Happy Birthday Willie S.

As many of you know, today is the alleged birthday of William Shakespeare. I say alleged because record-keeping 400+ years ago wasn't what it is today.

I don't read much Shakespeare these days, but I hear him everywhere. References to his words have infiltrated the English language at such a high rate, I've instructed my kids to always guess Shakespeare or the Bible on any test that asks the origin of a literary reference.

Find your favorite "Bardism" here.

One wonders where we'd be without to be or not to be.

Stop the Roller Coaster - I Want to Get Off

On Tuesday we dug the champagne out of the back of the fridge where it had been hibernating since New Years. Mark had received his official acceptance to Columbia College, along with a generous financial aid offer.

On Wednesday I learned I'd been accepted into the Rhode Island Teaching Fellows Program, an accelerated route to a teaching career in a high-needs district. If all goes well, I'll be teaching special education in September at an urban high school. This is becoming a pattern. Seven years ago we moved to Rhode Island; six years prior to that we'd moved to Costa Rica. Seven year itch?

On Thursday, Marty was laid off from his job. Although this was not unexpected, it still came as a shock. We now join the ranks of the unemployed who struggle to pay mortgages and utility bills, and who can't find new jobs because there aren't any. Don't cry for me America, but if you want to deck a hedge fund manager, be my guest.

So we're putting our house up for sale and downsizing. We were planning to do this in a year or so, but now it's not a choice. Anyone got a shotgun shack for rent?

I'm sure this will all be even worse when we actually look at the figures, but for now we're trying to keep our sense of humor. When Marty delivered the unsettling news, I'd just finished ironing a bunch of his work shirts. Dang. I called Marty yesterday to see how his job search was going. He was having lunch out. Where, I asked, at a soup kitchen? A friend who'd been laid off earlier in the week had taken Marty to a nearby tavern for lunch (and beer). Misery loves company.

We have a few tricks up our sleeves, and we keep reminding ourselves it could be worse, even if we don't quite believe it. In the meantime, we'll be keeping our seat belts fastened, throwing our hands up in the air, and occasionally screaming.

Calling All Poets

In addition to being the cruelest month, April is National Poetry Month.

I am soliciting poems from anyone and everyone who would like their work to be on display at the West Warwick Public Library, which is where I work. I have a small book shelf that I'll be filling with poetry books for patrons to check out. Each day I'll slip a new poem into the lucite frame on top of the display. If you don't care to send an original poem, tell me what your favorite poem is and I'll display that. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock will definitely make an appearance. My colleague Sue has suggested Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, a favorite of hers because Frost once stayed at her sister-in-law's Vermont inn.

Send me an email with your choice. Don't be shy.

Vanishing Acts and Other Tricks of Time

Time to brush the dust off this blog.

Speaking of time, where does it all go? All those fleeting seconds, brisk minutes and racing hours. Poof. Vanished. Sucked away quicker than paint on new wallboard.

There's a reason for the painting metaphor. I spent most of last Monday painting the ceiling in the family room/kitchen. I was disguising the telltale signs of a leak we had last summer from the bathroom above. Right in the middle of it, I was flattened by the virus that attacked Mark last week. Somehow, I carried on. You can't quit in the middle of something like this.

One sore-throat day led to another, and I was suddenly sitting face to face with the tax assessor, an unenviable position ranked right up there with root canal and colonoscopy. A recent revaluation of all properties in town claims my home's value is $100,000 more than what my realtor predicts a buyer would pay for it. I won't go into detail about the meeting, but I want to note that tax assessors are a depressing lot. The one I met with was borderline pathetic: cheesy dandruff-dusted blazer, stubbly chin, greasy hair, and a shaving nick that kept jumping into my line of sight. I felt sorry for the guy, and was kinder than I'd normally be in that situation. This is a profession I would avoid at all costs. No one agrees with you, ever. No one is happy to talk to you. Everyone argues that you are surely wrong (or worse).

In the end, the tax man gets the last laugh I guess. We'll see if my arguments were convincing enough to lower my assessment and thereby my real estate taxes, which by the way are pushing against the 10,000 mark, far out-performing the Dow.

Now I'm suffering from laryngitis. It started at a retirement party I attended Friday night, where I was uncharacteristically mute. I woke up Saturday morning with an important event on my agenda, at which speaking was a key requirement. Somehow, I croaked and whispered my way through it. There appears to be some truth to the adage "if you want people to listen, whisper. "

Let the next whirlwind week begin.

A Few Inflammatory Remarks

My life was in flames last week, making it impossible to blog. Smoke obscured the computer screen; the keys were beginning to melt. At one point, I doused my laptop with lighter fluid, finger poised on the "delete blog" button. I was in a destructive mood.

Switching metaphors, the economic vise grip squeezes ever tighter. Marty's salary is inexplicably tied to the stock market, plunging with each passing week. We in turn have tightened our belts to the point of strangulation. Maybe we shouldn't have them around our necks.

The Joyce Carol Oates novel I'm reading, My Sister, My Love, is acting as a flame retardant on my highly combustible outlook. A dose of Oates is purgative. She forces you to peer into the deepest darkest depths of despair, and suddenly you find yourself on the sunny side of the street.

Grab your coat and get your hat ...

Command Day

Happy Command Day! What, you don't celebrate this holiday? Never heard of it? Check your calendar. Today is March 4th. Or, March forth! Get it? Be sure to command someone you love today. That's a command.

Psychic Charge

I crawled out of my bunker this weekend and did a couple of things to recharge the old psychic batteries, which were seriously depleted.

Saturday began with a quick trip to my local police department where I underwent a background check to clear me for substitute teaching. I'm pleased to inform you I am not wanted by law enforcement, although the school department probably won't want me either.

Then I headed to Boston to visit a friend in the hospital. I won't go into a lot of detail about the experience except to say it was intense. I felt pretty helpless actually, which you might think would suck up any remaining psychic juice I had left in me. Counter-intuitively, the distress I felt worked in my favor and nudged me out of the doom and gloom region into some slightly hopeful territory. Maybe it was because no matter how challenged my ill friend is at the moment, she's fighting like hell. If she can do what she's doing, I can deal with whatever.

On Sunday, my youngest son and I volunteered at Habitat for Humanity. My family has put in a fair amount of hours at our local Habitat chapter. It's physically demanding work, but again, you take out more than you put in. This is true of most volunteer experiences I've had in my lifetime, and it makes me wonder why more people don't volunteer their time. Of course, I feel the same way about exercise. Oh well.

As Harry and I spent the day measuring, cutting and hanging sheetrock, a few things went through my mind. First, I noticed I felt strangely serene. Maybe it was because I enjoyed the challenge of trying to find just the right remnant of wall board to fit in the hallway we were working in, which was very much like a puzzle, or perhaps an arts and crafts project except we were using screws instead of paste, and sharp knives instead of scissors. Perhaps it was due to focusing on the mind-numbing task at hand rather than musing about my evaporating retirement savings or collapsing home value. And Harry was learning a valuable skill, one he might actually use someday. I think that if my family had to build our own shelter (hopefully it won't come to that), we could do a fair job of it, although we probably need to know more about cement. We've always encouraged our kids to get their hands dirty and learn how to fix, paint, nail and otherwise rebuild the world around them. Although you might not draw this conclusion if you looked in their bedrooms.

The six hours of manual labor passed quickly, even though we were cold and thirsty. We'd made a small dent in the work necessary to build a house for Augustina, who was there working with us. I'm hoping that next time we go, all the walls will be hung and ready for painting, because I (inexplicably) love to paint. The life of the mind isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Now that shopping therapy is no longer palatable or even possible for many of us, I recommend spending your time and energy in the many volunteer opportunities available in your community. I guarantee you will be the richer for it.