank you, everyone, for your kindness and thoughtful responses to the two posts I removed. I just couldn't bear reading another single one of those Perils of Pauline posts I seem to have fallen into over the last few months.

Time for me to get a life.

To Laugh, To Be

I will take my existential angst straight up, no chaser.
- Douglas Imbrogno

borrowed from Whiskey River