The Lynne Show

I am back from my lovely trip in Paris. I will probably spend some time this weekend writing a long boring post with lots of photos :) But for now. All I can say is that Paris is awesome but it is nice to be back home too although I wish the weather were a bit nicer here.

I am leaving for Paris tomorrow. Yay! And I should be packing and cleaning my house. But as per usual, when I need to be doing one thing, I find reasons to do something else. In this case, blogging!

Since I am going to France tomorrow, I have been thinking about the economics of the place. It is funny because one of the first papers on economics I ever wrote was one where I compared and contrasted the economic systems of the USA and France. I was in eight grade and while it was a good paper for a person of that age, I still remember that I called France's economy Capitalist and in the margins where I wrote about all the state owned and operated businesses (mostly utilities and transportation if I remember correctly) my teacher wrote, "Isn't this Socialism?" *

And so it was. France has a economic system that imho combines some of the better parts of capitalism with some of the better parts of socialism. It is a system that has worked for decades. They have universal health care coverage. They have government services that Americans can hardly imagine. But most industries are private and generally the economy is a capitalist one these days. France is from everything I have heard a nice place to live and a nice place to work.

Here is the thing. There probably is no perfect economic system. But France seems to have come close in that they have a well regulated capitalist economy with large socialistic safety nets. In many ways, their economy is similar to the economy in the USA except they lean a bit more towards the regulation and safety net while we have a slightly more laissez faire approach.

I honestly believe that the US government could look to France and other European countries for guidance in our economy. I dont advocate pure socialism. I believe that those Chicago School economists were right about some things although goodness knows they werent right about everything. For instance, the state cant control all aspects of an economy for the simple reason that there are so many variables in any economic system that no one can know all of them. There are market forces and like the forces one finds in the field of physics, those forces are present no matter what one does. One can no more legislate away forces of supply and demand any more than they can legislate away the force of gravity.

But a government can and should influence the forces that are present. A government can perform certain tasks more efficiently than the private sector while the private sector excels in other areas. e.g. fire and police protection are probably better accomplished by government bodies than by private firms. And the production of ordinary goods and services are usually best accomplished in free markets (although still with some regulation).

Basically it comes down to this. Economic systems that are too socialist are inefficient. Think Soviet era state control. Not so great. But unregulated capitalist systems have their own problems. Think about how long that free market would stay free if the capital gets too concentrated into the hands of a few. Monopolies are a product of capitialism and are, in their own way, hugely inefficient.

The best bet is a combination of the two. Regulated capitalism with strong social safety nets. There is more stability (and trust me, stability is good for free markets). There are fewer social costs. It's not all about money.

My dream economy would have things like universal health care and a guaranteed minimum income. More social security benefits. More social programs including free higher education. More government run businesses like utilities. Better roads, better public transportation, better funding for scientific research including things done just for the fun of it like going to the moon. A highly regulated labor market with lots of laws protecting workers. And yes, higher taxes. I believe that if we spend our money in good ways that build infrastructure, it will allow the regulated but otherwise free capitalist firms to go about their business with the most efficiency.



* That paper was written shortly after the Mitterrand government had implemented a big socialist reform which created a backlash such that many of the previously socialized and state controlled institutions were placed into private hands.

I have, alas, been very bad about blogging lately. And the funniest part about it is that it hasnt been because of a lack of things that I have wanted to write about. I swear, at least once a day I find myself thinking, "this would make a good blog post" and sometimes I even compose the whole post IN MY HEAD where it does no one any good.

I have wanted to tell the world about the people I see on the bus. Last week, I saw a mentally ill woman I used to know a long time ago. She didnt recognize me. But she was on the bus with a man who was clearly in love with her and with whom she apparently lived. I listened to their conversation for the entire TWO HOUR bus ride home (snow storm). It was funny because I found their words to each other very touching and very nice and it made me feel kind of good. But I was still stuck on the bus for TWO HOURS and I had a pee a little bit and I was hungry and frustrated and wanted to scream. Anyways, this woman was just so happy that she was, perhaps inappropriately, spreading it around by talking to people on the bus. There is, after all, bus etiquette that strangers only rarely speak to each other. As I got off the bus downtown, she said to me, "sweetie, if you need the eleven, you need to wait right by me" but I had to decline her offer since another bus which could get me home had just pulled into the transit station.

I wanted to tell everyone about my car which has now broken down twice in a week. I just spent five hundred bucks on it and now it is back in the shop and who knows how much else I will need to spend. The timing is bad because I need all the money I can get for my upcoming trip to Paris. I am going to do my taxes this weekend and I am going to hope that I get my refund before I leave. Still, on the money front, except for the car repairs, I am digging myself out of a financial hole that I am ashamed to have found myself in because I am smarter than that. Sometimes smart people do dumb things. But anyways, I have recovered from an earlier financial crisis and have enough money to live my life without the horrible budget I have been living with for the last several months. But, of course, I am going to still live with the horrible budget but just knowing that I dont HAVE to somehow makes it easier to do it. Weird I know. But there you go.



I wanted to tell everyone about last night. There was a lunar eclipse and everything worked out perfectly for it which as anyone who lives in Michigan can tell you, the chances of a clear night in Michigan in February arent especially high. But last night was crystal clear and the moon turned this cool orange color. I was at the lake where there are few city lights or at least fewer than here in Ypsilanti. So I stood on the deck there for a half an hour in the cold and looked at the beautiful moon and the stars which just seemed to get brighter as the moon got darker. I looked up at my favorite constellation, Orion for a long time and I thought about things I learned in my astronomy class about how Orion is in a part of space where new stars are being born and about how I'll be dead before any of the light from a star being born right now ever gets to earth. The nebulae in that part of space, such as the Orion Nebula, are just about the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

There has been more stuff too but I will have to save it for another time...

It is really cold and windy here in Michigan today so I didnt want to go far for lunch. I figured it would be fun to take my laptop over to the coffee shop across the street.

Coffee shops are such interesting places and coffee shops in Ann Arbor are especially interesting....

It's mostly women here at the moment. I dont know if there are actually more women in the coffee shop but the there is only one guy in the back room here. Maybe women prefer this back room because it has an intimacy to it and is a good place to sit around unnoticed. I have had lots of people tell me that this particular coffee shop is known as a "pick up place" so maybe people sit back here in order not to be noticed. I like to sit back here so I dont get distracted by people coming into and leaving the coffee shop.

The conversations are what you might expect. Lots of liberal politics. Some gossip. Some business conversation. That sort of thing. One of the reasons I like the back room is that it actually is difficult to eavesdrop because the conversations blend together. I interviewed for my current job here and didnt worry about people listening in.

I come to this place often enough that they know my name but I usually just get coffee in the morning before work and dont hang out so it is kind of neat to sit here and see whats going on. There is such a different atmosphere here than there is at coffee shops in Ypsilanti. The people in Ypsilanti feel more real to me somehow. I always feel like I am "hanging out with the cool kids" when in the coffee shops in Ann Arbor. Isnt that funny? I think it is just that so many people are clearly very affluent while in Ypsilanti, people look different. I know that if places were like houses, Ann Arbor would be some kind of model home used to show off some designer's work while Ypsilanti has a more "lived in" feel to it. If you went to Ann Arbor's house, the dishes would all be done and the only clutter would be a stack of Russian novels on the bedside table. But in Ypsilanti, you might find things a little less put together and showy and more homey and comfortable. Like you could put your feet up on Ypsilanti's coffee table but you might feel you had to take your shoes off when entering Ann Arbor's house. :)

Ahhhh. The neglected blog.

It is funny how little I feel like writing these days. I guess things like writing come in waves. At least for me anyways.

So things here in Michigan are good or at least as good as can be when the temperature is down in the teens and single digits (that's below zero with the wind chill). I am constantly reminded that I cant find my winter stuff -- gloves, hat, etc. I always tell myself in the summertime that the cold will motivate me to clean up my stuff so that I can find things like my hat and gloves and yet here I am with none of those things.

It is kind of like my washer. It broke last August. And every time I go to the laundromat, I tell myself that going to the laundromat will motivate me to clean up my basement so I wont be embarrassed to have someone come deliver a new washing machine. Not that I have the money for a new one at the moment. I figured I wasnt going to get around to buying one so I bought a plane ticket to Paris instead! I guess there are rewards to procrastination.

Anyways, all in all, life is good. I still love my job and still have it. I have a really cool house. I have wonderful friends. I went to my friend Burt's 40th birthday party on Saturday night. I had a really good time. I lost touch with him and that whole crowd for years but have reconnected with them (because of MySpace of all things) and I am just so happy about that. I met Burt when I was in the 7th grade! It is nice to talk to people who knew me whan I was young because I was so different then that no one I meet now can ever get to know that kid that I was. But Burt knows. As it happens, I was kind of an asshole but Burt is kind enough to have forgotten that part or at least kind enough to say that he does. But then wasnt everyone kind of a jerk in junior high/middle school? I suspect that my sister who teaches kids that age might agree with me although I've never asked her.

I havent been doing much this past week except the usual going to work, walking the dogs, and watching TV.

Work - Man, I have to say that my job totally rocks. I know I am always going on about it to people but I have really been fortunate to land here. My co-workers rock. The bosses rock. I get treated well all the time. I am generally good at what I do but I have found out that even if I make a big mistake, I get treated a lot differently at this job than at my other one. I still have days where I wake up and dont feel like going into work but they are much fewer and far between than before. All in all, in that area, things are going well.

Dogs - they sure are fun. Last week we had lots of snow and it is so funny to see how differently each of my two dogs deals with snow. Brooke LOVES it. She always runs out and dives right in. She gets her whole head under the snow, she runs around in it, she makes snow angels, and generally just has a blast with it. Tasha on the other hand will walk outside and then will turn around and try to walk back in the house as soon as she realizes that there is snow on the ground. I have to make her go out to pee. It is hilarious!

We have been having some really unseasonably warm days for the past couple of days. I think it got up to 64F yesterday which was a record high. There has been a lot of rain too which combined with the melting of all the snow from last week has meant a lot of mud. There is so much water and mud down at the park that the paved path is mushy. That is too bad since I am pretty sure that the city doesnt have money to replace it. They did replace the lighting down there though but, so far, they havent turned them on. Oh well. I went down there yesterday and there were lots of people with dogs there. It was cool. Tasha LOVES meeting people and other dogs. Brooke likes it too but with less gusto than this yellow lab.

TV - I have just discovered Friday Night Lights. NBC.com has full episodes all the way back to the pilot on their web site. I have watched the entire first season in a week and a half! When I first heard of it, my thought was "A show about high school football in Texas? It sounds perfectly awful" But it turns out that it is well written and quite interesting. Even the football parts are decent. I would even go so far as to say that this show's fake, staged football games are much better than real live football games. For one thing, they only last a few minutes and they just show the "good parts" ;) I am learning things about football from watching the show though.

What can I say? 2007 was a good year for me. I can only hope that 2008 will be just as good. I hope everyone's 2008 will be good too. There are 104 chances to win the lotto this year. I hope that me and my closest 103 friends all hit it big. Haha. J/K I am sure that if that scenario were to actually occur, I would find myself behind bars since no one, not even me, would ever buy such an occurrence :)

I am not big on New Year's Resolutions but I do have some goals this year.

I am going to go to Europe.

I am going to work to improve my external environment (i.e. keep my house cleaner)

I am going to challenge my mind somehow. Maybe this will be the year I spend more time playing video games :)

I finally got my diploma from Eastern which was this whole drama. They sent it to me via UPS but they required a signature. I only got the last notice of a final delivery. Luckily I found the other notices in the bushes because I was all set to call UPS and bitch them out. There were some pretty wet and windy days so the notices must have blown off my door. I ended up having to stop by campus to pick it up myself.

I kind of wondered why they insisted on sending it signature required because who would steal a diploma? I mean, it isnt like it would have any kind of value to someone else. It has my name on it after all. That got me thinking so as a joke, I xeroxed it and then whited out my name and wrote my name back in with a black sharpie so it would look extra fake. But that was just something silly to do with it.

I ended up throwing the thing into the trunk of my car. That is where it is now. I cant think of a thing to do with it. I suppose I could throw it into a drawer or something. That is what I did with my high school diploma. It seems kind of pretentious to display it although part of me wants to because I get happy every time I look at it since it means no more school for me.

Anyways, I am just curious. To those of you who have earned some sort of diploma, what did you do with it. Where is it now? Do you think it is pretentious to display it?

Yeah I know I said that I was going to blog every day in November but after a while, I found that it became a chore and since blogging is supposed to be a hobby, I decided to give myself a break. Truthfully, I still dont feel much like writing so I am just going to share some pictures instead.

This is one of my new dog Tasha. She's pretty wiggly but managed to sit still just long enough for a photo:



And of course, this is my favorite dog, Brooke:



This is one of my sister's dog, Buddy:



This is a photo of the dinner table at Thanksgiving:



And finally, this is my mother, my cousin Catherine, my cousin Anna, my Aunt Nancy, me, and my sister-in-law Katrina modeling some hats that belonged to my grandmother who died in September. She had some pretty interesting hats!

Years ago, my aunt brought my sister back a present from Paris. My sister teaches French. My aunt is a retired teacher. She knows about kids and what interests them. She knows that teachers often have to come up with creative bulletin boards in their rooms. Her present to my sister was toilet paper from the bathroom in the Eiffel Tower. (My present was a bottle of overproofed rum from Jamaica).

My sister used that toilet paper on a bulletin board with great success. It turns out that middle school age kids *are* interested in exotic Eiffel Tower, Parisian toilet paper.

Anyways, over the summer, I told this toilet paper story to my friends who have since moved to France. I told the elder daughter that I think my sister could use some NEW Eiffel Tower toilet paper. I told her that if she happened to find herself in Paris, she should go to the Eiffel Tower, find the highest bathroom, and get me some more toilet paper.

My friends called me yesterday. They are going to Paris. That nine year old girl seems to be taking her mission very seriously. I think someone I know might get toilet paper again for Christmas. haha

Tblog has been having trouble for the past couple of days, mostly with their login page. It seems somewhat intermittent. Anyways, if I dont post for a couple of days, that's why.

*note* I made this post yesterday but for some reason tblog wouldnt let me log in until just now. Weird.

While I was out walking the dogs this evening, I noticed a whole mess of fire trucks on Prospect. There is this one house there that I walk by all the time. Every time I walk by it, I always think that it has a fabulous porch and sometimes I wonder if I could build up a little wall around my porch too but then I remember that I dont have enough money to do it and the historic district people would probably be against it anyways. It was that house that had the firefighters crawling all over it.

I think I walked by at the tail end of whatever excitement there was. I didnt see any fire, just a bunch of fireman crawling around the house. They had a ladder too and looked like they were paying close attention to the chimney. I am guessing that the people who lived at that house probably got lucky.

It is shame that we have to cut back on our fire protection. I really hope that something changes and cities like Ypsilanti can have money for such niceties again.

Sometimes I cant even keep promises to myself. I skipped blogging yesterday but I dont feel bad about it. Well...not too bad. I wasnt feeling well. I had a headache and pretty much spent the entire day in a dark room sleeping because anything that had to do with light hurt my eyes. I think it was either a brain tumor (very unlikely), a migraine (still pretty unikely) or else my vision is going bad and I might need glasses (much more likely). This headache came on after I worked all day on a computer and then came home and read for 6 hours or so.

Of course, I dont have a vision plan so if I do need glasses, I'll have to pay for them myself. I am going to wait and see if I get any more headaches though before I decide to spend any money. The funny thing is that I dont know how much of that is because I dont want to spend money and how much of that is because I dont want to admit that my eyes, or any other part of me, might be aging.

I am not entirely sure why I dislike seeing the signs of aging in myself. It isnt so much that I am worried about losing my looks because I never had conventional beauty in the first place and in the second place, I kind of think that older women *are* beautiful in their own way anyways. No...I think what bugs me is that aging is a reminder that life is finite and I figure that around half of my life is over. I just feel like I want MORE time. Half over already? It can't be!

Oh well. I hear that when people get really old, they sometimes feel done. I guess that is my wish: That no matter when or where I die, I'll feel done living.

I cannot remember a time when the Canadian dollar was worth more than a US dollar. But today, I was curious about the rate and was shocked to learn that the rate is $1.07 USD to $1 CAD. Wow. What will this mean?

My first thought was that I might need to learn to appreciate American beer since my favorite beer, Labatt Blue, is made in Canada. My second thought was that now probably isnt a good time to visit Toronto. My third thought was that this is probably good for Michigan and the rest of the country too.

You see, a weak dollar means a lot of things. Foreign vacations get more expensive. Flying in water from France gets even more decadent. Basically, imported things become more expensive relative to domestic versions. That will mean higher prices for anything imported. It also means that moving jobs offshore becomes more expensive which means jobs that would have otherwise been lost to foreign competition will remain the US.

Michigan, in particular, probably needs jobs more than it needs cheap crap from China or expensive French cheeses or nights out at the Windsor Ballet.

Yeah yeah, I know. who doesnt enjoy weekends? Seriously though, I have been having a relaxing one. I got Harry Potter from the library and have been sitting around, eating toast, drinking tea, and reading.

At my old job, I used to get free books. Lots and lots of free books and the books that I didnt get for free, I got a deep discount. It was great at first but eventually I realized that I had a problem. I had a hard time throwing away books. I also found that I had hard time giving them away (I eventually settled on wrapping them up and passing them out as White Elephants at the family Xmas party). It was a LOT of effort.

As it happens, my mother had a similar problem because I kept giving her so many books. We were sitting in the kitchen one day bemoaning having so many books in our possession. "Why is getting rid of books so hard? Why cant I just throw them away? If only there was a place where one could go where one could rent or borrow books to read so that when one is done, one doesnt have to keep the book!"

My Dad just shouted in from the other room, "you mean like a LIBRARY?"

Hahaha. I thought of that because I have finally gone to the library after not going for several years. I went because I dont have the job with the free books anymore. I got *two* books.I am rather glad, now that I think about it, that when I am done reading these books, I can take them back to the library. They wont clutter up my house more than it already is.

Sometimes I wonder about why I find it so necessary to keep dogs. Part of it is that they are a deterrent against would be home invaders or at least they are a deterrent against the sane ones...owning dogs didnt keep that crazy naked man from running through my house for instance. But part of it is that there is just something about a dog that warms my heart.

I had one of those moments today when I took the girls for a walk to Riverside Park. We were walking and Tasha, the new dog, spotted some people with dogs on the other side of the park. She just got all excited about it and well...full of JOY. When we got close enough, I let her go over to meet them and as soon I said "OK" she just tore over to them all wiggles and happiness. Then, when I whistled for her, she came running back to me with the same enthusiasm. She expresses her joy with her WHOLE body too.

For Brooke, of course, going to the park is old hat but she still loves it and she too just pranced and ran and generally had a good time. Now we're all cozy in our little house and everyone is happy.

In short, the dogs remind me to have joy. And sometimes, like in the winter when it is dark all the time, I need that.

Since Daylight Saving time ended, I've been getting up earlier which is saving me money again. I get a free bus pass from work so every day that I can get up in time, I save the cost of parking downtown and the cost of gasoline to drive downtown and the wear and tear on my car. It is an amount that I figure to be around $50/week.

I took the bus this morning and had the good fortune to ride one of those new hybrid buses. They are especially ugly buses but much nicer for riding in. They are quiet and less stinky. Well less stinky as in there seem to be less engine fumes but never fear, they may sport the odor of alcholic - cigarette addicted - non bathers. I sometimes wish we could go the way of SF and have all electric buses or even streetcars! Oh well, the hybrid buses are a move in the right direction and are a pleasure to ride. Ok, maybe not *pleasure* to ride but definitely an improvement.

I cant think of any brilliant posts to write so I am just going to talk about my day...

I woke up and was glad that the sky was beginning to get light. I am NOT in favor of ending Daylight Saving time a week later. Seriously, I need to be up by 7:15am if I want to pack a lunch and take the bus to work from Ypsilanti. Last week, I kept waking up after 8am which meant that I had to drive to work and pay to park and even then, I was 10 minutes late a couple of times. Besides, having darkness in the mornings doesnt make me save energy because I turn on lights and then forget to turn them off when I leave. It is much much better for me to just wake up when it is light.

My work is going well. I enjoy it. I get to go swimming on my lunch hours. And today there was an announcement that we might be getting a pool table! It will mean getting rid of the ping pong table but everyone agreed that a pool table would be better for formulating and discussing ideas. I still dont get tired looking out of the windows but unfortunately now that the sun is to the south, there are certain times of day when it shines right into my eyes and then I have to shut the blinds. Still, sun in my eyes is better than no sun.

I went to Costco after work. How boring. The sad thing is that I pretty much only had enough money to pay for dog/cat food and treats for the dogs. Or maybe that is a good thing because Costco is an easy place to blow a lot of money.

Then I had dinner at my parents and picked up my dogs who were on vacation at the lake. Now I am home and I am going to watch a DVD and then I am going to see if I can find some election results before going to bed.

The thing is...I know that my life is somewhat boring now and I am kind of happy about it. It's all good boring. Which is way better than bad interesting, if you know what I mean.

So I met up with a couple of my lovely neighbors and went to see that Sherman Alexie lecture thing at EMU. It was great! He is not only good at telling a story in print, he is good at telling a story in real life too. If there is one thing I love, it is a person who can tell a good story. I probably got that from living with my Dad who has a particular talent for oral story telling. Actually now that I think about it, a lot of folks in my family have that talent. It makes family events that much more interesting. I have noticed too that I am drawn to people with this particular talent. I have a lot of friends who really can spin a mean yarn when they need to. Sometimes their stories are so good, I repeat them. I know this is a trait a lot of others have too and that always makes me laugh.

It is funny though how sometimes a great story when told orally can become lifeless in a written form. Writing a story down takes away so much. You cant gesture or give people funny voices or anything when writing. I think that is why I am always so impressed with people who can take a story and give it life in print.

So what can I say about Alexie. Well, I'm impressed.

This morning, I heard a story on the radio about Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH. They are in real danger of closing and are at the moment only staying open because the alumni have managed to raise enough money to keep them open.

I never was a student at Antioch but there was a time when I really wanted to be. I even visited their campus. I loved the place. It was exactly the sort of hippy dippy free thinking kind of place that I know I would have both loved and would have suited me best academically. When I first heard about Antioch and told my Dad about what a cool place it seemed, he just started laughing and said that every weirdo in our family has always wanted to go to Antioch so Why Not? My uncle and one of his cousins went there.

But I ended up deciding not to go. I got a scholarship to the local community college. I had a new boyfriend and I was all in love with him. The tuition at Antioch was way more than my parents could have afforded. EtC ETC. I took a different road.

It hasnt been bad. My life, in many ways, is really darn good. But every so often, I wonder how my life might have turned out differently if I had just gone to that school. Who would I have met? What would I have learned? It is during those moments when I think of a certain famous poem by Robert Frost. And then I laugh

The town I live in, Ypsilanti, has an income tax issue on the ballot this Tuesday. It is for a proposed temporary income tax of 1% for city residents and 0.5% for non-residents who work in the city. There is some property tax roll back in the scheme which gives a break to people like me who own property in the city.

Oddly, I find myself in opposition of this tax. Most people who know me know that is not the usual position I take on these sorts of issues. I usually am very much in favor of tax increases especially when I think that the tax money will be spend wisely. I know that the last time I can remember any kind of tax increase in Ypsilanti being voted on (the road one around six or seven years ago), I voted yes for it. I just cannot, in good conscience vote for this income tax.

Firstly, I dont like it because I think that with the property tax roll back, it places more burden on renters than on homeowners. Since renters tend to be poorer, it puts too much burden on hard working lower income people who are the very group of people I believe should have tax burden lifted from them.

This poorer group is also represented by people who work in our city. Yeah, ok, the people over at EMU probably have pretty decent jobs at decent pay (especially the professors), but over on my street there is a factory. A factory which, judging by the cars its workers drive and by how many dont seem to have cars at all, clearly is not paying too much. And there are lots of other low-wage jobs in this city and those people probably cant afford the tax either. I mean, even if their tax burden is only a hundred dollars a year, it is important to remember that for a poor family, a hundred dollars is a LOT of money. It is a utility bill. It is a winter coat. It is a whole wardrobe from Value World. A week's groceries. Whatever. I just know when I see the workers at that factory that they can ill afford such a tax.

Another reason I am against this tax is that I think the main reason the City of Ypsilanti needs this tax is because the tax structure in our state is broken. I believe that this tax will not fix that but instead may hide some of the symptoms of it which will mean that things are less likely to change. Maybe the state needs to see cities like Ypsilanti struggling? Something has to change though. It sucks that I have to pay so much more tax than my neighbors in Ypsilanti Township. It sucks that I have to pay so much more tax than my parents, who live in Green Oak Twp in a house easily worth four times as much as mine. I dont mean that I have a higher rate either, I mean that I pay more tax...more than a thousand dollars more!

This income tax is also something that is very visible and something that will have an effect on the housing market here and not a positive one. I know that reduced fire and police protection and all of the other cuts that will happen without the income tax will also have a negative effect on house and rental prices but I think that because an income tax is so in-your-face visible and reduced fire and police are not things that one notices every day, the tax will have the more negative effect.

So, please vote NO on the City Income Tax.

Tonight, what I would be doing instead of blogging and what I will be doing as soon as I am done blogging, is to engage in some guilty pleasures of mine.

1. Naturally, no guilty pleasure list would be complete without food. And tonight for dinner, I am having a great big giant "everything" bagel. It will be toasted and will have lots of cream cheese on it. YUM!
2. I am going to watch Meerkat Manor. A show that I stumbled on over the summer while hanging out at my parents house. They have cable. I dont. But I have Netflix and Netflix has Meerkat Manor. So I have two DVD's of the cute little buggers to watch.
3. Booze. Let's just say that I have a bottle of wine and I dont need to drive anywhere tonight.
4. Pajamas. I LOVE pajamas.

Well, now that I think about it, that is a pretty lame list. In my younger days, I would have been dropping acid and staying up all night with my friends causing trouble. Although I sometimes miss those days too, there is something to be said for the life of a boring middle class middle aged lady too.