August 31, 2010
The Dumpster-Diving DP Returns

Well, I’m not a daily dumpster diver anymore – 116 boxes are already packed, the living room furniture is sold, the dining room furniture goes on Craig’s list this week, and I found out that Smith’s Grocery store would hold boxes for me if I asked one day and picked them up the next. I think I pretty much have a sort of firm moving date (sounds really firm doesn’t it) – October 27th.

I still don’t have a place to move to, but I have faith that will get sorted out before the UHaul tires eat pavement. My choice (sight unseen) is a building being constructed as we speak in Crete. I am on the waiting list and from what I hear from management, am in the second next batch of eager seniors to be called. From my position of number 65 on a waiting list for 45 apartments, only 20 people ahead of me have to have either died off or become senior demented enough to require skilled care for me to be awarded a place in the newest Illinois Housing Development Authority oldsters building. (I find it to be perfect symmetry that I used to work for IHDA in its’ infancy back in 1971-77 and now I need to take advantage of their program for myself. Who knew).

If that choice doesn’t pan out, I will spend some time with Mama Jackie in Oak Forest and hope that I find a place I can afford before we drive each other to senior dementia. When I was visiting her last year for Thanksgiving, we realized that she doesn’t like me talking to boys on my cell phone, she doesn’t like me playing Bejeweled2 on my iPhone, I don’t know how to do laundry “her way”, and I snore.

The good part is that I can be much more effective at digging out the dirt for future newsletters. I figure that I can make local calls and bug people. I think it could be kind of fun to brush off my reporter skills again and set up interviews – take pictures – etc.

Another little bit of good news for my future financial well-being is that one of my former partners in Mesquite Lifestyle Magazine has come up with enough capital to fund a new magazine for its’ first issue and we think it should be a winner. He (converted) and his wife (born) are juiced in the Mormon Church so the support looks pretty awesome so far. This last week I was busy creating a 6-page Sales Kit, creating a logo and mock-up cover, and putting up a one-page website to get us started. This magazine is called Blessings – A Family Magazine of Latter-Day Saints’ Testimonies. I don’t have to convert to be a part of this project – but I’ve been wondering if polygamy might work in reverse?? If so, I think I’ll look for a 25-year-old for stamina, a 45-year-old for conversation, and a 65-year-old who’ll just be glad to have me. (Gotta make up for lost time these last 5 years). The website such as it is right now is at: http://www.myblessingsmagazine.com

So it looks like just another 8 weeks or so of this upheaval of living with major stress. One of the sad parts will be leaving my hairdresser of 20+ years (you ladies know how that is). I was told recently by one of our male classmates who shall remain nameless here that maybe I should “tone down” a bit – grandmothers with orange stripes in their hair might be a little much for the south suburbs. Think so?

April, 2010
My New Handle

After packing - nicely labeled and stackedI’ve had a lot of names in my 64 years  –  just ask Social Security – my numident  runs five pages.  When I filed for Social Security online back in 2007 at age 62, the whole system clogged up and froze when I had to list more husbands than Zsa Zsa or Liz Taylor. Confusing the issue even more is the nickname Sue, Suzie, or Suzibelle that I carry given to me by my maternal grandfather when I was born. No prayerful or pious Mary for my name if he had anything to say about it. (But then he was a heathen Baptist – and we had a special connection from the beginning).

He must have known I was going to be a rebel.  And he was right. For the most part I was always on the cutting edge – fashion, technology, equality – and was a trend-setter or early adopter.  I don’t think, though, that we could ever have foreseen the turn that life has now taken.

We hear every day in the news about the continuing real estate and employment crises in this country and the fact that Nevada is one of the worst-hit states. We are also being lulled with propaganda into thinking that great good Uncle Sam is really looking out for the little guy now after those big bad banking wolves have gobbled up billions and displaced hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting homeowners with loans created to fail. I am here to tell you that I have been hit by the double-whammy, and have been fighting for my economic life for more than a year now. I’m here to tell you that I have tried to “talk with my mortgage holder”, I have tried to find one of these elusive restructure or refinance programs that are supposed to be the savior of “Main Street”, I have tried being the responsible citizen that we were all raised to be, but now it is past time to say “ENOUGH”!  Now it is time to manipulate the system to my advantage for a change and wrestle this money pit I presently call home to its knees.

The good part of this battle is that I will be moving back to Chicago sometime in the next four to ten months. In fact, I look forward to being back near family and friends. I am not embracing the uncertainty of the timing, of being at the mercy of the banking and judicial systems, of fighting to understand the legal and tax ramifications of what has become one of the most confusing decisions of my life and has changed my image from the trendy, hip person who only wore clothing with “Labels” to the dumpster-diving displaced person I have now become.

 I know I am getting slower with age – I have purchased cars on the spur of the moment –  yet this decision took me almost a year. I had to accept the conclusion that the mortgage my cousin (3rd cousin I think) got me into in 2005 was bleeding me so badly that I would be financially dead in another year if I did not become proactive. By a year ago I had already lost more than $40,000 equity in my condo to the downward spiraling valuations and have been about $55,000 to $60,000 under water ever since.  I should have started this process then. 

Remember the great routine that George Carlin did about “stuff” and how it limits and defines ones’ life?  I tell myself that I don’t really need all this “stuff”. Things I have loved as part of the expression of “me” will have to go.  I have become intimate with eBay and Craig’s List abbreviations the better to sell my “stuff”.  (Sorry to find out that my John Updike signed First Edition got 10 times more than my Studs Terkel signed First Edition). And since I don’t want to keep much of a bank balance for the next few months,  a big concern in my life now is where to hide the little tea can where I keep my stash – not the stash like the 60’s and 70’s which even my kids now tell me they knew about, but my moving money – what funds I am going to have to replace some of the “stuff” like something to sit on, something to sleep on, and most importantly something to set up my computers on when I get a new place in the Chicago area.

And while I struggle to save money to pay for a cross-country move, the Universe seems to know and laugh at my attempts to save as water shut-offs leak (plumber twice in the last six months), the garage door spring sprung (last week), the vacuum cleaner nearly nailed me with a thrown screw – and of course doesn’t suck up any more (yesterday), and I think the refrigerator is going.  In other words, time to get out of Dodge (or Las Vegas as the case may be).

Before I can get out though, I first have to pack what I determine is crucial. I have become ruthless in weeding out closets, cabinets, drawers, and bookcases. If I don’t LOVE IT – PITCH IT. And even more ruthless still, if it doesn’t fit – can it. That one hurts. It was nice to have illusions that my rear might make it into a size 8 again in some millennium when I had the closet-space to save the size 8 jeans. The Ugly Truth is – probably not worth the cost to box, ship and store those items any more.

And speaking of packing – do you have any idea of how expensive boxes are?? I checked U-Haul, Walmart, Online, Offline – yikes! This is when I decided I had to step even further down the self-esteem ladder and provide myself with “found” boxes.

I have discovered that there is an art to dumpster diving. After my first fumbled attempts at pulling a box (why are they J-U-S-T  ¼-inch- beyond- fingertip- reach – where you are SURE that if you can scoot on tiptoe just a fraction more ……

Teetering on my torso I aim for that delicate balance where the weight of my granny-boobs hanging into the container exactly counterbalances the weight of my no longer size 8 behind hanging out of the container such that the fingertip stretch is maximized. Even then, the best boxes still seem just out of reach. Now I bring along a broomstick or some other implement for hooking the elusive prizes. My morning routine now entails waking early enough to avoid meeting my neighbors as I scrabble through the bags of cat litter and empty wine bottles in search of the perfect box for books … or kitchen drawer dividers … or bathroom cleaners.

So when you send in those emails about what is happening in your lives, just address them to the Dumpster Diving DP from Henderson. And once I get back out there to the Midwest, let’s celebrate with a couple of triple olive martinis – could be by August, or not till Christmas – whenever the court system gets around to my case in the clogged calendar of some 73,700 Nevada foreclosures.