songweasel's Open Salon Blog

The Bread and Circus Index™:2012

Mon, 2 Jan 2012 10:01:57 -0500

Welcome to a genuinely unscientific index

of how much it used to cost

and what it costs now.

This index tracks two commodities. For the purposes of this index, I have chosen to use Publix Supermarket's in-store bakery Buttercrust Homestyle White Bread.* To fulfill the requirement for the "Circus" portion of the Index, and since I am based in Orlando, Florida, I have decided to use the price of a one day admission ticket to Disney World.**

The base prices begin in the year 2000 and any percentage increases or decreases are based on that 2000 price. No taxes, where applicable, are added into the listed prices. There are no "adjustments" made anywhere.

While most prices were published in January, as the decade progressed, some increases were recorded as they occurred. Why? Because they came so fast and furious at one point (see Bread 2007-2008), I thought it important to record these increases as they happened.

*I believe that the one pound loaf more than adequately fulfills the "Bread" requirement of this study. It also tastes better than the other stuff they have in the regular bread aisle.

**While there are multiple day deals available, I took the "one day at a time" ticket price.

9/11:How We View the Glass

Fri, 9 Sep 2011 17:09:31 -0400

It was an awful, awful day...I felt so utterly powerless and afraid...so I turned to the one place that would, could provide refuge: the canvas. While the world around me seemed to be crumbling I could create my own place in it, perhaps? I honestly don't know.

As time went on after the attacks, I realized it really is about what we do after the shock. It's about how we handle adversity over time, how we choose to live with a broken heart, a maimed spirit. And it is a choice. One can see the glass as half empty or half full.

I chose to title this work "Half Full."

It's 3ft by 4ft, oil on stretched canvas and has been on loan to Commissioner Patty Sheehan where it hangs in Orlando City Hall.

The Poverty Test

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:08:51 -0400

This is very personal quiz. No information will be stored or gathered about you. The only thing you need do is answer the following questions honestly for yourself, in the privacy of your own mind and heart.

Take the test:

Do you worry about losing your job?

never occasionally frequently

Are you afraid to ask your boss or supervisor for a raise?

Did your last raise in pay cover increases in your living costs?

Have you gone to work when sick or put off a vacation because you wouldn't be able to pay bills if you took time off?

Have you put in a little extra time at work without being paid because you think it'll help you keep your job?

Have you put off going to the dentist, eye doctor, or veterinarian (for your pet) until your finances gets better?

Have you put off some household repairs and maintenance until your finances are better?

Do you have at least six months housing and utility expenses set aside in case your household income is suddenly cut or would you use credit to "get you through?"

Do you have a savings account? Do you worry you'll have to tap it for essentials at any time in the near future?

Do you have a retirement account? Do you worry you'll have to tap it for essentials at any time in the near future?

Do you worry about paying for any healthcare even if you have insurance?

Do you put off opening bills for several days after they arrive?

Do you argue about money in your household?

never
once a week
2-3 times a week
3-5 times a week
everyday

Do you look at people to see if they dress “better,” drive a “better” car, look more prosperous than you do?

When you see someone "dressed better" or driving a "better car," do you think:

"They must be well off. Good for them."
"They look well off. They sure must've done something right."
"Maybe if I worked harder, I could be like that."
"I've worked all this time and I don't know why I don't have those things."
"I can barely afford what I have now."
"They must be in hock up to their eyeballs."

When you see a homeless person, do you think:

"That poor person, how did they get themselves into that situation?"
"I know that'll never happen to me."
"Why don't they do something to get themselves out of that situation?"
“Must be on drugs or a moron.”

Do you worry about your "credit score?"

Do you worry your "credit score" might be a problem if you had to look for a job?

Do you think more about

getting ahead
falling behind
maintaining what you have

When talking about your finances, do you generally lead people to believe you are making more or less than you actually make?

Do you hear about the national economy and feel like you could be "doing better?"

Do you wonder if you'll have enough money to retire?

Do you consider yourself "middle class" financially if your household is making under 50K per year?

Thank you for taking "the test." It's not easy to confront some of these issues. There are no "right" or "wrong" answers. However, the fact that you took "the test" at all indicates some very important facts:

You are concerned about your standard of living.

You have concerns about control of your financial situation.

You are thinking about your future and that of your family.

America is in deep denial about Poverty.

Poverty is not just about “them.” The US Department of Agriculture is expected to release figures this week that say 46 million of us are on food assistance programs. Poverty for many families, working families, is uncomfortably close. That discomfort has spawned a real sense of insecurity, frustration, and shame.

Many worry that a cut back of even a few hours a week at work may mean that a bill payment will go out late, a credit rating will lower, a job application will be tossed. While we say we are "optimistic," or "it can't happen to us," we live daily with an undercurrent of fear about our future and that of our families.

Poverty is not just "financial" in nature. The spirit as well as the wallet can be wanting. Even those who are working, paying living expenses, and setting money aside, are no longer sure if it's "enough."

Poverty is not about just "them." It is about "us."

The Last Shuttle: Be History, Make a Memory

Thu, 7 Jul 2011 14:07:31 -0400

The final space shuttle mission is scheduled for July 8...if all goes well, weather permitting and the launch is deemed "a go."

I have friends who'll be "on board" so to speak. Nasa has a nice little program where we can upload pictures to travel right along with the shuttle. It's called Nasa's Face in Space.

It's a cool thing...I can attest. The Weasel has already earned my "e-space cadet" chops on STS 134 by way of the Face in Space program. After the return of the Space Shuttle Endeavor, I downloaded a really cool frameable certificate that is a bonafide historical record that the face of me , Song Weasel, did indeed fly aboard the mission. :)

And let me tell you...I was with them in spirit along with my 237k of weasel pixels. I watched and listened and crossed my fingers during the launch, the mission work, and of course, the landing. I was an engaged "e-space cadet." I worried.

Space travel is not "safe" or "certain" as we have all too unfortunately learned through the tragedies of the Challenger and Columbia. It takes true bravery to get on board one of those "things."

****

Okay, so one might say it's kind of silly, nostalgic, or maybe even un-hip to do something like this...but ya know what? I don't care! I love it!

And I'm busy this afternoon, uploading pictures of all my friends' kids, so 20 years from now, they can show their kids a piece of history of which they were a tiny part perhaps, but a part nonetheless.

It is the end of an era...the beginning of a new one. Be part of it!

****

And I will, as I always do, when a shuttle takes off and flies, whisper those words as I see the puffy contrail from my front porch in Orlando, Florida:

"Godspeed to you all...Safe journey...Safe home..."

My Hair, My History

Tue, 5 Apr 2011 11:04:56 -0400

It’s that time of year when we rummage through stuff and decide that which we can jettison and that without which we just cannot bear life. It is a ritual, one for which the Puritans’ John Winthrop would be patting me on the back (if he indeed were allowed to touch a woman other than his wife).

It’s called Spring Cleaning.

It’s called Ruthless Culling of the Mass of Crap I Have Accumulated. In bureaucratese, the RCMCIHA of 2011.

In the world of professional wrestling, it’d be called Nostalgia Nellie v. Storage Space.

Each year I face tough decisions and like Florida’s Republican controlled state legislature, facing sins of over borrowing and undertaxing in the past, I face "the tough questions:” Do I cut the article out of my life, or do I “kick the can” down the road and live with it for yet another year? Do I “reform” or “re-store?”

And everything is “on the table.” Everything.

Except my pink hair comb.

My mom gave me my comb with I started junior high school (that right there should let you know the time frame we’re talking about). It was a rite of passage. I was now officially “taking care" of myself. It was an important thing to have a hair comb of "your very own." It meant I was truly making my own wardrobe decisions and preparing myself to set out on the day to day grind of life at school. I was "all grown-up."

That comb has travelled with me through all the phases of my life. It untangled my tresses before my high school prom. It separated my hair into sections for braiding before I went to my first anti Vietnam War protest. It changed my hippie center part into a stylish side part as I slid on polo shirts and denim skirts to go off to various accounting and management classes at various colleges.

It safely followed me and my kicky disco do from radio station to radio station as I built a career reporting news. It went to Washington, D.C. when I moved to take a major market “big time” job. I admit it now. I did have a brief dalliance with a tortoiseshell colored purse sized comb. But it was the big pink comb that went with me to open a mike at a radio network in New York.

Not to mention the sheer number of hair styles that it has tamed. I’ve already mentioned the long pin straight hippy do. Well, my pink comb was no slouch. It continued through the “Linda Eastman shag,” the “Mary Tyler Moore style bob,” the “Audrey Hepburn Gamine short” haircuts, some in my natural color, others in various shades of red and even stark white platinum “Billy Idol blonde.” It has been coated with styling products from gel to perms to spray to mousse.

It’s been through boyfriends, some serious, some not so serious. I must note here that I did not use it to take care of my hair on my wedding day. That day, in fact, was the first time I actually went to a hair dresser. Maybe that’s why the marriage didn’t last. I suspect not, but it does now, in retrospect, provide a more cogent and forgiving explanation than the “I-probably-was-too-young-and-stupid-to-realize-I was-marrying-the-exact-wrong-guy-at-the-exact-wrong-time-in-my-life-for-exactly-the-wrong-reasons” theory.

It has crossed rivers with me on my travels. The Mississippi, the Potomac, the Colorado, the Hudson. The Nile. The Volga, the Jordan, Rhine, Rhone, Tiber. The Seine. The Blue Danube. It’s been places. It even crossed the Suez Canal.

And I still have it. Oh, it’s not in real good shape. It’s been through good times and bad. It's been through love and loss and joy and disappointment. Some teeth may be gone, but I won't let it go for that shallow reason. It's become a part of me. I can rely on it. It's the only thing I actually put away in the same place all the time. It is a daily hommage to my mom, whose "if you put it away in the first place, you could find it now" mantra still rings in my ears.

Nope. It stays.

I must again make a note though: As the years have gone by I notice my pink comb seems to grab onto and retain more hair than it once did. Perhaps as I hold onto it as a part of my past, it just wants to hold on to me too.