I am currently watching Ni Hao, Kai-lan, even when the kids aren’t in the room. Right now, we are having a TV problem–it’s 10 years old, takes about an hour to warm up and until then the picture flips and distorts. So once the TV is on, it is on for the day, whether anybody is watching it or not. When the kids leave, I just mute the sound.

Anyway, Kai-lan is a nice show, Pumpkin likes it more than Monkey does, and even repeats the Mandarin words. The visual style is very simple and colorful. The characters remind me of a cross between Hello Kitty and an Avon “It’s a Small World” perfume bottle I had when I was a little girl. The only problem I have is not with the show itself, it’s with Nick, Jr. Love the shows, hate hate hate the commercials. I would pay cash money if my oldest didn’t have the Chuck E Cheese theme song memorized now.

The next show, Pokemon DP, is definitely a favorite of Monkey’s. He plays Pokemon something-or-other every night with his daddy, he’s got a bunch of the cards, and he adores the show. I’ve always liked anime, Robotech was one of my favorites in high school. The show is as intricate as the video games. Last week, Monkey found one of my pens and wrote a little “R” on the pocket of his grey t-shirt. He told me it’s because he’s a member of Team Rocket. Pumpkin hates the show and screams, “That’s not my favorite!” whenever Monkey watches it.

One show they both agree upon is a classic: Popeye. They love it! And they take turns pretending to be Popeye and Bluto. I hear a lot of talk about spinach, but it’s just the pretend kind. Actually offer them real live spinach and they act like you just served up a poop sandwich. One interesting thing–while they like to run around and make straws into corn cob pipes, they don’t hit each other! So that’s good. Another interesting little tidbit, it’s always Popeye and Bluto, Olive Oyl never figures into it. I don’t mind that at all. Olive Oyl makes the rest of us dames look bad! Seriously, that character plays into so many negative stereotypes of women that I’m glad she’s not included. She’s fickle, she’s irrational, she’s ditzy, she’s a bad driver, and she’s only a prop to further the Popeye/Bluto rivalry dynamic.

I’d be really worried if either my son or my daughter wanted to identify with such a character. But I’d be pleased if either one pretended to be Dora or Kai-lan. But alas, strong, capable, identifiably-human girl characters are few and far between. Well, there’s always Velma.

Every single one of my teenage years took place in the 80’s. I know this is the time about which I am supposed to wax nostalgic. But I won’t. I’m absolutely sure that there are some pathetic souls who look longingly back on their high school years as the their peak years, their best years, after which all else is downhill. That is so sad. When I left my high school, and the little town it was in, I shook its dust from my tiny shoes and never looked back. I even refused to attend my 10-year class reunion, thinking that a mere decade was not enough time in which real change can occur. In me or others.

This year I turned 40, officially entering middle-age and marking my 20th anniversary of not being a teenager anymore. In that 20 years I: have been married for 17 of them, had two beautiful, infuriating children, started writing again, swallowed the bitter pill and attended my 20-year class reunion, but I still don’t think I’ve reached my peak. I feel that I still have way more to accomplish, more to offer the world.

So I’m not one of those crotchety, stuck-in-the-past, “you kids get off my lawn!” types. The world of the 80’s was no utopia: cold war, the constant threat of nuclear war, apartheid, famine, AIDS, Ronald Reagan. But there were certain elements of the 80’s that I miss. The wildness and experimentation in fashion–clothes, hair, make-up, anything and everything goes. The music, oh the music. My iPod is just stuffed with music from the Eighties or with artists that got their starts in the 80’s. And not Top 40 stuff either, it’s New Wave, punk, or electronica. Artists that changed the aural landscape of music.

Something else I miss–the movies about teenagers. I was thankfully too young to be subjected to the “Porky’s” franchise but I was of an age to truly enjoy and relate to all the John Hughes movies. If you couldn’t relate exactly to one of his characters, at least you could relate to all the free-floating angst. Some movies were about the brand-new feelings and experiences that all teenagers have to go through, but which they all feel are unique unto themselves. “No one has ever felt this way before!” On a side note, I will have to try very hard not to laugh when I hear this kind of drama from my kids. It’s not the raw and new feelings that are so amusing, it is the absolute certainty that no one else in the history of humanity has ever felt thusly. Sixteen Candles springs to mind.

Some movies were subversive fun, all about refusing to submit and conform yourself to someone else’s goals and expectations. Fast Times At Ridgemont High and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off are both lovely examples.

We have bought a lot of these movies on DVD, and they hold up very well. Some of the movies I liked back then, seen first through naive and uncritical eyes, haven’t retained their charm. Dirty Dancing, oh the shame. I loved that movie so much that I cut off a pair of Levi’s just like Baby’s and wore them with white Keds. I think I watched it with my mom. And Footloose. I went to see this little gem with my friend Sheila and we loved it!!! Unalloyed adoration! We saw it at the dinky little one-screen movie theater that was then tucked into a corner at Ne-Mar Shopping Center in Claremore. Afterwards, we danced around like mad idiots, probably causing many shoppers to laugh their asses off at us. Did I mention that we were dancing on the covered sidewalks of Ne-Mar Shopping Center in Claremore, Oklahoma? Just want you to get the full effect.

And I won’t even go into Red Dawn.

We had our share of gross-out or overtly sexual or slasher movies. The aforementioned Porky’s is one such sterling example. Not to mention Nightmare on Elm Street. I actually lost sleep over that one. Curses on you, Wes Craven! So I’m not saying that all the teenage movies from the Eighties were more culturally worthy than the ones made in the 90’s or this decade.

And I’m not some conservative anti-everything curmudgeon who bemoans the coarsening of our culture. I just don’t think that recycling the same movie plots over and over is very fun. One plot I find particularly annoying is the ugly/nerdy/smart unpopular/miserably unhappy girl is magically transformed through the power of fashion and lipgloss into the prom queen. Along the way she has a magical awakening to the awesomeness of the high school Big Man on Campus, the one she either previously dismissed or secretly desired.

Over and over again we are presented with the smart but somehow socially unacceptable, unworthy of love girl who only becomes a fully realized, completely worthy person when she is turned into a beautiful, sexy girl. The nerd-girl, smart-girl cannot be celebrated for her brain power alone. Her talents are secondary or worthless in the face of her non-adherence to accepted beauty norms. She cannot be celebrated for her independence of spirit, she can only be feted when she conforms and sublimates herself to love! Only in the connection to a sought-after male is she deemed worthy.

There are three movies which point out the problem from different perspectives. There is one scene in The Breakfast Club which I find problematic. Ally Sheedy’s interesting, wholly subversive character is transformed with a headband and an eye pencil into a completely ordinary, socially-acceptable girl, whereupon she catches the fancy of the Big Man on Campus-in-residence. I always identified with Ally-before, not Ally-after.

Never Been Kissed is, of course, a more recent movie in the magic-makeover vein. While I generally enjoy this movie, I find the end to be both edifying and frustrating. At the prom scene, Drew Barrymore’s character, Josie Grossy, who is no longer gross, finds that she cannot make herself conform to the expectations of the popular crowd and forcefully rejects the kind of kids who used to reject her. The frustrating part is that when she finally receives her “first real kiss” from Sam, she is the transformed Josie still. She is no longer the slightly frumpy, mousy grown-up Josie from the beginning.

And finally, the Revenge of the Nerds movies. The nerds triumph over their rivals in all their nerdy glory! The nerds do not need to conform to societal norms to achieve success. My big problem is not the dearth of similarly triumphant lady nerds, but the fact that the nerds still crave and “win” hot girls. We see that the nerdy girls are no prize.

Why can’t the nerdy/smart girls triumph in all their nerdy, brainy, awkward glory? I am, and always have been, a nerdy girl. I didn’t have to transform myself into a living Barbie doll to find love, or success. Somebody, somewhere give us a Revenge of the Nerd-Girls movie!

Addendum: The movies listed are by no means all of my most favorites or my most hateds. Feel free to use the comments as an open forum. Tell us what you did and/or did not like about the 80’s or its pop culture. And share with us your most favorite and most hated movies from the Eighties!

Yesterday evening we drove over to Quiktrip to get a bag of ice and some desperately needed (by Monkey) bubble gum. While I was waiting in line, rather impatiently I might add as the bag of ice was dripping on my toes, I heard a very interesting exchange.

There was a very cute goth/punk/pagan girl standing in line in front of me. Her goth/punk/pagan boyfriend was talking to her very loudly. He said (and I paraphrase) “Now, you are next in line! Don’t let any of these other people push in front of you again. This always happens to you! You’re next! Only that guy was here before you were, all these other people walked up after you did!”

It may have sounded to an untrained ear as if he were yelling at her, berating her in public. But he wasn’t. He was addressing other people’s behavior problems in the most diplomatic means possible. He was putting everyone else on notice that his girlfriend was being treated rudely and he was not about to stand for it. I felt an immediate connection to this girl, to this couple. You may remember, from my last post, the man and his eight family members who tried to line-jump me at the food court. Well, this seriously happens to me all the time! Unless Hubby is with me. Nobody ignores Hubby. He is a big, tall, imposing guy and strangers don’t know he’s just a really nice man. The boyfriend probably sees that all the time, too.

The boyfriend was no where near as big as Hubby, but as he is goth/punk/pagan he probably scares the bejeebers out of people. I don’t say pagan lightly, they were both wearing/tattooed with pentagrams. I have never been scared of goth/punk/pagan people, why would I be? I used to dress like that. In fact, I still have an affinity for black clothing, kind of like Johnny Cash. Just call me The Mom in Black.

Anyway, not only was this girl dressed the way I used to dress, she was wearing nerd glasses much like mine. I looked at her and thought, OMG! This is me twenty years ago! Since she’s probably used to being treated like she’s a scary weirdo, (gasps, hushed and hidden whispers, mothers pulling their children away in fear that the weird may be contagious) I knew I had to say something nice and positive to her. Just to let her know that there is somebody out there who gets it.

I could’ve commiserated with her over the line-jumping thing, but it may be as sensitive a subject for her as it is for me. So I decided to compliment her appearance in some way. I liked her glasses and the very impressive spiked collar she was wearing, but I chose to say her wallet was cute. She was holding it quite prominently on the counter in front of her, almost brandishing it, but more closely, putting it on display. And I don’t blame her, it was a truly interesting wallet. It looked just like this one.

I absolutely love things that are dark and kind of creepy. Halloween is vying with Christmas for favorite holiday status. My favorite tales are supernatural ones: ghosts, Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, vampires, ghost-lights, UFO’s. I don’t care for the gory stuff though.

So I said, “I love your wallet. That is so cute!” She answered, “Thanks! I got it on E-bay!” You can never go wrong complimenting a lady’s handbag.

Fortunate. Unfortunate. The Prairie Family has terrible luck or incredibly good luck, depending on how you look at it.

The air conditioner at the House started malfunctioning on Saturday. This is July. In Oklahoma. Absolutely, positively the month that no one wants the air conditioning to go on the blink. It’s something to do with the condenser pump, I think. Before the repairman showed up Saturday morning, we were able to get the pump to work and the air conditioner to run. So we cancelled. Then we did our shopping (local produce and meats) and dropped by the Apple Store to check on iPhones. No dice.

So we went home to a cool House and planned a day trip to Oklahoma City for the next day. By Sunday morning the air conditioning was malfunctioning again. The repairman never returned our call so we turned it off, closed up the House, and headed out. This past weekend was the mildest July weekend I have ever experienced in Oklahoma, so we figured that things wouldn’t get too unbearable in the House. We’d be back just about the time when day was fading into night and the temperature falling.

Things didn’t go according to plan. The drive up on I44 was uneventful, minus the occasional backseat outburst. Things didn’t start to go awry until we got to the Apple Store. Last year, when the first iPhone was released, Hubby walked into the store on the Sunday following and walked out with an iPhone not ten minutes later. This year was a bit different. There was no way I was taking Monkey and Pumpkin into the Apple Store, so we did a little shopping in Pottery Barn Kids. Then we went to the Food Court to eat lunch. Big mistake.

When I saw that line at the one and only fast food joint the kids were willing to entertain, my heart sank. I just knew that waiting in that line with those kids was destined to end in sorrow. I was right. Maybe the children were really as awful as they seemed to be, or maybe I was just magnifying normal but rowdy behaviors into monstrosity because of the stress of waiting with two hungry kids in the longest lunch line ever. When the end was in sight, after about a jillion years, some dude decided he was going to take advantage of my seeming distraction and line-jump me. With all eight of his family members in tow.

He picked the wrong mean mama to mess with, at the wrongest possible time! This happens to me a lot. I’m short, I’m a mom, I’m not hot, so therefore, I am invisible. But something in me snapped. “Sir!” I said to him. Nothing. Louder, “Sir!” still nothing. Finally, in my best drill-sergeant-mama voice, I yelled, “SIR! I WAS NEXT!” I can’t make my son stand still and quiet in public, but I can make a grown man tuck tail and slink away! I do not believe that is a mistake he will ever make again.

I was too shaken to eat, but I got food into the kids. By the time they were finished and cleaned up, Hubby had his new phone and we left to go procure lunch for ourselves.

We’ve been to OKC many, many times, and I even have family there, so we are fairly familiar with the general lay-out. I wanted us to take Route 66 home, all the way from Edmond, so I could take pictures of the Round Barn in Arcadia, but alas it was not to be. At least not yet. Since we had to go through Edmond anyway, we pulled into a Sonic there to eat. We ordered, our food arrived, and Hubby turned off the car. And immediately turned it back on for the air conditioning. It was our undoing.

Now, I have never heard automatic weapons fire in real life, only in the movies or on TV, but something began making a loud, repetitive noise, “BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!” We thought somebody was shooting at us until I noticed red-brown “smoke” kicking up from under our car. Hubby turned off the car and made me get out to see what made the racket. I ask you, why am I always the one who has to look under the car? I don’t know anything about cars! Oh yeah, I’m not the one with the hurt back. Anyway, I could see a black hose dangling loose off the underside and a piece of black hose that had apparently shot off as shrapnel lying on the ground next to the car. The poor people in the next car over were visibly shaken but pointing, and trying to help. There was a puddle of apple-green stuff under the dangling hose. This could not be good.

I borrowed a phone book, called a wrecker, and my uncle. He drove his SUV to the Sonic, helped us load the baby seats into it, and graciously took us into his home. The wrecker followed us there, where we parked our poor, sick car.

But while we were waiting for all these things to transpire, I had time to think about our predicament. O.K., bemoan our predicament. I kept wondering what somebody or something was trying to tell us, tell me. And what that information might be. Why would such a string of bad luck hit us? Just last week, I had to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get the front end of the car fixed like new. Then the House A.C. breaks, then the car breaks down, while we’re out of town! Woe is me! Woe is us!

I am a big believer in the power of the mind and the power of the spirit. We shape our own reality through our thoughts. If you look for bad things to happen, you’ll find them. And not to sound like a Pollyanna, if you expect good things to happen, then good things will happen. To a degree. No amount of positive thinking was going to keep the car from breaking down; all the negative thoughts in the world can’t make an air conditioner break down. I have seen the power of prayer, but prayer is not some incantation that will magically fix broken machinery.

After much thought, it occurred to me that we didn’t suffer a run of bad luck, we benefited from an extraordinary concatenation of positive events that ameliorated the negative effects of bad stuff that was going to happen anyway. Our car broke down while we were away from the House, but just a handful of miles from my aunt and uncle. A week from now, they won’t be there, so how incredible to find them at home. We passed a decent repair shop on our way to their house. The repair shop was able to fix our car early Monday morning, so we were able to leave for Tulsa just after noon.

And about our House air conditioning? After sitting dormant for almost two days, it came back on and worked well enough to keep us and the kids comfortable until the repairman arrived this morning. Only a new air filter and some cleaning and servicing had to be done, no major repairs.

During what promised to be the hottest part of the day, we were stranded in Edmond, in my aunt and uncle’s air conditioned home. The babies got to sleep in cool comfort, not in a stuffy, hot House.

Oddly enough, it was a high-pressure air-conditioner hose that caused that BANG-BANG-BANG sound. And the red-brown smoke? Just some of central Oklahoma’s famous red dirt.

So, you see, it’s all in how you look at it.

So, I’ve been doing some research on women’s fashions in the Civil War-era, specifically the incidence of pants-wearing women, and have found some very funny stuff.

Here’s a big news flash for all my readers who may be unfamiliar with various lunacies of the fundie crowd: pants are sinful. At least on women. Here’s my favorite online resource about hell-bent ladies’ trousers– Jesus-is-savior.com. My most favorite part is how, in his fervor to denounce all of us panted hussies, he gives free advertising to rap artist, Chingy. Mr. Stewart, after not getting enough titillation-factor from the title alone, felt it necessary to include all of the lyrics, suitably sanitized for our virgin eyes of course. I find it very interesting that Mr. Stewart is apparently taking his cultural direction from Chingy. I mean, come on, he is totally ignoring the incredible artistic contribution of one Trace Adkins and his incomparable “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” Man, that’s just sloppy.

I won’t even go into the historical flap that women’s pants have caused; the modern stuff is too much fun! Whenever one of these discount-theologians wants to back up his (usually a man, sometimes a defeated woman) personal biases, he quotes Deuteronomy or Leviticus. Yeah, these guys always use the Old Testament when they feel the need to condemn others, but I just always wonder how many of them have eaten bacon or a cheeseburger recently. Oops.

But Deuteronomy says that women shouldn’t put on things that pertain to men! And that men shouldn’t dress like women! Oh noes! Interestingly enough, nobody wore pants in the Old Testament. Everybody wore some version of a robe-like garment. So even if one is given to a literal interpretation of the O.T., except for that whole bacon-thing of course, there is NO specific prohibition against women wearing pants! But God-fearin’ folk will work themselves up into knots fretting about, not poverty, not injustice, not genocide, not oppression, not violence, but pants. Pants. Let the absurdity sink in a bit. Let it roll around in your brain for a while, as you try to understand someone whose faith is so shaky, so tenuous that it can be destroyed by pants. O.K., by women in pants. The devil’s own pants.

If you would like to see the preponderance of this opinion for yourself, just google women wearing pants, you’ll see. Another common theme in the know-what’s-better-for-women-than-the-women-themselves crowd is bringing up dubious sociological studies that allegedly prove that the eyes of both women and men are drawn to a woman’s butt and crotch when she is clad in pants. As opposed to what happens when said woman is dressed in a shapeless, ankle-grazing calico bag of a dress, where people look only at the woman’s face. My opinion on that one is that people are desperately trying not to stare at the hideous dress, because staring is rude.

And you know what, people notice each other’s appearances. We all look at faces and hairstyles and clothing and even shoes. We notice if someone’s hair is unkempt, we notice if a woman’s slip is showing, we notice if a kid has on an emo belt, and yes, we notice if someone has a nice caboose. Sighted people always notice appearances first, so what. Women have shapes, curves, actual physical bodies, and if a man can’t handle that it’s his own fault, not the woman’s.

The anti-pant crowd wants women to believe that shapeless dresses are somehow freeing. Freeing us poor, helpless frails from the unwanted lustful stares of big, bad men who just can’t help themselves in the powerful presence of our awesome sexiness. And they say feminists hate men. But I’m not in charge of another person’s lustfulness, I’m only in charge of my own. And that’s another thing. Men wear pants, does that mean I’m supposed to stare at them and not be able to control myself?

I guess the assumption is that women don’t lust after men. Maybe we’re too busy tempting hordes of fine, upstanding christian gentlemen into sin with our devil-pants. So, on one hand, we are wicked temptresses, well-versed in the siren-call of trousers-wearing. And on the other hand, we are demure, innocent creatures, who never lust after anyone, suitable only for patronizing and protecting. The only reason that fundamentalist heads are not exploding over this dichotomy is because fundamentalists are given to living unexamined lives. But, guess what, women do lust, so what.

But, but, but. Lust is a sin! You say that like it’s a bad thing. Hate to tell these people, but lust is sort of the very thing that has kept the human race going during the worst of times. The Great Depression wasn’t the most stable time to have children, but humans just insisted on reproducing. Times of war, disease, and famine are terrible times to bring children into the world, but since one of those things is almost always happening, what are we to do? Let the human race die out because we think lust is icky? But I digress.

For centuries, women were hobbled by their clothing. Corsets made it difficult to breath and impossible to move freely. Hoop skirts made the mere act of sitting down an exercise in embarrassment. Long skirts and multiple petticoats had to be held aloft as women walked around, effectively tying their hands. And those long skirts and petticoats often cost women their lives, by catching fire or becoming heavy with water and drowning them, or by catching in machinery. Long sleeves could also be caught in household or farm or factory machinery, causing injury or death. Yards and yards of heavy fabric were literally shackles around the ankles of the women who had to wear them.

And this pining for the modesty of an earlier time is misplaced at best. Corsets and bustles were designed to exaggerate the natural curves of a woman’s body. And we fetishize what we take pains to hide. There were times when the bodices of dresses were cut just barely high enough to cover the nipple, yet a stolen glimpse of black-stockinged ankle was scandalous! And trust me, people given to the practice of fetishisizing women are only going to be spurred on by the all-covering, ankle-grazing dress. Imagination is often more titillating than reality. “What’s under that dress!”

The issue here really is freedom, or rather, freedoms. Fundamentalist men, of all stripes, want the freedom that comes with not taking any responsibility for their own baser desires, and instead, off-loading all of society’s ills onto all women. I should actually say all females, because these men get started with the woman-blaming while the women are still little girls. Hello? Purity Balls?

And pants give freedom to women. The freedom to move without restriction, the freedom to do the hard work that our lives require, the freedom to run if we need to, and the freedom to fight if we must. The freedom to not worry about a stiff wind, the freedom to get dirty, and the freedom to have warm legs.

It is this feminine freedom that the fundamentalists fear. Before the freedom of pants and the throwing-off of the corsets, men could rest assured, basking in the certainty of their superiority over the “weaker sex.” But it was the clothes, the fabric shackles that kept women weak and helpless. The days of corsets and crinolines and fainting couches are over! Now we have the vote, our own jobs, and the devil’s own pants–the fabric shackles are off.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with undergarments. Bras are fine, I tend to find ones I like and wear them until they fall apart. Underpants always have been, and ever shall remain, the bane of my existence. Don’t get me wrong, I always wear underpants, I wouldn’t dream of going around without them. It’s like they know that I can’t live without them, so they take advantage of my naked vulnerability so to speak, engaging me in a near constant wrestling match just to keep them in place.

You may find this difficult to believe, but there have been times when I have been reduced to tears out of sheer loathing for my underpants. OK, it was just that one time and I was pregnant. You do not know clothing hell until you have worn maternity underpants. Pregnancy is the one time in my life when I have even considered going commando because all maternity underpants were apparently designed by sadists.

There is even one brand of ladies’ underpants that claims to have a no-ride-up guarantee. Ride-up, how deceptively charming. I refer to the phenomenon as Black-Hole Butt. As long as I can remember, my behind has acted as a kind of gravity well, pulling in every garment that gets close. So I have perfected some techniques for dealing with the problem. There is the Rise-and-Tug, useful for getting out of chairs and cars. There is the Discreet-Turn-and-Tug, perfect for dealing with the problem while in enclosed public venues, like department stores and grocery stores. But recently I have stopped caring so much, if the issue doesn’t involve more than a little elastic-snapping, I just do it. Since having children I have come to the realization that other people rarely care about, or even notice, what is going on around them. And even if someone notices, I am not the first person, nor will I be the last, who has to make adjustments in public. Fear not, if the problem is serious enough, I excuse myself and head to the ladies’ room.

For the record, I have tried department store underpants, mass-retailer underpants, fancy schmancy lingerie store underpants, and not one of them are better than the others. It has gotten to the point where I am considering men’s underpants. I never hear of men having to go through these gyrations just to keep their undergarments in place. My most recent purchases have been the ones with the charmingly deceptive “guarantee.” Oh, and Major Underpants Manufacturer, they still ride up, you owe me nine dollars.

Today I had occasion to purchase underpants for my both my children, you know, to pass down the misery to a new generation. Don’t blame me, kids, I just bought them. My son, who is growing up faster than I like, decided that he no longer wants picture underpants. He wants underpants just like Daddy’s, so today I got him his first “tighty whities.” Those things are cuter than I thought possible; who knew miniature underpants were that adorable.

I also bought my 3-year old daughter her first big-girl underpants. Not that she gets to wear them right now or anything. I also got her a little tin lunch-box/purse thing for her “money box.” Monkey has a shoe box full of coins because he filled up his piggy bank and had to have a place for all the extra money. How does a five-year old get so much money, you might ask. Easy, extortion. He got into a bad habit of asking anyone who came to the door if they had any coins for him. It’s Nana’s fault. She started giving him the coins to put in that piggy bank, then Uncle D. got in on the act. Enablers, the lot of them. Luckily, he’s no longer asking plumbers and electricians to empty their pockets. But I digress.

Pumpkin decided she need a money box, too. One that would go up in her closet so Monkey couldn’t get it. Only one problem, she has no money, and she wants some. I have decided to turn this to my advantage and I told her that I will give her coins for peeing and pooping in the potty. That’s right, I am resorting to bribery. I hope that the lure of cold, hard cash will convince her to start using the potty. Heaven knows nothing else is working. So I am going to pay her. To use the potty. If I could outsource one parenting task this would be the one.

I hope that the big girl underpants will also be an incentive to use the potty, but I really think I’ll get more traction with the cash. But it’s like I’m paying her to stop using diapers and start wearing underpants. Come to think of it, if somebody paid me to wear underpants I might not mind that whole Black-Hole Butt problem.

Or, How Greed and Bigotry Drive Up Housing Costs

By now, unless you live in an undisclosed mountain enclave (and sometimes even when you do, Hi Bob!), dear reader, you must certainly be aware of these terms: sub-prime, housing crisis, housing bubble, foreclosure. A phrase you will also hear a lot is average home price.

(There are going to be some statistics, but bear with me, they don’t last long.)

Average is an imprecise term used to denote any of a number of ways to calculate the center of a set of data. When people talk about averages what they are generally talking about is called the arithmetic mean. It’s when you take each value in the data set, add them all together, and then divide that number by how many values are in the data set. Like this: 3+6+9+50+100=168. 168 divided by 5=33.6, the arithmetic mean, or simply mean, is 33.6. A frequently more understandable way to look at the data is using a median, which the middle value in a data set when the values are lined up in order from smallest to largest (or vice versa). It is the number in which half of the values are less than the median, and half are more than the median. So in a data set of 3, 6, 9, 50, 100, 9 would be the median. Wow, turns out that Statistics course was good for something. As you can see, the average number is heavily influenced by the larger numbers in the data set, where the median number more accurately reflects the reality of the data set.

In calculating housing prices, it is extraordinarily important to know which method is being used, mean or median. The U.S Census Bureau has just such information available. Let’s start with the median price of housing and the median wage in the year I was born, 1968. It was at the end of an economically stable decade, and before the oil crisis and inflation of the 1970s. In 1968, the median wage for men was $5980.00 per year, for women it was $2019.00. The median home price in 1968 was $24,700. That is roughly four times the median salary of the American man, who was usually the sole breadwinner of the family at that point in history. In 2006, the median price for homes in the U.S. was $246,500 and the median income per family (no longer just the sole, male breadwinner mind you) was $32,265. That is 7.64 times the median family income.

If we were still operating on the 1968 model, median housing prices would be about $133,200. So what has caused this top-heavy housing market? Two things: greed and bigotry.

The recent arrests of hedge fund managers points to the greed of Wall Street. Mortgage financing companies displayed their greed in pushing sub-prime mortgages and ARMs, even to more credit-worthy borrowers. Real estate developers, with their general disregard for the surrounding houses, build McMansions for in-fill development in more moderate neighborhoods. Or they clear-cut vast tracts of land and squeeze as many monster houses as they can onto that land.

And then there is the greed of the consumers themselves. The people who saw the value of their homes soar into rarified territory and “cashed-out” that new-found equity were greedy. And for what? College educations for their children? Or boats and RVs and vacation homes? How about all the things you can stock your home with to make the neighbors green with envy? Never has “keeping up with the Joneses” been so toxic.

Then there were the home-buyers who, forgetting the axiom “buy low and sell high”, thought they would get rich by buying high and selling higher. I have no sympathy for those folks. When someone deliberately tries to game the system and drives housing prices higher for everyone, then they lose what little claim they had on my good graces. For decades real estate was considered to be one of the most stable investments you could make, it lacked the volatility of the stock market and value grew at a slow, but steady pace. Until the last, oh, eight years or so, when unbridled greed and and a distinct lack of compassion for one’s fellow human came back into style.

Then there is a greed of spirit, a desire to be seen as more than you are. People of modest means all of a sudden wanted to appear wealthy. What better way to look wealthy than to have a mini-mansion all of your own? I knew one lady and her mint-new husband who pulled just such a caper. Way back in 1998, when houses were still reasonably priced, this couple purchased a house so huge and so expensive that they didn’t have enough money left over to furnish it. The dining table was a fold-up affair, there was one sectional in the living room, and each huge bedroom contained little more than a mattress and single dresser. Whole areas of the house were just closed up, not being used. Tell me, what in the world is the point of having a huge house when you aren’t even going to enter half the rooms? The point seemed to be that from the outside, they looked rich. It wasn’t until you actually entered their home that you saw their absolute poverty and greed of spirit.

How does bigotry play a role in our current housing crisis? Well, many urban areas are going through “gentrification,” a process which prices lower-income residents right out of the neighborhood and frequently these residents are members of a minority group. This also prices a lot of older people and single-parent families right out of the neighborhood as well. Gentrification is literally pushing diversity out of the city, or at least into rigidly-defined areas.

We have something else happening in Tulsa, a kind of “white flight” in which people eschew the smaller houses in the more affordable mid-town neighborhoods to move to the wealthier, whiter south part of town or the suburbs. Mid-town has a large mix of housing, from funky apartments to the old homes of the oil barons to modest middle-class dwellings. Anybody, with any budget, can find a place to live in the main, middle parts of town. Therein lies the problem for some people.

Oh, they never come right out and say it, but they don’t want to live next to African-American people, or Hispanic people, or Native people. They are willing to live at the very edges of their means so that the only black or Mexican people they ever see in their neighborhoods are there to mow lawns or pick up the garbage. And they all have so many excuses and I’ve heard them all. “You get more house for your money out in _____” “They have better schools.” “Mid-town is too pretentious and trendy, it’s more real out south.” These are all code for: “I wanted a nice, white neighborhood.” Check it! Next time you hear somebody say something similar in your town, you better believe that’s what it really means! Even people I thought I knew have come out with these lines, their hidden truths. It’s really disturbing when I find out something this nasty about people I used to like.

So, where do we go from here? First, we have to stop being greedy bigots.

As houses sit unsold longer and longer, housing prices will be forced lower. Some people are, unfortunately, going to take a hit on property values. But maybe that’s a good thing, it’s time we changed our view of real estate as cash cow back to humanity’s traditional view of housing–as shelter. Housing is not an investment or a path to wealth, it is a very old technology for protecting and nurturing ourselves and our loved ones, and keeping our stuff dry. As housing prices are forced back to reasonable levels, houses will cease to be tools of greed.

Then we have to start putting the resources we are no longer bleeding into the housing market into making sure that all neighborhoods are as safe as we can make them and that all schools are good schools. And we have to stop letting small-minded idiots tell us that property values are affected by the skin pigmentation of the people who live there. And we have to challenge the very people who Stephen Colbert mocks with his “I don’t see color.”-schtick. We have to tell them that seeing color is o.k., discriminating based on that color is not. We have to stand up and say that discriminating because someone is older and on a fixed-income is not o.k.; discriminating because someone is a single parent is not o.k.; discriminating because someone is gay is no o.k.; discriminating because someone doesn’t go to the right kind of church is not o.k. We have to change this mindset and the only way to do it is to call attention to it every chance we get. I suggest loudly saying, “I find your racism (or sexism or ageism or homophobia or classism, etc.) offensive and I demand you apologize!”

“That’s all well and good, Burning Prairie, but how am I supposed to save money on housing right this very minute?” you may ask. I’m getting to that, hold your horses.

I worked in a bank for many years and one of the things I learned (besides facing all my bills the same direction) was that not everybody should buy a house. There are a lot of reasons to not buy a house. Of course, the folks that would be pushed into the sub-prime market should stop thinking that buying a house will magically solve all their problems and just not buy a house at this time. Some big cities are terrible markets for buying and are better suited to renting. We lived (and rented) in Chicago for a while and with housing prices that expensive, we would’ve been long-term renters had we stayed. If you have more than the usual instability with your jobs, don’t buy a house! And by that, I don’t just mean the always-present danger of losing a good job, but also the possibility that you may need to change jobs or job markets soon, or that your employer may be one of those that likes to move people around. Better to pack up and move an apartment than a whole house, trust me. Don’t buy a house just because someone told you it’s a waste of money to rent, even if that person is your dad.

Don’t buy just because you want the freedom to paint things any color you want or to knock out walls and add on. Condo boards and housing covenants will have something to say about that. If you are very young and fresh-out of something–high school, college, the Navy, whatever–think about it long and hard before you make such a permanent decision. You may be thinking that you can just sell if you ever need or desire to move, but it is hard to unload a house. And it is even harder to unload a foreclosure from your permanent record. If you are not rock-solid sure that you are in a place you want to stay, just keep renting.

So, you’ve weighed all the options and you still want to buy. Your credit is good and you know better than to fall for that beguiling ARM. You are all set, now what? How do you save money while buying a house?

Rule number one: don’t buy too much house. If it’s just you, do you really need a 3-bedroom, 2 bath single-family home or would a small condo be a better fit? If it’s just the two of you, or even just the four of you, do you really need a McMansion? Or are you just trying to show off? Exactly how many extra rooms does each member of the family need? A larger home is going to cost more to run than a smaller home. There will be larger heating and electric bills, possibly even larger water bills. And then there are the intangible costs. Who is going to do the cleaning? If you have stretched yourself to the breaking point to buy too large a house, it won’t be hired help, you won’t be able to afford them. Hope you like the smell of bleach. And what about the stress of trying to maintain a large house? I wouldn’t want that. Mid-town has many post-war neighborhoods, with tiny little houses in which people raised whole passels of kids. Why do you need such cavernous spaces if you only plan on having one or two kids, or maybe none at all? Start by questioning these motivations.

Rule number two: don’t get fooled by the “houses cost less out here” illusion. With gas prices this high, anything you may save on housing and more will go right into the gas tank every time you drive to work or to the closest real grocery store, which isn’t all that close. And long commutes take a very real toll on your personal relationships.

Rule number three: don’t spend extra money to move into a small, “safe” town or suburb with “good” schools. Mayberry never existed and small towns and suburbs are no safer per capita than most city neighborhoods. And by the way, the elementary school that is close enough for us to walk to? It got the state’s highest rating for elementary schools.

Rule number three: if a particular neighborhood that you like is kind of pricey, cross the closest major street and check out the adjacent neighborhoods. They may be just as charming at a lower cost.

Rule number four: wait. Just wait out this housing-bubble-burst. At the end of it, housing prices will be something closer to reasonable in relation to wages. But you may be thinking about interest rates, what if they go up? Trust me, a low interest rate isn’t going to help you pay the mortgage on a house that you can’t afford. Or just wait until you are at a better spot in your life, because being shackled to a house payment isn’t going to help if you aren’t there yet.

Rule number five: buy an existing house in an established neighborhood. It is no secret that I don’t care for new houses. I prefer a house with some love behind it, some history in it, and even a ghost or two. My favorite neighborhoods are fifty to a hundred years old, with interesting architecture and mature, graceful trees. I hate the faux character that is being built into new houses. Irish Provencial? Really? In Tulsa? Come on, you may like pretending you’re in County Cork while you’re standing in front of your cultured-stone fireplace, but leave your gated community and drive west, what will you see? The grand, sweeping prairies of central Oklahoma. Drive a little way east and what will you see? The green, rolling hills and rivers and lakes of northeastern Oklahoma. Because you. Are. Still. In. Oklahoma. And don’t ever fool yourself into thinking that you are “having a house built” just because the builder lets you pick out the carpet and paint colors. If you are ever at the point where you can hire an architect and a private contractor and have a house designed and built for you then you do not need my money-saving tips.

I will continue to have posts on what the House does to save money on various things and how you can, too. I’ll even warn against some of the mistakes I’ve made so you can avoid them. And be prepared for stories about my Gammie, who grew up in the Great Depression. She could really stretch a dollar! And if you have any tips and tricks that you’d like to share, speak up! We’d all like to hear them!

Sources:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p05ar.html

http://www.census.gov/const/pricerega.pdf

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/values.html

That’s how long Hubby and I have been married as of today. Happy Anniversary, Buddy!

Attention local grocery store chain:

Big bags of organic fertilizer (AKA bags of poop) + stacked right outside the front door + 90 degree day = REALLY BAD IDEA.

That is all.

My daughter doesn’t just make a mess in her room, she trashes her room like a rock star! It may be her super-power.

It has either been raining or soggy all week long and I haven’t been able to take the kids out to play to run off some of their energy. So that energy has been directed into the serious business of messing up the House. Today, I’d had enough. The mess has become overwhelming–there are toys in every room in the House! I wanted to move all the toys back to where they live, but there was literally no space in Pumpkin’s room for one more toy. Don’t believe me? Have a peek.

When faced with a mess like this it is sometimes difficult to know where to start. But this time it was easy. Apparently, some kind of stuffed animal-volcano had erupted and the resulting toy-flow impeded my ability to get to the rest of the mess. So I tucked all the stuffed animals back into their basket and then tackled the rest of the room.

Several of Monkey’s toys had made their way into Pumpkin’s room; I removed those first. Then I found my new hat, it’s been missing all week. I found it in Pumpkin’s closet, filled with tiny toys. Not long after I started, the kids showed up, wanting to “help.” Monkey was playing Pokemon so it was easy to persuade him not to help. But Pumpkin had to help, she even started crying when I told her “no.” So I crumbled like a stale cookie and let her help. Which actually made the whole process take longer than it should, but it made her happy. And here’s the little culprit herself:

After all the toys were off the floor and stowed in their little bins, I had to move the rug and vacuum the room, so I parked the Pumpkin in the den with her brother and gave them snacks. I got the room perfectly put together and was so proud of all my hard that I took some “after” pictures.

And:

And finally:

That’s the great little organizer I bought at Target. Now if only I could get her to put the toys back in the bins!

Anyway, didn’t I, I mean, we do a good job? Care to guess how long the clean lasted?

Less than three hours. Three hours! I was hoping to get at least a day of clean for all my troubles.

They are kicking my butt.