Infinite Legos

FFP poses with the Lego Atlas in the Lego Store at Rockefeller Center (a recreation of this) 

The Visible Woman...owns.

I have a long-standing love affair with Lego. The bricks didn't arrive in the U.S. in my childhood unfortunately. I managed to accumulate a sizable number of them anyway as an adult once I had some money. Then I gave 99% of them away to my grand nephews. 

I could afford to buy any toy I want now. But when would I have time to play with them? I confess to wanting to construct elaborate Lego kits and to put together giant jigsaw puzzles and to play with various electronic devices. But I know now that I'll never have the time to do these things justice. Or maybe I'll never make the time.

Long ago I reached the point where I could afford more toys than I could play with. (And buy more books than I could read, etc.)

When we visited the NYC Lego store (see above) I bought a tiny Statue of Liberty kit. I put it together right away and put its picture on facebook. 

This is the story of too much of my life these days: plenty of money to buy things, too little bandwidth to enjoy them. It's a good problem to have, of course. It's not a problem at all really. But occasionally I long to want something and think about it for a long time and finally get it and then use it and use it and enjoy it. It makes making a Christmas list a chore for sure. I am playing tennis with a racket that is fifteen or twenty years old. I'm perfectly happy with it. A new one would be a nuisance. I am driving a 12-year-old Honda Civic. I'm perfectly happy with it. A new one would be a nuisance. I probably need some new clothes, but I keep thinking I'll lose ten pounds first.

Naturally I give away money to charities and relatives and friends. And we buy travel and meals and tickets. And not having scores of pounds of Legos or even the approximately 3000 books we had at the old house is a bit of a relief. I still have too much stuff, however, to give my possessions the proper attention.

It's The Cheat That Counts

Gift-giving is so fraught. You wrap something up in beautiful paper (or use those ever-handy gift sacks with some bright tissue) and you imbue some object with a duty to convey your love and respect. I quit taking gifts seriously a long while ago. When someone gives me something, I thank them and move on. I give my sister and her kids and grandkids money mostly and a few actual gifts that they very specifically ask for through wish lists. My dad sends birthday and Christmas checks to people. He and his sisters exchange these checks. Seems pointless to me.

I bought a couple of calendars at Book People the other day, those page-a-day things with different themes. One I intended for a friend. We often get together with a couple of other friends over the holiday and usually exchange small gifts. I had one of these calendars in mind for her. Then when we were talking on the phone the other day she said we shouldn't buy gifts this year if we did get together. I found another person to give the calendar to and I don't object to a 'no gifts' policy being established for any group of friends or relatives. I hope such things gain a wider foothold. I thought it was ironic that I'd already picked something when she said it, though.

FFP and I often ask at Christmas and birthdays: "What do you want?" Usually we just empower the other to go out and get whatever he/she wants. Yesterday he went out and bought a guitar. He bought a shirt the other day that he's been wearing a lot. (It's festive in a Christmas way with tasteful red and green plaid.) I told him what I wanted was for him to take my car for maintenance. I've been spending so much time at Dad's and hospitals that I haven't had time to go sit and wait for my car or be without my car. He's doing that for me today. I'm waiting at Dad's to help with lunch and watch his PT appointment. So he came out here and left his car and took mine to see if he could get scheduled maintenance, oil change and such done for me.

It feels like a gift having someone else do that car errand for me. There are a couple of physical 'things' I might like to have, too, but right now it just seems like too much trouble to get new things.

Who's In Charge?

[FFP and I saw this dog in a parked car along W. Fourth on Saturday. His parents were probably at the Farmer's Market. When we first stopped to marvel at the 'dogs pretend to drive' aspect there was a dog in the shotgun seat. Neither dog barked at us when we stopped but that one got into the back seat as if it expected one of us to take shotgun. Driver didn't budge and kept his eyes mostly on the road. Some foreign girls stopped to laugh.]

I've been thinking lately about the economy, about what BHO (my friend Eugene has started calling him this although, really, it doesn't have much of a ring to it) can do, what I can do, what you can do.

I figure, really, that the causes (housing bubbles, Ponzi schemes, derviatives, speculation, bad loans, the rest of it) just have to take their course.

I was thinking about all this talk of the government restructuring loans. Now if we as taxpayers buy these loans or the banks holding them and want to do that, I guess it's OK. But it started me thinking about the mortgages that I own, made on my own real property. What if the government unilaterally decided to retroactively change those agreements? I'm not saying anyone is suggesting that. Still, it gives you pause. What if a bank was solvent and the government decided to change loans it had made retroactively. That would be bad. I'm just saying.

Anyway, with all the flap over the stimulus plan I wonder what difference it will really make. I'm thinking Barack will have more influence as president over deployment of troops and the holding of terrorist suspects than the economy. Really and truly, world economies are very influenced by billions of consumers. This is especially true in the U.S. I know, I know. Jobs=spending. Hope=spending. Tax relief=spending. But I wonder.

So, what am I doing in the current economic crisis?

• I'm trying to shop in independent shops I want to help stay afloat.
  
• But thinking hard about every spending decision.
• And buying an expensive Lego for my great Nephew on Amazon because it is oh so easy. (Click the wish list, pick the toy, click the address of my niece, click my credit card, done.)
• But at least I spent some money on something.
• I'm trying to eat out at restaurants that I love and that are locally run.
• And buy wine as gifts for friends at local wine purveyors. (Because really you are spending money and people are enjoying it, it's gone and then repeat.)
• And buying gift certificates to restaurants as gifts, the same local ones.
• Driving my eight-year-old car less and making trips count. (Sorry, no new car. Sorry, reduced demand for gas. Or is that good? I did do a pretty major repair on it. And really I always drove cars into the ground and paid cash for new ones even when I was making great money.)
• Planning to buy things from Royal Blue Grocery's new location in my building rather than from bigger retailiers because a grocery store in your building...how cool is that? They may open within the week.
• Looking to buy a little storage cabinet for the second bathroom and still considering new digital cameras, a GPS and a netbook. I'm just saying: I might buy some stuff. I keep resisting, though.
• I'm thinking of planning trips to New York and maybe France.
  
• I'm staying in the uncounted unemployed. I have been 'retired' for six years. Which just means I quit my job to live on my investments. I'm too young for Social Security and I have no defined benefit pension. I don't count in the 7.6% and growing ranks of unemployed. I am not taking a job that someone else needs. (Note that Barack's wife left her job, too, and is probably in the uncounted unemployed. She had a good job, too. I'm just saying.)
• I'm spending money on my credit cards but paying everything off every month.
• I'm still giving to causes but taking a harder look at my budget for that. (See above about trips. Selfish, huh?)
  

It's all about a bunch of people doing their things, isn't it? One at a time. Until it becomes a trend. One guy getting a stupid upside down mortgage and onerous amounts of credit card debt is nothing. A bunch of you? That's something. (It's not me. It was never me!) When one company lays off people, too bad for those people. When every other article is about layoffs or furloughs? So goes the economy.

Let's hope the 'economic stimulus' can take a swipe at stalling or reversing these trends. Let's hope it isn't like that tax rebate last year. As my dad says, "I still have mine in the bank." Of course, soon he has to give much more than that to the tax man.

What a Way to Start

The good news about the New Year's Eve celebrations is they are just festive with no gift exchange and religious overtones. The bad news is: what a way to begin a year...with a bang, yes, but drinking and staying up late and then you start the first day of the year getting up late, sort of behind. And then you realize: yikes I can't start the new year on the books without taking care of a couple of things on 2008 and saving some info for the CPA. And then you realize that you have to start taxes and that is so depressing. A friend called to say Happy New Year and said I should be glad I had money to count. Can't you imagine going into tax season as a Madoff investor? You would have horrible tax issues and no money. Or even as Bernie himself. He had to turn over a list of his assets by yesterday to the court. When did you last update your own list of assets? Does it include yachts? Still, it's an excellent exercise.

I wrote the above paragraph earlier. I had some breakfast, read some of the paper. Then I set a timer on my Mac desktop and started working on some year end and month end bookkeeping. I spent about three hours on it. I still have several things I need to do. I wrote them on a little 'to do' list on a Sticky and decided I would do my blog. Holidailies lasts another four days, I believe. So I have to do it. Yeah, not really, but doesn't it make you feel better to know you can do something every day even if it's kind of indulgent? FFP is taking a nap. We slept in this morning a little (9 o'clock it was almost when we finally got up and stayed up). But we were up very, very late. FFP took the picture above on the pool deck last night at midnight when the fireworks over Lady Bird Lake were erupting. We stayed up a while after that visiting with friends. We stayed up a while longer reading. I probably drank too much. Wine and champagne it was.

So, here we are. 2009. I've made the stickies for my promised New Year's Resolution. Which is to spend some time each day doing things that I never get around to. The three hours I spend today on bookkeeping? Doesn't count. It is stuff that eventually gets done and doesn't get shunted aside indefinitely.

I feel like I should go to the gym or go for a walk. I don't think we will go out to eat or go to a movie today. FFP has some writing he has to get done. But we may get cabin fever. (Would that be condo fever?) A walk would probably cure it. Going to the gym doesn't do the trick since it's just across the hall. (Can't go to the club today, even if I thought starting the car was a good idea, because it is closed.) But right now I'm listening to iTunes execute a play list of jazz tunesI made with "Genius" starting with a Roy Hargrove track. I still bridle when Apple uses Genius for people or software, but that's me. (Did anyone see the Simpson's Mapple episode? Loved, loved it. But I digress. But you know me...I think digression is the better part of valor.)

While I was goofing off, FFP got up from his nap. I wish I could nap. I'm not good at it. FFP can doze well in his chair or (as in this case) go to bed and catch some winks. Maybe I'll take a nap today. That would be different.

Well, before I continue too far down the digression path...I want to make a beginning of 2009 comment. I may expand on this in my other blog, The Journal of Unintended Consequences (which has fallen into disuse because it was overwhelmed with material). But I just want to make a list of the things that the press keeps telling me I did in 2008 and prior to that that I did not do.

• I did not run up credit card debt I had no hope of repaying. In fact, I paid cash or charged for thirty days only all year and for lots of years before.
  
• I didn't ignore that I might lose my job and health insurance. Rather I prepared financially to quit my job and buy insurance.
• I did not invest in things that 'looked too good to be true.' (Well, maybe a couple of times, but I knew the risk and it was usually some financial advisor dispensing and drinking the Koolaid.)
• I did not buy a house I couldn't afford with a toxic mortgage with zero down at adjustible rates I didn't understand and then blame someone else when I lost 'my' house. (If I had, though, I would realize it wasn't ever mine! Hell, you don't even own a house you own unless you can pay the tax collector thousands of dollars a year.)
• I did not assume real estate would always go up and buy property to flip.
• I did not gain two pounds. (I have done that, on average, sometimes in the past. I'm pretty sure that I'm pretty much the same as I was last year. Yes, I still could use to lose ten or twenty pounds. Shut up.)
• I did not buy an iPhone or any other smart phone. My phone doesn't take photos even. It is seven (more?) years old. But it works and the (original) battery still takes a charge and has good life.
• I did not cut back on eating out. And, contrary to the wisdom I heard on TV today I'm not going to start packing a lunch to go to work because I don't work. On the other hand I won't be saving money by not buying lattes. I don't buy lattes. I drink coffee out sometimes, but it's usually a brew, French press or an Americana or espresso. Mostly I drink many cups from my expensive Capresso machine at home.
  

I often look at the world and wonder what kind of place it would be if everyone were a little more like me. It isn't a pretty picture, in some cases. But it would be a world without Golden Arches. Or Starbucks. I'm just saying. And there wouldn't be an ARM.

So I'm tired of hearing 'it's our own fault' and stuff like that. Speak for yourself, journalist person.

Well, that's all. I'm going to the gym. Then I'm having a shower. Maybe a walk after that. Maybe I'll read a book. Hope you have a nice holiday and that your hangover yields as easily as mine did if you have one.

Money, Money, Money

Money woes are everywhere. We can see it in our non-profit fundraisers and in the sparser crowds at watering holes. It seems (from halted futures trading) that the markets will plunge further on open. And my opportunities for colorful reflection portraits of my husband using cool little shops as lenses might decline. Boarded up shops aren't that cool. We haven't seen this future clearly here yet. The buildings are still going up, but one wonders if we won't have an 'Intel shell' of grand proportions in this town. And the shop locations that aren't leased? Well, landlords are going to have to do double-back flips to get those occupied.

It's hard to not to be negative, but the recession is going to hurt a lot of other people a lot more. It's always sad when it happens.

I Always Wanted To...

FFP had always wanted to go to the Café Carlyle and see Bobby Short. Then we got to do it. I couldn't say what year at the moment. Bobby is dead now and after the recent remodel his portrait is in the little hallway between Café Carlyle and Bemelmans Bar. I posed FFP with the portrait on our trip last month.

Everyone has lists of things they want to do. I feel like I've gotten to do most of the things that I wanted to do in my life. I say that I have this dream to go to all the Grand Slam Tennis Tournaments. [Ed. Note: You did go for one day to Wimbledon.] I say I have a dream to follow the Danube to the Black Sea (on one or more trips). Truthfully, though, while I do want to travel to a lot of places and can't wait until my obligations make that more possible, I'm pretty happy with my life here in Austin. I'd like to beat back some of this downsizing and moving stuff so that we can live the dream of just walking out the door of our building to a cab and not worrying about a house. This assumes we can hire people to look after the parents, too, if needed.

Naturally, some of our dreams are under-financed, too. But truthfully it is mostly about time and obligations at this point. I'm not saying I have the money for all my dream vacations. Because I don't. I think I'd like to reach the point where money was the thing holding me back. And at some time before my infirmities are in charge.

That is the race we run, isn't it? With money, time, obligations and health. And no one is immune. I read in the paper that Roger Federer had battled mono in recent months. Hmm...maybe my chance to see him win a Grand Slam in person is past!

Meanwhile, someone seems to have stolen an hour in the night.