04-25-11 - This is not my Beautiflul House

04-25-11
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
0 miles
I wake up and I smell…metal or plastic? Butane? Propane? Is there a leak someplace?
I mention it to Patti, my nephew’s wife.
She calls the gas company.
There are out quickly.
Yes. A leak for sure. We’re cutting off your gas till you get a plumber to find & fix the leaks and get the city to certify it as ok…then we’ll come back and turn the gas on for your.
So…my good deed costs my hosts over $500...but maybe I save their lives. Good trade.
Sorry about the delay and the lack of heat and showers (no one likes cold showers).
The day is only lightly rainy so that’s a plus. The plumber (Jimmy B. Quick - honest!) is over quickly and begins to find the leaks. By 3pm they’ve been found - all 4 of them. It’s probably too late for the city inspector to get here tonight to give a green tag so we can get service back since the inspectors quit at 4pm.
So - tomorrow for power again.
Since there is no warm water for washing dishes, Patti orders Pizza for dinner. I’m happy with anything. I even offered to make my special Kung Pao Pizza. Another time perhaps. Order out has less risk of washing anything. My pizza still takes preparation which could dirty a few dishes or surfaces. I’ve been getting salads and that is a great joy. She thinks I’ll be tired of them before the week is over. I doubt it.
It’s an easy night. A little TV, and then to sleep. I have to wait to have a bath and shave till tomorrow when water will be warm again. I’ve been through worse situations. Just happy to be inside and relatively warm and generally safe.
I think again of home…what that is. What is isn’t still for me. What it might be again for me someday.
I had a discussion about Pro Football Players or actors who got millions for what they did and the mansions they lived in; the people they needed to employ to keep their lives running for them.
It seems inconceivable to me. Somehow having a life too busy to clean your own house, make your own bed, drive your own car or wash your own dishes, clothes. But I guess for some it can be so. Even on a lower level, say someone trying to run a business on their own and raise a child. Having a house keeper even one or two days a week could make a big difference. But the person who helps should be given appropriate gratitude as well as money. Because they are making your life more manageable. Same goes for the millionaires. Same goes for any business person. People trading the ours of their life to make your life easier, richer, more full should be acknowledged for what they do beyond just monetary compensation. And that has been forgotten in the contemporary social/business contract. Contracts themselves are given on a take it or leave it when the very definition of a contract is a negotiation between equal parties. Look up the Buchanan vs. Paramount decision. Anything else that relies on “boilerplate” contracts is nothing more than a corporate form of slavery.
And the social contract has been allowed to be eroded continuously over the years of my life. “The Life of Riley” used to celebrate working class schlubs who would never “Strike it rich” but would have a good life overall. The Honeymooners were a couple of working class union guys and their wives, as was Chester Riley. But “Home” was a person’s castle regardless of financial or social status.
Until it was taken away. First it was the farms thru the greed of bankers or corporate “Agra-biz” that gave out loans betting the farmers wouldn’t be able to keep up the payments. 50 years later it was bankers and wall street that set people up to lose their homes.
Cars and tents and parks and truck stops and abandoned properties became the new homes of the displaced.
And it’s still “Business as usual”. “Small Businesses” like Bechtel and The Coch Brothers bribe their congresspersons for sweetheart concessions while real “small” businesses (mom & pop under 50 employees/under 2 million/year grosses go out of business or stagnate because they are not getting the legislative aid that would level the playing field verses the Big “Small Businesses”.
There is an old saying that those of the Christian religions persuasion have often used…unless it was in context of business…then they’d act like Peter:
What does it avail a man to gain a fortune and lose his soul.
We are a country of resilience and support in times of crisis. But we fall apart and are petty when it comes to helping others when we are feeling …comfortable where we sit, but uncomfortable with the conditions of ‘those folks over there’…like being afraid of catching a disease. A person asks for money on the street and we make up that person is a “Bum”; “Panhandler”; “druggie”; “con artist” without ever doubting the fiction we’ve just made up about a person we know nothing about.
I was at a gas station on Sunday and a man dove up and asked “Hay man, can you help us out…we’re just trying to get home…just looking for some gas…I’ll give you a flashlight or a pocket knife for it.
I pumped $5.00 of regular into his tank explaining I was in about the same state as he was, living out of my car. He tried to get me to accept the flashlight. I declined (it was one of those small flashlights and not really even worth the $5, but it was that I didn’t want anything for what I did. I did think of something that would be useful, for him to let me interview him. I got the interview thought he wouldn’t give me his name and didn’t want me to take his picture saying he was Indian and had superstitions about that sort of thing.
He may have been a con artist and didn’t want his name of likeness captured so he could continue the “scam” but it didn’t matter to me. I gave him $5 gas. If his story was true I halped him and his passenger to get home or at least a little closer to home. And if he “scammed “ me…he still got $5 gas from me that got him…to the next gas station. Help was asked for and I was able to help. Maybe to get someone “home” what ever that means these days.
I am losing the concept and hoping to define that over the remainder of the year.
I know it must be more than a building to sleep in. Or just a place to put your stuff. Or merely shelter…or a deeded piece of land.
It, like a job or career, is a reflection of ourselves and our dreams, hopes and histories/memories. It is a place to lose ourselves and find ourselves and rest, rejuvenate and reflect. It is a place where our habits, eccentricities and insecurities seem common and manageable - everyday things. A place safe to cry. An echo chamber for our laughter. A place to be intimate. Mostly - it is something that is (if only just the room we rent) “OURS”.
Until it’s gone.