Yeah! Really wishing in some ways that we stayed in Germany but I really missed my family and needed to come back. Oh America, a storm is coming. I am no expert here but I do read and watch the news. On THe News Hour last night Roger Altman, a former Clinton Financial Advisor, stated:

 

So yes I believe we ARE in trouble Mr. Lameduck President. Oh yes we are. Do you know that George W. Bush scheduled a press conference yesterday exactly at the same time Ben Bernanke had his press conference so that he could talk about the state of the economy at the same time Bernanke was talking to the Senate Finance Committee. What the heck is that? And while Bush was saying things like the economy is not in as bad shape as we think, Bernanke was saying the complete opposite. That in fact inflation will get worse, more banks will have problems, and there will likely be more job losses. Consumer confidence is down and so is consumer spending. Times are tough. So yes. Please let's face the facts folks! Take those blinders off. Admit, America is in for some tough times.

 

So not to sound crazy but I did buy extra flour, rice, and some soup. Hey what the heck? I have a family and like most Americans I don't have a lot of extra room in my budget for additional food price increases. Where do you cut the food? I used to buy organic. I can't afford it. I used to really read the labels and try not buy too much high fructose corn syrup, too much saturated fats, salty stuff. I still do but I also need a few snacks. I just buy less of them because it really does cost more money to eat healthy. Sad but trure. But I need to live and so does my family. So now I am cutting coupons. I used to do that but then I got lazy. I am back to it. I saved $4 dollars yesterday at BJs. Oh yes. Wholesale baby. I have to buy wholesale. I am sure that we do save money even by not having to drive to the grocery store twice a week, that saves. So that is the state of affairs. I want to go back to work but I am not sure I can find work. I started looking and didn't see much and I am not sure I can afford the childcare. Oh yes I feel the shock. Work so you can pay for daycare. Work so I can have a few extra dollars in my pocket to offset the rising cost of food and gas. The only reason I didn't work on getting a job right away is because we knew we were going to move out of the city and try and buy a house but we didn't know where. How can you get a job if you don't know where you are going to live? We are still in the process of trying to close on our house and I will not breathe a sigh of relief until we close in mid August. I have heard that banks have bailed at the last minute even after they issued a commitment letter. Well I have a commitment letter but I am being cautiously optomistic. I am trying to stay positive about the house even though I know that the value is going to drop the moment we sign the final papers. So that is that. I am done. Not really all that crazy. I mean a lot of people think I am Far out there worrying a little but guess what? I am not the expert here but the experts are telling us to brace ourselves.

Okay. SO I just talked to my dad. It is okay if I write about him on my blog because he doesn't care much for computers. But if he does read this, well he will have to forgive me. Anyways my dad seems to think that really bad economic times are coming. He is not alone. There are a lot of people out there who feel that way but he is taking it a step further and believes we need to perpare ourselves for the worst: food shortages, water shortages, sickenss...oh you know utter mayhem. He is a Vietnam Vet and I think he might be going a bit overboard but then again it gets you thinking....OH BOY what if it gets THAT bad? THen i guess we are all screwed. I have some dried fruit and nuts and a bunch of backpacking gear...but really what the heck am I going to do if it is all falling apart around me? That is all I can come to for a conclusion. There are people saying that it is a planned collapse of America so that the dollar will completely fall and we will suffer economic collapse like Argentina did because we are self-centered arrogant people who are out of touch with the rest of the world and our time has come. Well I don't know. THere are definitely a few of those here but not everyone is that way. I am not so selfish or so out of touch but you know hard times are here and more will be coming. But even though that could very well be the case, things could get that bad, I still want to believe that it will GET BETTER. I have to believe that as a Nation we can get it together and figure out how to do GOOD in the world or at the very least, help our neighbors. The midwest floods show people helping people. Heck the Ameircan people helped Katrina victims (our government didn't but regular citizens did). I still want to believe in people. If you can't see the good in the world, then what is the point of seeing? So for the sake of my family and the sake of all I will keep on believing in the greater good. Call me crazy but I have to.

 

Hello. Culture shock. Hello old friend. Hello America. Hello Boston. Hello Massachusetts.

 

SO I went shopping at the Shaws in Porter Square to get a gallon of milk. In the past when we lived in Seattle and when we were living in Germany, we always tried to buy organic milk hormone-free (they are starting to question if the added hormones in milk are okay for kids...in europe, they refuse to sell it. PERIOD.). Well here is news: THERE IS NO WAY I AM GOING TO BUY MILK FOR $8.20 A GALLON! I had to settle for the non-organic but still hormone-free for $4.00 and ouch that hurts too! Geez, do you think we might be in a recession? Do you think inflation is happening? I wonder!

 

Okay and so I am living in the city right now. Hopefully we can afford a house with a school district that is okay not failing and falling apart. It is looking pretty bad out there. The schools here are falling apart because most of the school districts get their revenue from income taxes based on-yes you have guessed it--home tax revenue. Well, since the housing market is not doing so great....yes that is right, now it is affecting schools. Schools are having to cut budgets even more. In three of the places where we can afford to buy a house and where it appeared that the school districts were decent, they are going to lay off teachers and make serious budget cuts. I feel like curling up into a ball.  I have been searching in a wide radius around Boston to find a place we can afford, that has the MBTA line in it or close enough to it,  that has a home that looks okay, that is not hours away from my family and a town with a decent school district (this last one is obviously one of the most important factors!). It is getting harder and harder to find this. I am not convinced we will. We may have to just go with a town and cross our fingers that the school and town for that matter (police, fire department, roads etc.) will not go belly-up. The Southshore looks good but it is pretty far from my family so we have been staying away from there. But maybe I have to re-evaluate our standards again. Maybe we can squeeze into a smaller house, deal with ripping off wood-panneling, scraping lead-infested paint from pealing window-sills, ripping out all the stained rugs, having ceilings that are one inch from my husband's head, having 5 feet of yard space, metal chaine-linked fences with scary dogs... God help me.

 

I miss my German solidly-made doors, windows, floors....I miss the prices of really good and good-for-you food. I miss it all. I miss walking the cobblestoned streets, the little Kita kids songs (I can't get Olivia into preschool anywhere right now becaue there are waiting lists a mile long!). Oh boy and do I miss the euro...being paid in euros! So yes, reverse culture shock has knocked on my door again. I am happy to be back around friends and family but sometimes I want to curl up in a ball because I feel like I do not belong anywhere. Where oh where do I belong? I have traveled the world, lived in foreign places, and now I am "home" again and I am just not sure what that means. I know one thing: I am tired of the city life. I am tired of overpriced ridiculousness. I am tired of walking to the playground and walking by the 3 guys who go through everyone's trash for bottles, the lady who dropped her purse and had needles fall out, and the people who really are talking to themselves (sorry, I know they can't help it but it still makes me nervous!).

 

Oh and here is another reason I want to move out of the city. I was at the playground down the street and there was a gaggle of 3-year-old girls all shouting and dancing to the tune of happy birthday so-and-so. I forgot to add that they were all dressed in these crazy beautiful expensive long dresses and really nice suede flower boots. Each girl looked like her mommy was trying to outdo the other mommies by dressing their girl one step up. I myself would die to have those clothes and these kids are like three years old wearing 200 dollar or more outfits. THe last time I saw little girls wearing clothes liek that to a playground was France and well that is France so I guess it is expected. But here? I mean how can you play in a dress like that? Apparently they were heading off to a sushi restaurant to celebrate a 3-year-old's birthday and one mom said to her little girl, Come on so and so, don't you want to go to the party and have sushi? The little girl responded appropriately. No! I don't want sushi! I don't want to eat sushit! (she said it and I am not sure she realized what she said but it WAS funny). I tried so hard not to laugh but could not stiffle my laugh. If looks could kill...oh boy. And I think I have problems getting my kids to eat their peas and carrots. OH boy. I might just have to be banned from that playground or not, because I really don't care that that mommy and a few others shot daggers from their eyes. I think it is a bit ridiculous. Maybe it is just me but WOW! That is all I can say now. WOW! I am just shocked. Shocked. Laughing, crying hysterically, scrunching my belly shocked.

 

(Oh and I just realized something...I think that this mom that was trying to get her daughter to go to the party to eat sushi- she was the one the other day who did the sniff test. YOu know. Not to be crude but I guess that is what it felt like. She came up to me and said hi, you are new here. Do you live in the area? Yes. I said. I live over by the hospital. Oh. Nothnig more. She just looked at my kids, looked at me, looked at my clothes, and awkwardness ensued. I just blew it off. Okay. Whatever. I guess I didn't pass the test? Or maybe it was nothing. That is great. Love that about New England. There is what is said and then there is what is not said. The full message cannot be understood unless you catch what was not said. Love it. Love the games we all play. I am in no mood to play games right now. No mood. I miss that about Germany too! There is not a lot of subtlety there...you know exactly what someone means. Here? Not so much...yah have a nice day (oh you mean you were being sarcasitic?). OH boy. Oi!)

 

 

So I have moved beyond having to plan my life around rain and clouds. That sounds a little crazy, I know. But here is the deal: I have lived in both Seattle WA in USA and in Aachen, Germany and it rained just about every day in both places. Seattle was beautiful in the summer. Sorry but I cannot say the same for Aachen Germany. Now that I am here in Boston, MA, I find that eventhough it is bitter cold some days, most of the time the sun is still shining and their are blue skies. It really makes a difference for me. I think I have suffered from S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) otherwise known as sadess due to lack of sun for too long and I am just now starting to feel a little more normal.

 

Now that i have moved beyond livign with cloluds, i have to move beyond havig my head in the clouds so to speak. Reality here is a bit more harsh when it comes to what it comes down to here is those that have money and those that don't. We find ourselves in the middle. We have started to do our first home buying search and it is both scary, sickenign and exciting all at the same time. Scary? Well there are a lot of homes out there that are way overpriced pieces of junk. THen there are the ones that really are sick. I mean falling down. Then there are deals to be had because people are defaulting on their loans. Now the last ones are great deals but scary because what you get is what you get no guarantees and you oftentimes have only 48 hours to decide to purchase. Ikes! Down the street from us in Cambridge there is a falling down piece of junk for (and brace yourself here) $675,000.00. THat's right. Step right up and sign right here and you can be the owner of a tear-me-down for almost 3/4 of a million dollars! Unbelievable.

 

So what are we to do? Well, I have been taking the MBTA site and checking every town that it goes to and seeing what the school district looks like and then seeing if we can afford any house with 3 bedrooms. It has to have a basement. What I keep finding is that the best schools are on the MBTA line or within a 45 minute drive to Boston and the houses start at, yes, you have guessed it 1/2 million dollars. SO we are waiting. We are looking and we are waiting. Maybe the market will crash even in those places and we can get a decent house. Oh please let it happen. Sorry to wish that but there is no other way we can afford a decent house in a decent school district with a reasonable commute. We make decent money. We have saved for a down payment. We planned for the market to crash. And yes, although we could afford something more than what we are looking at, we don't want to become another statistic. No, we won't take a crazy loan with variable interest rates and no, I can't live in crackville just to live close enough to Boston. I'm sorry but there are the desirable places to live that are a stone's throw from Boston and then there are the very undesirable places to live...I hate gentrificationt too...I hate that some places are out of a Martha Stewart catalog (look I like her stuff too but sometimes it is all a little too sterile, a little too homogenous) but I am not willing to experiment with my kids' education and safety. THere are places. We see places with potential. I can roll up my sleeves. I painted walls for a third job to put myself through college. I know what hard work means but I also have a baby and a toddler and I also know how little time we have right now. I guess some how some way we will make it work.

 

So how far would you drive? (lots of people here spend 2 hours or more total a day commuting...that is tough to do with a family but becomign more and more the reality.)

Okay. It has been almost 5 months now since arriving back in the US of A. In many ways i feel like i have entered back in to the blog into the sameold sameold antville mentality..back into the machine workforce that just keeps on working on to do something to make somethign to buy something to be something. Consume. Consume. Buy. Eat. Be Merry! It is so easy to fall back into that trap. The marketing is so good it is scary or so bad that you can't turn away. Your purpose in life is to buy. eat. be merry! I fell prey to a pair of shoes, then it was the dress, the cardigan, the ad was showing women away in a faraway land...away because they deserve to be away and oh you so deserve to buy that shirt, skirt, those shoes....

 

Sorry off on another crazy speil.

 

Back to Germany. There are a lot of things that are fantastic about Germany and in General Western Europe. I can only speak about Western Europe because that is where I lived one time ago in a land far far away. I understand why Americans romanticize europe. Hey Mr. Tambeourine Man play a song for me. In the jingle jangle morning I'll come following you. Hey MR. Tambourine man I made a song for you. I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to....(I like Dylan's words but not so sure I like what happened to his voice...) Anyways Germany made it their priority to take the environment seriously. They treated it like a pragmatic engineering problem and said, hello it just doesn't make sense to waste. Waste not, want not. I love that about Germany, The Netherlands, France, and Belgium. They recycle everything and if the packaging cannot be recycled, then the company who makes it and the stores that sell it have to pay a fee and/or figure out how to dispose of it.

 

Speaking of voices: What happened to the voices of the people who beleived in love and peace and being good to the earth? What happened to the love? the belief that things can change? (Kockamaney hooey treehugging hippie mantra stuff?!) What happened to their kids? What happen to the people in my generation? The people in the "me" generation, did they give up or never care? Why is it they don't seem to change? Why are we voting for the same two parties that make broken promises about our health care, our kid's education, our environment. Hell, why is it we have "No child left behind" but in reality, it seems as though every child, woman, and man who doesn't make enough, are left behind. We are behind America. We are behind. We have not seen the light. We don't realize that we have to change our consuming ways. We have to learn how to save. How to care for one another. We have to learn how to care for our planet, our earth. We need to be shaken into realizing that many of those people we see on the streets holding up signs are recent veterans and still we have our grandfathers on the streets from Vietnam. And still we don't see them. We don't want to see them. Our colored recylced paper gets sent to China on a boat as trash. They take our trash, sort out all the colored paper, and sell it back to us as recycled paper. Meanwhile our own people are losing their jobs. They are losing their homes. Their kids are struggling to make it through the new experimental math problems. Meanwhile we as a nation have fallen so terribly behind all other first world coutries in mathematics, language, and history, that yes, the word on the street in this global market is that the American bully can't cut it anymore and is in some sort of spinned out world going out of control, losing their jobs and their houses. Oh histroy? Do you think we need to know about history? History is why you are who you are. At the end of the day you are who you are because of history: Bad history; Slave history; "Exploration" history, women's history (or herstory if you prefer) and in the end, humankinds's history. You call it one thing and chances are, someone somewhere is going to see the other side to the story. So is it really history? Well, facts are facts and we should start with that. So yes, at the very least, please acknowledge that we all agree at some point We are all going to run out of natural resources and there just won't be any way or reason to make, buy, sell or trade that STUFF anymore. (Yes, I am talking about oil in case you were wondering.)

 

*(anyways forgive me...not sure where this is all coming from...I guess at the end of the day, I am not so impressed with ANY of presidential choices and really, I am looking not just for change but for radical change. Is that so hard to ask?)

 

So we have started to look at apartments in both Seattle and Boston. We are of course really hoping for Boston. Then there is the reality of what we can find—hah!—that won't upset our lifestyle here, meaning it won't be too different. The reality is we are going to have to drive most places. We can't afford to live in a walkable place and the places that are walkable are not safe. OH and we are renting again at least for a year until we can seriously look into buying.

 

So it is a shocker. A reverse culture shocker to see that in fact you do have to drive just about anywhere you live in America. Boston is a walking city. Seattle is also. But we wouldn’t be able to live in Seattle unless Matt wants to commute for 2 hours a day (all the jobs he is getting leads on requires that he drive over bridges and water and then commute in traffic with everyone else for at least an hour a day).

 

Then there is Boston. Oh do I want to move to Boston. I just want to be in the city. I am a city girl through and through. I have spent the last decade or so living in cities. I like the noise of a city. I like the lights and the way the patterns of lights spread out across the sky or on the sidewalk when it rains (forgive me I have lived in some very rainy cities). We like the theatre and all the hustle and bustle of a city. I like how unpredictable it all can be.  For the past ten years I have always lived somewhere where I could walk outside my door to boutiques, coffee, and a local corner grocery store.  But every day we are here there are less and less places available in our price range. I know because like a freak I have been checking the online Boston rental site. Do you know that there are some apartments in Boston, yes RENTALS, for like $15,000 a month--that's not a misprint. No we can't afford that...not even close. It better be painted in gold for that price and come with gourmet food delivered to bed every day. Oh and for that price I had better get some really nice fuzzy slippers, a cashmere robe, and a daily massage. Ah to dream. But seriously the clock is literally ticking away and so are our options.

 

I think I might freak out a little. I know this doesn’t make sense. I wanted to move, right? I wanted to move here to Germany and now I want to move back. I know I am not the most rational person. (Do other people suffer from these problems...these derangements...I can't seem to get with the program...Wait, what is the program? I think I lost that instruction manual.) We are still holding Olivia's spot at the local Kindergarten on the off chance that we aren't moving soon because I just can't think about giving up her spot if we are still here. It is a fantastic Kindergarten. But we aren't going to be here. He has already started making arrangements to get us out of here. I guess I fully admit I don’t know what I want. I want it all. Is that so hard? I want to be in a cool little city so I can walk to the store, the library, or maybe even walk my daughter to pre-school AND I want to be close enough that I can hop in the car to see my family. Is that so hard?

 

Yes, I am preparing myself. I know. It is not so realistic. I have got it.  Anyone who knows me knows I hate to drive. I guess I have always felt like it was me versus the machines. I had a very scary accident when I was 19 and I never really got over it. I made myself drive again after that and I drove for years before moving to Seattle. But then once I moved to Seattle I pretty much hung up my keys and took buses to work and walked. I worked at the University so it made more sense to do that anyway.  But I guess I am going to start driving again and it will be okay.  I haven't driven here in Germany. It was too expensive for me at first and it required me taking like 30 hours of driving lessons. I made excuses for not having the time but really I was a bit scared to get on the Autobahn with everyone going like 180 kilometers or more no joking here (I am not sure exactly how fast that is in mph but it is like 90 or so I think).

 

So that is that. I am not a bad driver…it is the other drivers out there that scare me to death. It is the fact that so many people are so nonchalant about it. Oh it is just a big machine that can kill someone if you don’t look before you back up or if you just take your eyes off the road for a second to do something like search for your lipstick or the cd holder (I have seen other people do this so many times). LA-DEE-LA-DEE-DAH. But other people do it every day. They drive and so shall I. But believe me if you saw some of the drivers in Boston and Worcester you would be scared too. But I guess well, that is that. It is part of life. Driving is part of life. I get it. I am working on it and some how I will manage it.

 

I had this dream the other night that the US government was interrogating us at the gates (not sure what gates, the airport?, the Embassy?...you know place can be a weird thing in dreams). Anyways they weren't going to let us back in to the country. A new part to the Patriot Act had been added and now all expats have to go through some sort of re-entrance exam. This is not true to my knowledge but well it's a dream...And then in the dream they kept asking me over and over why did you go to Germany? Why did you go there? And then they would start yelling things at me in highspeed German and see if my brain was registering them. (I guess my brain was hooked up to one of those electrode brain monitoring things). And I didn't know what they were saying and they kept insisting that I knew something. At one point I broke down and asked to speak to a lawyer. The officers interrogating me said YOU FOOL. YOU CAN'T HAVE A LAWYER. I said it was my right and they said hah! Habeas Corpus (*see below for description) has been suspended and you can be jailed for as long as we want as long as we suspect you are a terrorist. I am not a terrorist. I am not. I insisted. I just don't like what has happened in the Bush Administration. I am a Democrat. I can't be jailed for that, can I? The dream is a bit farfetched and silly. Nightmares and dreams can be that way but well the reality of things is something to think about.

 

The truth is a little scary. The truth is I don't write a lot of my political thoughts in my blog because who knows, maybe they wouldn't let me back in. I mean that is ridiculous right? Paranoia is afterall an American trait. I am just a stay-at-home mom with two kids under three who wants to move back to Boston to be around my family. I guess I realized that the dream is not so far fetched. You do have to be careful. America is a different place. Believe me sometimes I think to myself why are we going back to such a violent place? Why are we going back to a government who failed to help its own people after a devastating disaster hit New Orleans? Or how about all of the lovely things the current administration has done to overturn and even destroy all the steps we have taken in the past fifty years to better the enivironment? The answer is: I love my family and I love my country too. I may not agree with everything all the time but if I want to change it, then I have to be there to change it. Period. Love it or leave it? I don't think so. Only through constructive criticism can true change be made. No, I choose stay and help it. Let's just hope the Democrats don't mess it up this time and we actually get back in office and DO SOMETHING GOOD (for a change).

 

*(This is from About.com http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/habeuscorpus.htm )

"What is a Writ of Habeas Corpus?
A writ of habeas corpus is a judicially enforceable order issued by a court of law to a prison official ordering that a prisoner be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that prisoner had been lawfully imprisoned and, if not, whether he or she should be released from custody. A habeas corpus petition is a petition filed with a court by a person who objects to his own or another's detention or imprisonment. The petition must show that the court ordering the detention or imprisonment made a legal or factual error. The right of habeas corpus is the constitutionally bestowed right of a person to present evidence before a court that he or she has been wrongly imprisoned."

 

(My insert here)