My Christmas Card for Facebook

                                 
      

There is so much political stuff bouncing up everywhere I feel there is not much point to adding to it, other than sharing newsworthy articles.  Of course, that is a daily occurrence with a president that changes his mind every few hours, and the courts reversing the things he does decide.  I see so many articles from pundits explaining what is going on from a theoretical and knowledgeable viewpoint and it is quite repetitive.  However, the bottom line is that the actions of a mentally unstable and not very bright individual really cannot be explained in terms that make sense.  I can understand the processes of a mentally ill person, but I also know it resides outside the realm of logic and reason.

All we can do now is wait.  Wait and hope that the parts of our government that are still rational win out and restore our country to reason.  I can’t bear to think of the alternative.  Worst case scenario?  We lose our global standing and violence ensues, eventually coming to our shores as well.  As it stands now, we know our environment is totally f---ed and the economy is going down the same path (except one is potentially fixable, the other not so much).

For me, I try hard to focus on things with which I have some impact and direct involvement:  my family, my friends, my job, my theater group and my dogs.  Fortunately, there are always things happening in those areas that keep me alert.  I won’t talk about the first three here but I’m always glad to publicize Purlie Productions. 

We are working on our first new Children’s Theater production of “Sky Blue and the Seven Little Ladies” and we still need cast members!  Also planning for our February production of “God’s Trombones” which is a labor of love.  Following that it will be time to begin “Shakespeare in the Park” with our plans to do “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” which is such grandiose ambition that it gives me butterflies just to think about it.

The dogs:  always drama!  Two little dogs with bad potty habits.  Two big dogs with insatiable needs for attention and food.  And—the upcoming return of dog number five.  Murphy has been living elsewhere for quite some time and needs to be rehomed, fortunately returning to his own home.  Previously he was severely victimized by the others, but one of his abusers has gone to the “Rainbow Bridge” as they say and while he is sorely missed, he was always the main instigator.   Never a dull moment.

I have not written in a long time; primarily because the world seems so damn depressing, I can’t think of anything positive to say.  This probably doesn’t improve things but maybe it suffices as my Christmas letter (which I don’t do, btw).  I receive only one of those in the mail, from a high school friend, and that always depresses me also.  She is unfailingly cheerful and travels around the country bird-watching.  I can’t even…….

Anyway—Happy Christmahanakwanzika to all!  And Festivus for the Rest of Us!

Free Shit and Stuff

 

The geniuses in our current administration, led by 45 and Max Mulvaney of the Office of Management and Budget and Georgia’s own chicken man Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, think it would be a good idea to provide boxes of food for the indigent instead of the debit card currently in use with the SNAP (food stamp) program.

This, they say, would save tons of money and eliminate the abuse they perceive as a source of extra cost and waste in the program.  An article in March 2017 TIME magazine detailed the incidents of Food Stamp Fraud in an article entitled “The Very Short History of Food Stamp Fraud in America”.  Their conclusion was “While critics still like to use old arguments of rampant abuse to lambast a program that feeds millions of Americans, the fraud rate has decreased from “about 4 cents on the dollar in 1993 to about 1 cent” by 2006 and this decline has only continued, with the 3.5% rate of fraud in 2012 reducing to less than 1.5% today.

All agree that the overwhelming majority of Food Stamp users are women and children.  I also personally know it’s in use by the disabled of all ages—and the amount is rarely enough to support the nutritional needs of a person with a chronic illness and special dietary needs.  What are the odds that a box of food, deemed “nutritious” by well-fed government bureaucrats, will do a better job with this?

In the meantime, tax “reform” will ensure that the wealthiest Americans will continue to become wealthier.  Many government programs are either on the chopping block or in danger of drastic reduction, including Public Housing and Community Block Development Grants.  Facebook’s 45 supporters love to give examples of SNAP recipients mooching off the government by using their benefits at convenience stores for drinks and chips.  One poster said these people eat “lobsters, sushi and crab legs” on his dime.  This in a country with a 4 trillion dollar budget and a 666 billion deficit (predicted to rise under the current administration). 

Of course, many are outraged by this latest suggestion.  They are also of course, “libtards” who vote for Democrats so everyone can keep getting “free shit”.  Free shit.  What price freedom?  This morning one of dogs bit me while I was giving him a treat.  Yes, literally biting the hand that feeds him.  This is nothing new.  Henry was rescued from a pound hours before he would have been “put down”.  He was full of worms and fleas, malnourished to the point of being in a stupor.  I don’t know what happened to him during the course of his life, but I wager most of it wasn’t good.

So now Henry has no reason to bite me.  He is well-fed, indulged, petted and played with.  I still love him because I understand that your life experiences determine who you are and some bad things can never change.  Does that analogy carry over to humans?  Of course, humans have the ability to reason and therefore change their behaviors and life circumstance.  But we also know that a lifetime of abuse and neglect leaves its mark on many people, in the form of mental illness, criminal behavior and substance abuse.  There are ways to change those things also, but unfortunately that involves social programs—“free shit”—and those resources are increasingly limited.

Honestly some of the patients I work with do piss me off at times.  Many are demanding, entitled and unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives.  As a Social Worker, one of our core beliefs is to foster autonomy in those we serve.  Yet my job will always be to do what I can for everyone.  I am not God and can’t say some of my patients “deserve” assistance while others don’t.  I know most of my patients and worked and suffered throughout their lives and get to a point where they feel hopeless.  We tell them how to eat right—but can’t help them buy groceries.  They need transportation to get to dialysis, but most don’t drive and many have to beg others just to get here 3 times per week.

So, bear with me and imagine you are one of those.  You worked at a minimum wage job and didn’t have health insurance.  Because of that, you didn’t visit a doctor once a year for an annual physical exam.  You ate whatever you could while you were feeding your family and sometimes ate from the fast-food dollar menu on days you were running behind.  Then, either because you developed diabetes or untreated hypertension caught up with you, you were told your kidneys stopped working.  The “good” news is that you are now qualified for a disability check and Medicare—the bad news is that you have to be hooked up to a machine  3 times per week for 3 hours at a time for the rest of your life.  The bad news is you still don’t have enough money to eat what they tell you you must, get back and forth, afford your medicine co-pays and your rent and light bill. 

So, stay with me here—you go to DFCS (“welfare”) and find out yes!  You are eligible for Food Stamps!  A light at the end of the tunnel.  Except there’s been a change—when you go to pick up your SNAP card they hand you a cardboard carton and tell you this is your food allotment for the month.  With difficulty, you pick up the box and load it into your car.  When you get home you find…..??  Dry milk, canned beans, flour, grits, and a lot more cans of “stuff”.  Free shit indeed.  Half the things aren’t on your restricted diet and the other half require you don’t know what to make edible.  Exhausted from your day of treatment and travel, you go to bed and pull the covers over your head.

I know not everyone is on dialysis.  Some people still work a minimum wage job or two.  Some people could get those jobs and don’t—and some people can’t find any jobs.  Some people have family that helps them—and some do not.

Did I ever get “free shit”?  When I was a child, due to chronic illness in the family, we received temporary partial public assistance.  Along with that, we had to change our phone from a private line to a cheaper “party line”; since this was before your time, I’ll explain it:  other people had the same phone line as you, so when you picked up the receiver to make a call there might be someone else using it.  If it was an urgent call you were making you could ask the other party if they could end their call.  And they could say no, accuse you of listening in, or call you names.  The worst part for me was the shame of needing help.  I had to tell everyone my new phone number and try to explain why it had changed (I still remember the numbers: Dickens 2-2223 was changed to Nightingale 9-0956—how weird).  The rest of my family’s assistance came from my Aunt Esther, the family matriarch, who would wrap up money in a handkerchief and pin it to my coat, shame times 2.

Since that time I have needed unemployment insurance income twice, which of course, is not exactly free shit.  I am now old enough to collect Social Security, but I’d hardly count that as free since I’ve been paying into Social Security for over 50 years.  I went to college when the City University of NY had no tuition plus I had a State scholarship.  I went to Graduate school on a full grant from the National Institute on Mental Health—again, not free shit.  So why do I care about people who don’t have what I had?

Why indeed.  I’m pretty sure that every major religion has something in there about being your “brother’s keeper” and that it is better to give then receive.  I don’t think it says to only give to those who you think are worthy.  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t say only to give to people who you think work hard enough, look like you, or kiss your feet for every scrap—or box of food—throw in their direction.

 

 

Harder Than Nails

                                                                    

 For years I thought manicures and pedicures were the frivolous indulgences of the leisure class, of which I am not a member.  However, when I decided my toes needed work, it quickly became a necessity.  Then I moved on to fingernails, and it is now a full-blown dire necessity.

For a long time, I had my manicures and pedicures in small salons with a minimum of traffic and noise.  That changed when I found my schedule just not jibing with the available time slots and lo and behold I found out that there were establishments that are open almost every time that I am. 

My previous experience in an Asian-staffed nail salon was one I didn’t want repeated.  It seemed to take forever, and the technician obviously had OCD.  I tried one more time and found it stressful because the Vietnamese tech spoke constantly and in broken English.  But no racist I, I tried again.

I have so far been comfortable with one that is open Saturday and Sundays and all I have to do is show up and they will accommodate me.  They are mostly all Vietnamese as well.  (I tried another one, but it was too crowded and noisy, and the workers kept their children in the back where they rarely stayed.)  I do have the habit of thinking in psychosocial terms (an occupational hazard) when I people watch; when you’re getting your nails done, there’s not much else to do.  So, I offer up my thoughts and observations. 

The history of our country is full of immigrant groups who found a specialty to employ within the fabric of our society.  In the days of Ellis Island, Jewish immigrants opened delis, groceries and wholesale clothing stores.  Many Irish ran bars and became policeman; Germans and Italians offered their food specialties to our diverse culture.  Chinese men originally brought over to work on railroad building, later also ran restaurants and iconic laundries. 

Since those early days, we have refugees from the Hungarian and Cuban Revolutions and numerous others from countries that offered little opportunity for income and improved living conditions.  These countries include, among others, Mexico, Russia, South and Central America, India and Pakistan.  There was an influx of Vietnamese Refugees after the prolonged state of war, but the current immigrants are not refugees, but still looking for a better life.

My observations lead me to believe that they are in our country, but not of it.  The salon is noisy with conversation among the workers, but most is not in English.  There are married couples and other family.  From questioning, most have not been here very long.  One thing they have in common with past immigrants is the work ethic.  They work long hours; to me, close contact with the body parts of strangers is not the greatest job in the world.  Especially feet. I hate feet, and I’m grateful that somebody is willing to work on my toes.  I have respect and admiration for the workers, even though I still think they all have OCD.  The clientele is rarely of the “leisure class” and encompass all ages, races, sizes and social status.  One young Vietnamese technician has an infant daughter who she fiercely misses every time she is at work and loves to talk about her.

No matter what your viewpoint on immigration, Americans have always depended on immigrants to run our restaurants, do our gardening, pick our fruit and vegetables, clean our clothes, maintain our technologies and yes, do our nails.  The mistake of many Americans is to assume that they exist solely to meet our needs.  I’m guilty of that too—I don’t want to do my own nails, want to eat my Thai, Chinese, and Mexican food without cooking it myself.  However, unlike some in our country, I want us to continue to open our gates and greet them with love.  I want them to be allowed to pursue a path to become citizens if they so choose.  I want all Americans to understand we are all human beings, equal in the eyes of whoever you believe your creator to be, and all worthy of the same love and respect.