May 25, 2003

•      Today, when dropping my son off in town, I stopped in the local ‘mom & pop’ grocery store to get a bag of ice for my beverages (I have no working refrigerator… I use a small chest deepfreeze ). Someone walking up behind me while I stood in line said “Hi! How are you doing?” Turning slightly, recognizing the voice of a woman who lives just up the road from me, I replied, without really thinking “Good!” As I looked directly at her, I caught a look of pleasant surprise on her face. Why? My usual reply when someone asks is either “Ok” or “So-so.” She has admonished me in the past about my attitude in my replies, saying that I never seem to be feeling good, which isn’t a healthy way to go about life. Shoot… I just don’t believe in lying when someone asks how I feel. My attitude about people asking what I consider an inane question is that if you don’t want to hear the truth, don’t ask.

  
  

       I know that questions like this are just a matter of courtesy & pleasantries, asked by people acknowledging someone they do care about (usually). A verbal ‘handshake’ if you will, usually by or to a person who has a large ‘personal space’ (mine is HUGE). But it’s one question I don’t ask people I know, unless they ask it of me first, or I really DO want to know how they feel right then, good or bad, because I care. When there is an unfortunate issue going on in their lives, I can put them into my ‘thought-prayers.’ What this means is that I don’t pray in the ordinary conception of that word’s meaning. I just think about the person, their name, & focus on their concerns & wish that things will get better in whatever way they need them to.

  
  

       An example of that latter statement about my thought-prayer is someone I ran into last night at the VFW I haven’t seen in a long time. He & his wife were in the canteen, sipping on a few beers & mixed drinks, respectively. I asked him how he was because he is one of the first Veterans I met after moving back to Hilo. He works at the State employment office as the Veterans’ representative & I met him when I went there to hunt for a job.

  
  

       He told me that he’s retiring from his job at the end of the year, with the remainder of the time between now & then on leave. He’s accrued many months of both regular leave (vacation time) & sick leave, not having taken much time off work in the years he’s worked there. Because he has hearing difficulties & his wife knew he needed to talk to an understanding Veteran, she moved over, insisting I take her seat. This was very odd to me, but it wasn’t long before I understood why. He told me then that he has been recently diagnosed with inoperable bilateral metastatic lung cancer. He knew I had been diagnosed with cancer & wanted to learn where he can get more information on alternative treatments for the cancers, even though he’s accepting going for chemo.

  
  

       Before the end of this week, he is moving to Honolulu to live with his son. He will be getting his treatments at Tripler & staying there with his son will be more convenient than flying back & forth when feeling miserable. His son will also be better able to offer physical assistance than his elderly wife. He’s given me his email address so I can write to him, providing him with the links to the information I have found on the Internet in the research I did for my own cancer. I am not going to tell him what he needs to do for his own cancer, but I’ve already made a couple recommendations, one which he’s already doing (noni), for him to be able to make his own choice of treatment, while being better informed as to what is out there for him. His daughter, he told me, is pretty Internet-literate, so will be the one tracking down the stuff I send to present to her dad. He didn’t say as much, so I am assuming she also lives there on Oahu. I am adding him to my ever-growing thought-prayer list.

  
  

  But back to my earlier response of “Good” to the question of how I was doing…

  
  

       What sparked a positive answer, contrary to my normal response? I’ve been focusing on getting through the rest of the month, financially, since I went overboard a tad with the recent SSI lump sum amount I recently received. I made a fairly large payment on one of my credit cards, trying to bring the balance down to a more reasonable level. With a few required purchases, especially in the form of foodstuffs, since our food stamps got cut in half, with a growing teen who won’t eat at school, I was looking a a small check bouncing. My son has had me pay for things he’s wanting, with the promise of paying me back with money he sometimes gets for helping out… small tasks for people we know. This started At the beginning of the year, when he ‘needed’ a new complete skateboard, which I put on my credit card, since he ordered it by phone. Although he’s given me a few dollars here & there against what he owes me, his purchases recently have run the total to more than double what it was originally.

  
  

       Ok… I’m ‘hearing’ you all say that I’m too easy with my son & his wants. Maybe so, but I am also teaching him money-management & responsibility at the same time. I’ve also been harping at him for months about getting a ‘regular job,’ so he can have the money he needs for the things he wants, when he wants them, rather than imposing upon the little we have been getting to live on, making it difficult for me to keep all the bills paid on time. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone would consider hiring him right now with his knee injury & impending surgery, so a real job is out for now.

  
  

       He’s a smart kid & I don’t hide the truth from him, especially when it comes to our finances. If there’s something he wants & there’s no money for it, I don’t give him some lame excuse, like I’ve heard other parents do to avoid the embarrassment of being poor. That doesn’t teach children honesty, does it, especially when the child will one day learn the truth.

  
  

       So, when I learned exactly what my bank account’s balance is, knowing I still had one check out which would overdraw it by about $26 & waiting for my upcoming lump sum of the Social Security Disability to deposit into my checking account & not knowing what would get to the bank first, I had asked my son if he had any money stashed away to help with that problem. He had said no, even though I knew he didn’t spend all the money he had when he bought a pair of new shoes off a friend who’d scored on them at Ross’ but wasn’t going to use them himself… he wanted to make a profit. Enterprising kid, that one. I knew my son had stashed change from some money I gave him to run into 7-11 to get us some snacks & drinks a few times.

  
  

       My son knows how much his friend actually paid for the shoes, but since the price he paid is still half that which it goes for from local & Internet shoe sources, he feels justified in paying that amount. Personally, I think $80+ (retail) for some of the shoes kids insist on buying is nuts. But it’s his money.

  
  

       I had thought to stop & check the mail on the way into town to pick him up from school. Sometimes, when I get that urge, there’s a good reason for it, but I ignored it this time, stopping on the way back. My ‘little voice’ was right! I should have stopped at the mailbox before going to town, since what was there had to be taken care of right then, or I’d be listening to a whiny kid all weekend, unless we would go to Hilo today. His lump sum check from the Social Security Administration was in! We hadn’t gotten the letter yet from the SSA defining their calculations, so this was out-of-the-blue to be there already! We were actually waiting for mine!

  
  

       I turned the car around & went back to my bank in town, so we could set him up an account. There’s no way they would give us that amount of cash & I am NOT permitted to put it in my own account. Now my son has his own (joint with me, since he’s a minor) checking account, which will cost him $2/mo until the Direct Deposit starts. I thought about having him get both a savings & checking account, so he can learn the financial banking process, but after learning the shitty interest amount they pay on locked 3-year CDs, as well as the piss-poor amounts they pay on savings, with required maintained minimums as well as the amount they charge if you don’t keep that in there, I said no way. Banks are ripping off the poor! How in the hell do they expect people to save money when it takes $200 & up to open an account, with forced deposits of at least $25/mo, or they will charge $4/mo for holding your money (while they make a profit off of it!)?!!! And people wonder why the economy today is so fucked up!!!

  
  

       I remember when the government mandated a minimum interest payment of 4% paid to customers. Back then, most financial institutions paid 6-12%. This bank is currently offering a rate barely over 2% for that locked 3-year CD! What they pay for conventional savings account, requiring a minimum balance of $200 with required minimum deposit of $25/mo is only 0.9%! And this is the amount that is paid ANNUALLY, not monthly. With compounded interest payments & an additional $300 deposited over a year, the interest earned for that account won’t even come to the $4 they will charge for each month that the account drops below $200 for even ONE day out of that month! What crooks!

  
  

       I’ve had my account with this large state banking company for almost 7 years. Other than the great people they have working there, who have always been friendly & helpful toward me, this bank has done nothing to help me, other than hold my money. They even took $4, then later $6/mo for several years from me, even with me having direct deposit. Once they offered the self-service checking plan at no fee with direct deposit (but costing $2 every time I use a teller), I jumped on it, especially since I already had direct deposit. This is what my son now has, but when I think about it, the next time we’re around one of the local credit unions, I’m going to check into opening an account there, if what they offer is anything near what they usually had in the past.

  
  

       My son went into Hilo sometime today with some friends. He’s going to enjoy a couple movies in the theater, including Jim Carrey’s latest ‘Bruce, Almighty’ (yech!). He also plans to get the video DV camera he looked at in Sears recently. I wish he’d done some price comparisons before rushing out to get it. There will be other editing equipment he’ll need to get eventually, but it looks as though he’s on his way toward becoming a professional videographer.

  
  

       It’s my job now to find out what kinds of purchases the SSA considers legitimate with my son’s money, or we’ll have to pay it back. One thing it does allow for is assisting with regular household expenses, such as rent/mortgage & utilities. So I can legitimately charge him half these expenses, yet use ’my’ money to buy him ‘gifts.’ It is required that he save as much as he can toward going for a college education once he graduates from high school. It IS his money, but they have stipulations on how it is to be used.

  
  

       I have a few things earmarked for my lump sum amount when it comes in. First is paying off my credit cards. Next will be to make our home better. What I have in mind here is paying a lump amount on my house payments, as well as turning the Agreement of Sale into a recorded mortgaged deed, with the same man as the mortgager. That way, I can qualify for the homestead & disability property tax exemptions, reducing that considerably. It will also give me a vote in my community association. I’m also considering making an offer to buy the properties abutting mine, picking up enough to make my property size a full acre, once consolidated, so I have more freedom considering the county laws, such as in being able to have a cesspool versus an expensive septic system, which does NOT work on catchment systems, since it needs to be kept reasonably full to adequately work to break down the waste.

  
  

       That will also give me more votes in the community as well, since it is one per property (even consolidated). I can possibly buy the ones around me for $1200 – $3000 each. It will take 4 more to add up to just over an acre. I’ll make the lowest offer first, then come up if they hedge on the amount. I have a couple things I can use toward keeping them down on the selling price, like the damage my house has suffered from their trees to my roof, telling them I’ll ignore that possibility of further damage & possible lawsuits if they’ll let me buy the property. Many of these people don’t live here, some never having seen the properties, but have been paying taxes & association dues every year without any benefit from their property, so they become a financial liability that most would never get to enjoy. They can turn around & buy other property here on the island for that same amount in areas with no association dues, some even larger than these here, at 8020 sq ft average.

  
  

       I do have plans to build a real house here, tearing this one down since it’s a shell requiring alot of expense to conform to building codes as well as the community standards. I’ve been working on the design myself, which I will present to a friend who’s a carpenter to see if it’ll go & what changes would need to be made. But it will be my dream house!

  
  

       Thank all of you who have been keeping my needs in your thoughts/prayers! Blessings! And please add this Coast Guard Veteran, Reggie, to your thought-prayers!

  • 3:04 am
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