Sunday Stealing

More of those 200 Questions

1. What takes up too much of your time? This. I spend way too much time online.

2. What do you wish you knew more about? Oh, so many things! Right now, I'd like to better understand my musculature and how I can overcome the issues with my back, shoulder and knee.

3. What’s the best way to start the day? Cuddling a cat.

4. What mystery do you wish you knew the answer to? What/how do my cats think?

5. What’s your favorite genre of book or movie? Depends on my mood.

6. What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home? Either Paris or Honolulu. They're both about 4,000 miles away.

7. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been? I love Springfield, IL. It's where Mr. Lincoln went from country lawyer to President. It's such a privilege to walk where he walked.

8. When was the last time you climbed a tree for fun? Junior high. My grandpa's apple tree.

9. What do you consider to be your best find? Hmmm ... I'll go with my cats again for this one. I found them in shelter and they have enriched my life immeasurably.

10. What’s special about the place where you grew up? I really wasn't crazy about the place I grew up. No diversity, no imagination. The best thing I can say about it that it's a 30-minute train ride from Chicago.

11. What age do you wish you could permanently be? 35. I felt womanly, powerful, and sexy.

12. What fictional place would you most like to go? Nero Wolfe's brownstone. Mr. Wolfe is the hero of Rex Stout's mystery series, and I have a mad crush on the series narrator, Archie Goodwin, who lives in the brownstone.

13. Where is the most relaxing place you’ve ever been? Good goobies, it's hard to choose between the spas I've visited! I suppose I give the edge to the spa of Colonial Williamsburg.

The charming walk to my happy place

14. What’s the most interesting piece of art you’ve seen? I enjoy the work of Thomas McKnight.

15. Who has impressed you the most with what they have accomplished? Right now, I'll name my friend Joanna. She's suffered financial and professional setbacks over the past few years and, as she turns 70 this month, it would be easy for her to feel beaten down. But she doesn't give up. She's working on proposals and she's networking and she's focused on resurrecting the consulting business she's built.

The Girls Are Fighting Again

Melanie and Scarlett are once again doing battle for my soul. Whenever what I just naturally -- and often quite passionately -- want to do is at odds with what I know I should do, I conjure up the redoubtable heroines of Gone with the Wind. Scarlett is impulsive, willful, and most of all, a realist. Melanie is above all decent. She sees the best in everyone and wants those in her sphere to be happy and comfortable.

I always want to be Melanie. But at heart I am more Scarlett.

No one stirs up this conflict more than my oldest friend. We've been friends since Kindergarten. I love her to the moon and back. But she's bipolar. This condition first presented itself about 17-20 years ago, when we were in our late 40s. She began unraveling, but in small ways, as it became obvious that her relationship with a kind, well-meaning man was not going to result in marriage. I regret that I didn't truly understand what I was seeing at this time. Perhaps I could helped. But, in my own defense, she was seeing a shrink. 

Sure, she was smoking again, gaining weight and running up her credit cards. But she also had a good and secure job, managing the practice of pediatric cardiologist in the burbs, and she had her home: a 3BR ranch on a decent-sized lot.  When her love affair finally ended because she kept pushing for matrimony, she spun out. 

She had to move to Southern California. NOW. Chicagoland was too flat and winters were too cold and dark. (Um ... you've lived here 50 years and you're just noticing that NOW? Oh, shut up. Scarlett.) She quit the job for the doctor who appreciated her and sold that house in a short sale for less than $100 (!) and took off for Beverly Hills.

Now of course I told her at the time that this was not a wise course. Yes, Chicago's housing market was depressed in the 2010s and that, combined with a refinance, left her with little equity in her home. But it was still 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths with a yard and a garage. There's always value to that. It was obviously only a matter of time before it would be worth more again. Why not wait two years? Put a little money aside, build equity. But she was in the grips of mania. She had to get out of Chicago. NOW.

Fast forward to 2024. She's unemployed and subsisting on Medicare and Medicaid. Her landlady is trying to evict her, and she can't find alternative Section 8 housing. She's diabetic and suffering from a chronic kidney condition. She can't walk without a cane.

Her daughter, now back here in the Midwest to visit her father's family, drove past her childhood home and snapped a photo, which she shared with her mom.

"Oh, Gal! I fucked up!" So read the text I got from Friday. She now understands that the house she walked away from 15 years ago for less than $100 is now worth (gulp) at least $275,000.* Not the news she needs to lift her spirits when she's consulting a public aid lawyer to keep her rental roof over her head.

Here's what I posted about her life in California in real time, back in 2010.

I was right. I have always been right. She should have listened to me.

The Scarlett in me really, really wants to say all that. I want to ask why the fuck she didn't listen to a single syllable I had to say. Does she think I'm stupid? Or did my wise counsel just not fit into her harebrained scheme of the moment? I want to hear her tell me I was right.

I know what Melly would do. Melanie would tell her that she did what she thought was best at the time and why look back.

I'm not quite full-metal Melly yet. I ignored the text.

Instead I sent her an atta-girl postcard. On the back I wrote, "This isn't a defeat, it's a detour. Keep phoning and emailing in search of a new home. Something good will come your way. Love, Gal."

That's the best I can do. 

*That may be an unfair comparison. If she had waited a year or two, as I'd counseled, she could have sold it for about $180,000 and likely took off for California with $30,000 in profit.