101 (or less) Things That Have Gone Seriously Wrong Lately

I've concluded with every scrap of 'hope' I have left in my body that things are always darkest before the dawn. After all, we just got all of our winter accumulation dumped on us on March 1st. Hoorah for snow days! And now it is suppossed to be 70 this weekend: instant spring.

For anyone who has been keeping up, my body has decided it's had enough after 32 years of abuse and started revolting in odd ways I didn't see coming. I am now on more medications that I care to recount and one has to be given intravenously at an oncologist office periodically. Fun fun fun. In addition to this grand nugget of goodness, it just started pouring bad karma all over and perhaps a nice little checklist will get it off my drugged-up-steroid-swollen head for a better 'perspective'.

March 3rd, 2006.
I notice at breakfast: My Fish is dead. Dori V couldn't take the cleanliness of her new bowl and had the nerve to kick it after a good 3 years of solid performance. Thanks fish.

1:00 pm: I am pumped full of immune-supressing drugs that takes literally 2 and a half hours.

3:30 pm: I have multiple voice mails on multiple phones from not one, but multiple Dr.s and not one has anything GOOD to say. In fact, it's pretty much not good. I learn about all sorts of things I have to go get tested for and feel sick-nausaus and gross in general. Also a bit like some old aunt nelly who really should be taking more calcium supplements to prevent a future hump. HOnestly, I swear I made it an entire YEAR without seeing one doctor for anything and suddenly this year I have yet to have a solid week without some sort of appointment and those damn co-payments are adding up!

3:32 pm: Boss has bad news.. please come see me. Yes it's bad. No i'm not unemployed but lets just say we're back to square 1 and the bus is looking like a solid transportation option. I hate that I want a Range Rover so bad.

5:52 pm: Text recieved: "I am fed up. It's boden or me." Please don't be serious, I will in fact choose the dog. He's a good snuggler and doesn't give me crap about my JCrew purchases. I choose to not acknowledge this text in my favorite way of shoving my ostrich head into the sand and hope it goes away. So far, so good.

It was all a bit much for a day I thought was going to be good. I don't know why I thought that, or why I drew a sunshine on my legal pad next to the date before it started raining shit, but that's just the way it was. I know economically it's not like I'm the ONLY one, or anyone else doesn't have worse problems, it's just the multitude of issues simultaneiously that is becoming a bit overwhelming. I do freak out if more than one fly or mosquito lands on me at one time. I deal better in smaller doses. I've also evaluated some new numbers and come up with the following other fun facts for 2009:

My house -my always a good investment in real estate first home ownership freakin house- is worth a solid 23.07% LESS this year alone.

Our combined family income has gone down over 22% from when we bought said house (2007) because of lack of bonuses/etc.

Childcare costs have increased: 12.5%

Condo association fees have increased: 7.15%

My car will not be paid off until 2010. OK that almost isn't that bad. Right, it's 2009, right? Maybe I can pay that off earlier.

House payment now = over 52% of combined income. Pretty sure that's not good, expecially since it's NOT WORTH WHAT WE OWE. This would be why foreclosures are everywhere. I actually have the solution that we re-assess all principle mortgages made in the past 5 years and adjust them accordingly with todays' values. Anyone object to that? Anyone? I don't think anyone would. Of course, it's not friggin MOnopoly, I can't be the car, and I can't negotiate Boardwalk out of my 6 year olds' posession so easy with the promise of BOTH Baltic and Mediterranian Ave. I mean someone needs to be slumlord, but it doesn't have to be me. That is not cheating, that is winning my friend. Now they won't even give me $200 for passing Go anymore. Wow, suck the fun out of life why don't you? I wish I could just start over sometimes and I would say no to all school loan, or ate least have a bit more of a clue about compounded percents. Which, I honestly don't really understand still, I only get that I eventually pay back 3x what I borrow, and somehow 3x what you borrow is suppossed to be 9%? Really, no clue. And I'm actually GOOD at math.

So, in conclusion, this game has left me feeling like the little Monopoly dude with his pockets pulled out and sad face on. Which is mostly frustrating b/c I wasn't cheating, I was in fact doing everything the way your suppossed to do it. I went to college, I got a good job, I pay bills on time, I bought the house in the good school district for the cute kid... what the hell happened?!

FIX IT! I don't think it's "fixed" just yet.

I have no faith that my 401K will in fact exist upon my 'retirement'. I also have no faith I will see a dime from any SS I've been putting into since I was 16. Pensions, ha ha ha. Those are for senators and govenors and that's about it.

I kind of feel like i'm in the collapse of the soviet communist regime. I hope they lose all my debt paperwork. I'm glad I like my adorable little house and all b/c aparently i'm never leaving even if I wanted to. Even though its a huge expense, even though there are great deals if we'd only waited...only we couldn't becuase the kid was starting school. Ah hindsight.

In my dream last night my good friend Johnny Depp was trying to convince me to become some sort of environmental law engineer or something and had his friend from Martha's vineyard come talk to me about starting on his program and I was scared to death. I don't want more schooling, more knowledge, more responsibility. I just want things to be OK. Why can't this just be enough? Why is everything getting so hard lately?