This space is Occupied/ It's a wonderful life!

     

written in Dec 2011

Recently I was going through my e-mail weeding out the junk that the filters miss and making sure I had n't missed any thing important.

 I saw a message from Sallie Mae, no not my great Aunt, the mega school loan people,   The Subject line said;

A card that can help you pay down your eligible Sallie Mae student loans.  

I ignored it, today I  went back to it - and yes it is a credit card -- Sallie Mae wants to give me a credit card which will supposedly help pay down my debt on my student loan.  What they are counting on is that

I will be so happy to have something that pays down the large debt I carry for being a highly educated art professional that I will just sign up for their card. With no thought, with out realizing that I am just substituting one kind of debt for another.

What kind of fools do they think we are?  They must get plenty of people clicking on the apply button in this e-mail especially at this time of year.   This is just one symptom of the real illness in our economy the banks, loan companies and the Market all depend on creating more ways for us to become indebted to them through loans and credit cards, and bank fees.  

As I read the small lighter type at the bottom of the ad I learned that 

5% Gas and Grocery bonus category rewards are earned on the first $500 total combined net monthly purchases in those two categories. 5% Books bonus category rewards are earned on the first $1,000 total net monthly book purchases

If I become a card member I can charge groceries, and gas up my car and only pay 5% for total combined spending on net monthly purchases up to the first 500.00  this means one maybe two months are covered three if the student is thrifty.

The 5% Books bonus category rewards are earned on the first 1,000 total net monthly book purchases.

Every other purchase earns 1% rewards.

The thing is there is a choice involved .  Students can choose to apply the rewards to their loan payments, they can also get a cash back reward. 

Once that time period is over -- IE once a student has registered bought their books and settled in to school for 2-3 months things change  and only 1%  goes to the rewards program.

After a year the 0% interest rate becomes a variable 11.99 to 15.99.

The fine print also stipulates that the card can be invalidated if not used for 24 months.

This seems like the kind of offer which might work for mature students but for your average college student I am pretty sure that unless their parents are keeping track of the rewards and making sure they are applied to student loans during the first year the whole thing could blow up in their face.  However for those of us who are not always savvy with cards and credit this sounds like a time bomb --

On Being  50 and thinking about it too much --

 I  turned 50 this fall.  Many people have told me I do not look fifty.  I suppose they mean that my hair is not too gray thanks to a bit of a shot o' color and a new hair cut just before my birthday, combined with being the mother of a child in elementary school. Some how being where I am in life makes it seem odd  It is hard to be the mom of a 10 year old here in the suburbs of Maryland.  If I lived in NYC I'd be normal, here, not so much. I guess it could be the way I dress as well,  in jeans, hiking boots, casual slightly boho clothes, I am hard to place.  I don't dress like a corporate type, or like a matron which would age me too, so there are no outward clues.


Having had several people say " you don't look 50"  makes me wonder what does 50 look like? To put it finer does it mean that I don't look the way we saw 50 year olds then?   Does it mean that I don't look like 50 year old people did 40-45 years ago? Or does it mean our view of 50 has changed?  

Think about it, it is 1971 or 1976 the line between old and young is firmly drawn in many places, the  people who are 50 are our Aunts and Uncles, (maybe our parents) 2nd or 3rd cousins.The Principal at school is certainly 50 (age added due to rank), the lady next store, or the guy at the local pharmacy are the grown ups.  We don't even notice them really because we are still in kid world. Totally submerged for the most part in ourselves, our friends and our views on things which we are just realizing we can voice and do.  The grown ups may be interesting but unless they are special to us we don't think of them as anything more then a two diminsional  image of themselves, or just in relation to us as support or obstacle.  They aren't old or young just sort of in between, and the idea that they were ever like us is shocking mostly, later we realize the truth, that they might just have remembered what  it was like to be us as they looked back at us coming up behind them, never catching up fully. 


 Coming fast forward to the present, it is odd to be on the plateau now, on the flat land between the big climb from baby hood to full adult life.   It is only a plateau,  I am not finished but walking up to the next part of the mountain wondering what the rest of the climb be like. Now I am able to see  the view, both behind and ahead. Realizing more and more that there is no 50 look, no way of being, nothing to have done, beyond being myself and getting ready for the rest of the climb, knowing how much more there is to do and see, and become.

the frog and the wig

There was once a yellow green frog who vacationed at the bottom of the garden of a rambling old house in the country. He was large and had been a famous jumper in his day, until he was caught by a young girl and taken on all sorts of adventures. This made him feel quite well traveled and wise and gave him a sense of fashion.

Lula was sitting on a flat rock in shade surrounded by the contents of her back pack The frog was sitting on a glossy magazine page with pictures of smiling girls with huge eyes and long hair on one side and an ad that said " Glory Manes, your solution to hair loss!!!" on the other. Rupert (for that was the frog's name) thought "Oh,I have hair loss! " I must find a wig" he croaked to himself.

Lula looked up from her game, saw him sitting on the magazine and said laughing

"Rup what are you doing? Reading again?" She scooped him up and put him down in the house she was building for him next to a mossy rock near a pool of water, it was furnished with doll furniture collected from many different toys, some large some small. She set him down on a light green lawn chair next to Francie, a doll with large collection of clothes. Today Francie wore tan shorts, doc martin boots and a t shirt that said Save The Planet. Next to her on a flat rock where several glossy wigs. One was long and streaked with blonde, the next short and dark with bangs, the third was a purple mohawk. Rupert watched as Lula took a fourth wig with gold braids and put it on Francie's head. She searched thought a pocket in the back pack and pulled out a small blue cap and put it on the dolls head.

Watching a small fly out of the corner of his eye Rupert quickly flicked his tongue out, snapped it up it and croaked happily. "Good job!" Lula said "I 'm going to get you some meal worms and fruit" and off she ran.

Rupert hopped off the chair and over to the flat rock, it was mossy and warm. He looked at the streaked wig decided it didn't go with his skin tone and decided to try on the one with bangs first. He stuck his nose under the back of the wig and lifted it up pushing it back with one webbed foot, it settled with the bangs slightly over one eye. Lula had made a mirror for Francie out of a piece of mirror with purple duct tape around the edges she'd topped it with paper flowers he hopped over carefully and looked at himself. (to be continued)