Banks are Bummers

UM, thank you Wells Fargo for the great offering, now I an get car insurance, homeowners, and renters insurance from the bank. One stop shopping, Right? Haven’t we seen this kind of thing put ENOUGH people out of work? Hey Wells, how about you bank, you are a bank, and get out of the insurance biz. In my thinking, you still have a lot to learn.

One Truth or Just Playing the Field

I have a new downtown acquaintance. We have had several short conversations over the last few months. I think he is a little over-the-top and I think he is exactly right.
I just cooked an amazing pasta primavera with alfredo sauce – it is looking good. Conversations and cooking = great process in all aspects of the word.
I have a new President. Do I have Hope? Thinkin’, my hope is waning.
Is it “True” that you are going to get health care for ALL americans? OR, are you just playing the field. Is is “True”, that you are going to get corruption out of the government? Or have you just been playing around, playin’ fiddle to the tune of the good ole’ boys club, the powers that be.
Do you really believe that unemployment is under 10%? I want to be positive and yet my continuing conversation is: Do I pay the mortgage? Or, do I let it go? I have no assurance, no hope, and no means. Hmmm, dilemma. I am forced to deal with a criminal in order to see IF I qualify for Hope for Homeowner’s. I am forced to request that my ‘criminal’ help me in my time of need. It is like asking the guy who cut off your leg to make you the prothesis. I think, from what little I know, that this is how the MOB works, you know, the MAFIA.
I placed $84,000 down on my home. Why? Because like EVERY American, I need a place to live. A home supports my gardening/farming compulsion which is a part of who I am. A home supports my children so they can have a secure place to go off into the world from. A home, is the place where our family photos are; where we consult and console with each other over every day matters, a place where simple, and yet great food is prepared, a place where we adjoin to after a long day.
I didn’t buy my home because I wanted to watch it go up in value and live off it, I just wanted to live IN it.
Comments?

Bankers West and East, say What?

Okay, I am trying, trying to behave amidst this chaos we call sanity, that we deem as ‘progress’, that we view, somehow,  out of the “Etiquette Times” of yester-year, people think we are ‘civilized’ _oops, reframe: I do not think that Wall Street, Bank of America, Citibank, etc… the two party system (anymore), credit cards and interest has anything to do with sanity, progress, or civilization. Some of us ‘got mine’, but are living under enormous strain to keep ‘mine’. I just wanted a home for my family, and for me to grow old in. Well hell, that may all be compromised real soon.

I finally called a non-profit credit agency. I finally got referred to see if I qualify for the Hope for Homeowners program. Dang, got right back into the BofA system. So discouraging. One day they said I did not qualify. I called them back. They said I did qualify. It would take 45 days. I don’t trust them. Obama does, I guess. Why would you give any business that F’d over the whole country, the world, the individual people and families, another go? Does this make sense? What IF the good old boys club just needs to expire, like a dinosaur –  Anyway, the next week, I called back. I am under stress. I have kept my scene together by renting rooms out in my house, you do what works. I am on unemployment, I think I have 2 checks to go before they toss me under a bridge. Okay, I gave several different BofA personnel my name, loan number, street address and SSN. I kept a chit list on the top of my note page. After being disconnected twice I rang back and did it again. How many people are on the low-end payroll of BofA to intake “top secret – private identity” information, and then just transfer you to another person, who takes that same information again, and transfers you to another person. People, this is crazy. THEN, at the end of the day, they transfer me to a woman who wants to SELL ME a product for $19.99 per month to PROTECT my identity. Oh, but BofA will be so kind to give me the first month free. Whose on first? What drugs DO these people take? because they are confused. Hi, I’m Bob and I am going to kick you in the shins and break your bones, and I am going to put on my white coat and charge you to fix it? Okay, hang on, this gets even better. After noting I have now given my name and SSN etc out a dozen times, I finally am speaking to a woman that maybe able to help me. She speaks clearly and seems to have some manners, and even interest. one problem, she also has a heavy accent. I say, “I notice you have an accent. and with all due respect, may I ask, what continent are you on?” Place your bets folks. India. So I say, “You sound like you could really help me, but I am out of work, and I have many friends out of work and suffering, please transfer me back to someone on U.S. Soil.” I can conceive of a company who is in another country to ‘exploit’ a resource from that company, and hire local people. But BofA, seriously? Seriously? you chump out this country and then you are hiring overseas? Now I can only imagine, you are wanting to go after the financial market in India, for one, and then you have cheaper help than here (Ahem), and maybe no benefits criteria for employees in India… Pay some more bonuses – you absolute chumps, you squirming, slimy belly crawlers. I would go to jail for breaking someone’s leg and then charging them to set their broken bones. BofA, you and your banking brethren have busted the legs of this country. I feel terrible about my forced relationship with you. I feel terrible, that I may not be able to continue to provide a home for my family. I feel terrible, that hope, hope for me, my kids, my friends, is compromised. And I feel terrible, that the original 45 day turnaround on “OUR” problem has now been restated as 90 days. Whose on first?

Creating, in a Cre-re-a-tion Way

A consumer mindset escalated throughout the ’90′s and into the 2000′s; and the big box stores and there ‘con’ became a part of life. If we wanted to “make” something, we were told through the subtleties of the marketing world, that we were to go to the store to “get” what we needed to “make” what we wanted.

I want to talk about really “making” something. Certainly raw materials are needed to create, to do, to work with ones hands. But somewhere, a manipulation came to tell us that if we wanted to make anything, there had to be a ‘purchase’ made. Go to the ‘store’, spend a little of that ‘green’stuff. Want cinnamon rolls? buy the prepackaged fat little dough boy thing that you crack on the countertop and within a short time you have – homemade (?) cinnamon rolls. I have had a long time craze as a want-to-be excellent baker of cinnamon rolls and I hope my desire to make those little babies just deliciously perfect lasts my lifetime. It takes a l-o-n-g time, The dough has to rise, and get kneaded, and rise again, and then get rolled and formed_It is a process that requires attention and organization. And it fills my soul with that little something lost…that little magic that just doesn’t come with the fat white guy.

When I had to replace my sewer I was left with a big time problem – I now had a mud path to my house instead of the former concrete sidewalk. Left with a cash wipeout due to the sewer, I was GIFTED the opportunity to create my own new front path. There are chunks of stuff out there, from Stinson Beach, from a backpacking trip where I added 20 pounds to my weight just because this one rock was so far out…the sides of my path are lines with drum symbols, horse shoes, cow horns nd other assorted finds from the pathway of life.  My GIFT was that I had the opportunity to create. Had I had another pocket full of money, I may not have scrounged for the year and a half it took me to accumulate the cast off pieces of concrete, and brick and other miscellany that made up my path. Oh, and my soul is filled each time I walk my front path to my humble home.

Creating is about as close to Passion as I can figure. When I move to DO, with my hands, I have a sense of satisfaction that reaches far beyond the rush of the purchase, or the rush of the quick fix – instant dish or instant satisfaction. My own DOing, my own CREATing, just feeds me with pure pleasure. The Tickling Kind, the kind that makes every cell in my body give out a big SMiLE.

Dare I go further? Creating and spirituality are close friends; they’ve got to be. I really don’t think you get the one without the other. Store bought spirituality is just that. I want the homespun version complete with mistakes, ‘bad’ words and a god that looks kindly on um. My altars are funky, my prayers take on laughing spells, and my scene is moving along without the pull of a magazine to tell me how to do it. I don’t want to wear store bought prayer beads; they’re just not my thing and while they may support other countries that are pretty much different than where I live, you gotta wonder if those people would be better off without US interference. Off topic.

2010 – time to create. Using what you have to create, um, to Cre-re-ate something new is a very cool process. It is a benefit to the Mother Ship – Earth, because, you know, she’s a mom and she’s getting tired, and worn, and she’s already given a heck of a lot.

Bankers of the West

Double fisted – banks, like Bank of America, purchase of Countrywide, what? at 22 cents on the dollar? And so, when ARE they (BofA) going to approach holders of Countrywide mortgages and ADJUST their mortgages to 22 cents on the dollar?
OR is Bank of America going to continue their shoddy double-digit accounting? Doesn’t anybody out there get it? This is an ENRON folks.

StashBob Blog Numero Uno

Doodle doo-dee, having been unemployed for over a year, things get dicey and one starts to go to places where they have never gone before. maybe this is a good thing. This is how StashBob’s got born. After sending out a million resumes a little knock came inpon, (correct, not upon), my belly and said ‘weeee, want to come out’, so what the hey, the StashBob’s got birthed.

Job prospecting has become akin to gold prospecting. I haven’t found a nugget yet after 13 months of digging. Is this because I live in California? Or, is this a reality across the country…? There are days when I broaden my horizons and apply for positions such as international diplomat (country unknown), ambassador, or I try to figure out how to replace Arnold Schwartzenegger as governor, or , after spending hours filling out on-line applications, I just try to get in a sweeper behind the Salvation Army or as a bell ringer up front. I would be a great governor, ambassador, international diplomat, sweeper or bell ringer. I am a qualified worker.

I am easily as good of a BS-er as Sarah Palin, and actually WAY smarter. Admit it, that woman has opened doors for all of us; if you can bake brownies, even out of a box, you now hold credentials to be VP, or P, in the next election.  And by the way, if you are thinking of running, best to have a little ‘news worthy’ events on your side, such as an affair, some embezzling or such – as Americans we love drama far more than we value cognitive ability. Cognition, frontal lobe activity, does and will serve the betterment of our citizens better in the long haul, than drama and reptilian brain activity. It is a choice.

My platform is this – we repair our country one city at a time, one day at a time.

Ok – Turkey Day

If you can’t have a Happy Turkey Day, try to get through and find one thing to be grateful for.

I am so grateful that I have a roof over my head -

when I get scared (job scene), I think I could be living under a bridge, and then I think, Oh, the Chinese might have purchased that bridge, and they might move it to China, and then, as an appendage of said bridge, I would live in China, then I would be a CSL, Chinese as a Second Language Learner,  laborer, in China. Holy Cow! And I don’t think the Chinese are going to give me any benefits.

So, WHY do we buy goods from China? I think Bill Clinton was key in changing the Fair Trade laws; not the point. Dear Americans, STOP, just STOP, purchasing foreign goods, foreign food, foreign stuff. We grow food here, you DON’T need the ‘stuff’. DO NOT CONTRIBUTE any more DOLLARS toward the rapid destruction of the U.S. – you are ENABLING the CORPORATIONS by doing so. Corporations are NOT your friend.

PLEASE – think about it.

back later                                                                                                                     Liz Wise