One of the things I love about Oklahoma the most is summer rain storms.
I love the lightning and thunder.
I love the winds.
i love the cooling off of the hot summer heat.
I love the grey, blue and black clouds all mixed in with some resolute white virgins.
I love the ozone smell — the rain smell.
I love the fresh washed smell of the town when the oil slick has run down the drains off the streets.
I love the fresh air smell when the dust has been toppled into the storm drains.
I love the fun of dashing to the car, getting pelted by raindrops, dodging the loafer deep puddles.
Last night, I cut off the air conditioner and opened up the house to air it out. Turned on all the fans to get the smoke out and the good smell inside.
Although I tried to be careful and prevent this, Sinatra wormed his way through one of the outlets and got outside.
It wasn’t long before a very waterlogged kitten was outside the kitchen door whining to get back in. He was a very funny looking cat with his pelt all spiked from the wet.
When I tried to towel him off, it pissed him and he tried to bite my hands as if they were the cause of his discomfort.
This is about the way I sometimes treat God. Give me what I want and I’m still not pleased and get pissed when the solution to the new problem doesn’t suit me.
Ah, well, no harm done. Sinatra’s fine and dry now.
Myself, I’ve been in a bit of a financial rainstorm lately.
I cut up and paid off my credit cards, using my home equity to lower the interest rate and extend the payments so that my monthly payments went way down.
I’ve never felt so broke.
I have a budget, to be sure. It’s nice and orderly and complete and a good, hard, honest look at my monthly spending.
The only problem is that I’m only earning on average 3/5ths of the budget.
I’ve been going in the hole a little to a lot every month for a couple of years now and putting it on those cards.
That’s over.
I can sure feel the squeeze.
No more eating out, Wednesday Paseo dinner and movie excepted. I just couldn’t give that up.
I’m rolling my own cigarets since that cuts my vice expense in half.
I’m eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at home and there’s lots more cold cereal and Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches in my diet now.
There’s a real question in my mind whether I will be able to kick in at work and be earning what I must in order to finance my debts.
There will be no more CDs, DVDs or movies in my near future.
I’m also resolved to have something in savings before I start making such purchases.
There’s no budget for clothes until my taxes get paid.
What? No new clothes?!?
Yep. NO NEW CLOTHES.
This is serious.
I have several thousand dollars of medical bills from June’s car wreck and annual checkup to pay before I have the next night out of the house.
My social life just became Wednesdays and the Tuesday-Thursday night AA meetings.
So, don’t look for me at Flip’s, VZDs, bin 73, Rococo, or even Sidecar and Blue Moon. I won’t be there.
Even more shocking: I’m giving up my $100/mo. Starbucks habit. Don’t look for me there, either.
It’s my financial rainy day and I wanted out from under the umbrella of credit cards. Now my hair is all wet and spikey and if you try and dry me off, I’ll try to bite your hands.
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John X has done a very nice little film from some footage he and George took of me awhile back and has posted it on his webpage. It’s pretty cool. The link follows:
I’ve been home for over a year and the peanut butter does wear thin. I had four thinnish years before that and I’ve discovered: I don’t need all that stuff I spent money on–it doesn’t make me feel better. Revelations suck. I have actually broken my addiction to stuff, being “seen”, and eating too much rich food. I still want those new padded, ergonomic, cute black strappy shoes I saw at Lynda’s Birkenstock today, but that much $ will pay the electric bill for all the a/c I’ve already used. Bottom line–welcome to the club–it’s actually a blessing and a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be . . . hummmmm.
Living simple is too complicated.
If you hang your laundry to dry, you’ll save 40 cents per load and who knows what in terms of the environment. Of course they fade, so hopefully you can hang your colors in the shade. Of course, the birds poop in the shade, so hang your whites in the sun. It helps if you have a curly headded four year old girl running in and out of the sheets. It’s all very sweet and simple until you realize you’ve just spent 30 min trying to save 40 cents all for naught due to the smallish handprints of chocolate on all the laundered linens.