Examined Lives

A family travels the world

2009-11-11T16:48:16-05:00

Green-eyed monster is throwing a fit over here, after I read this New York Times article on a family that has managed to live out something I've only dreamed about: traveling around the world. Indefinitely.

The indefinitely part wasn't really in the cards for us, but the traveling around the world was. Back in 2000, after the husband and I got laid off, we thought about selling our house for a pretty penny and then home-schooling the older child—we had a baby, too, at that time—for a year while we circled the globe. We'd had it all planned out, even a budget of sorts. A book we'd read about a family that did something similar gave us a ton of tips. (Australia allows foreigners to enroll their kids in their great public schools, which gave them a break from homeschooling.)

But then old-fashioned pragmatism prevailed. Naysayers—and there were many—said the kids needed stability. To which another friend cried "bullshit," because, as she so eloquently put it, a loving family is most of the grounding a kid needs. So we sold the house, moved east, got jobs and an apartment, and here we are.

Sometimes I wish we'd gone on that trip. It would be difficult now, especially with one child in high school, when her social life and future plans for college hold lots of sway. When she was 7, it wasn't such a critical thing to home-school her one year. (We were moving, anyway, so it's not as if we weren't cutting ties.) Now, it feels like a major upheaval.

If you look closely at the comments on the Times article, there are critics aplenty. But from my vantage point, this set-up seems mostly win-win. Your thoughts?

—CityMom

Waste or Want: Pantry oddities

2009-11-02T18:29:45-05:00

I started thinking about this post when I noticed a few truly antique items in my pantry and freezer - packages crusted over with ice; dented boxes of exotic grains; twelve varieties of stale nuts. Too many items to list individually, really, and plus right off the bat, we know they're going to waste.

But I'm going to plow ahead anyway, because the amount of stuff sitting there unused is truly wasteful. I mean, imagine if you added up the stuff everyone had sitting unused in pantries and basement freezers! I bet you could come up with Thanksgiving dinner for every homeless person in New York City.

So, I polled a few friends to find out what they had in their freezer, to compare similarities with my own excesses, and here is the resulting list of items that linger, in order of popularity (or non-popularity, however you choose to think about it):

Quinoa. A grain-like crop that originated in South America, cheap and very high-protein, most of those polled mentioned quinoa (KEEN-wa). Fabulous, but I've yet to find a person who can cook it so that it is edible, or even knows how to cook it. Boxes of these pebbly bastards grace a lot of shelves, including mine, if they haven't been trashed already. I vaguely remember using it with cauliflower and cheese to make a casserole a decade ago.
Coconut milk. Why, why, why? Because the name sounds good. Meryl Streep once said on The Actor's Studio, when asked her favorite word, that she had posed the question to her young daughter, who immediately mentioned the infamous unused ingredient. Yep, sounds pretty. But unless you've got the curry and lemongrass and rice noodles and what-all that usually go with this to make a dish, you're screwed.
Bulghur wheat. Same story as quinoa.
Panko bread crumbs. Because you never know when you're going to fry up a batch of tempura shrimp!
Matzoh meal. Making matzoh ball soup must be complicated.
Tomato paste. Classic thing that you pick up, thinking, "Oh, think I'm out of that!" and you never are.
Turkey chili and beef jerky for a planned camping trip that evidently never occurred. Or if it did, they ate wild greens.
Soba noodles. They're great. I just never got around to cooking them.
Confectioner's sugar. Quite a few bags and half-bags out there.
Lotus nuts in syrup. (That was my husband's inexplicable contribution.)
Half-box of frozen ice pops. Weather changes, who wants 'em. The other half of the box, still in liquid state, sits on the pantry floor. When I bought these, the cashier cheerily said, "Hey, I've had a box of those in my room for about five years!"

The moral here: Beware of buying ethnic food ingredients if you aren't making the entire meal tonight, and already have everything you need. Clean the pantry every year or so so you don't keep buying the same staple items over and over. Go easy on seasonal items. Oh, and stick to a list when you shop.

Now, would they like Panko crumbs for the school Thanksgiving food drive...

~BurbMom

What's it all about, Alfie?

2009-10-22T09:04:19-04:00

A week ago today, I stumbled out of a screening for the movie Motherhood that threw me into a funk that lasted three days. (Granted, I was already on the precipice, and I was getting a cold, so perhaps I was vulnerable.) In it, Uma Thurman plays Eliza, a Manhattan mom who struggles to get everything she needs to do done in one day: Walk the dog, feed the kids, shuffle the car in a daily ritual known as street parking, shop for her daughter's birthday party to be held that evening, see her best friend, take her younger son to the playground, pick up the cake, decorate the apartment and, somewhere in there, make a deadline.

To a certain extent, I felt validated watching Eliza whirl like a proverbial dervish, trying not to screw things up. That's the story of my daily life, except my deadline's not a blogging contest to get a job, it's a job that helps put food on the table. But I also felt depleted, reminded once more of everything it takes just to sustain an existence that sometimes feels woefully fragile. (Eliza and her husband aren't rich, and their home is, like the apartments of my friends and neighbors, cramped to the gills.) Aren't the movies supposed to offer an escape?

Don't get me wrong: I am grateful for my life. I live in a city that allows me to strive or hide, depending on the day. I have friends who are kind and interesting. And I have a family that keeps my heart, and days, full. But of late, when I look around at my friends, many of whom seem to be juggling as fast and as hard as me, I think: Why? What for? It just seems as if no matter how hard we work, we don't get as far anymore.

A friend who once wrote for all the big-name women's magazines goes from one underpaying freelance copywriting gig to another to help make ends meet. She'd like a permanent job, but—and you've heard this story before—no one's hiring. And she's brilliant! Her husband has a creative job in marketing, and he makes decent money, but after taxes and rent and expenses for their three kids—what we call essentials, not dining out at Nobu—it's still a stretch. Another woman I know is an academic, her husband's in technology. But after childcare—and she doesn't get much, seeing as she's with her kids whenever she's not in the classroom—and, again, reasonable expenses, there's not much left.

Suze Orman would say, Watch your spending. And believe me, we have. My husband and I go on a date maybe once a month; the cost of babysitters tacked onto a $12 movie ticket (apiece) plus dinner is prohibitive. (Sometimes, we just take a walk for an hour in Central Park.) We eat out only once a week, and it's usually pizza or inexpensive Chinese. We brown-bag lunches, don't own a car, and walk everywhere if we can. The last purchase I made was a coat, and only to replace the five-year-old one I had with a ripped-out lining. (My copywriter friend hasn't shopped for new clothes for a year.)

Some people I've vented to say it's because we live in the city, that the cost of living is sky-high. But they don't understand. Our work is here, and if I had to commute the cost of gas, or monthly train pass for me and my husband would pretty much get rid of the savings we'd see by moving to the burbs. Plus, our kids are in crazy-good public schools here. And is the only solution really that we move?

I worry about my retirement, I worry about college. And I suspect BurbMom does, too. You see, this isn't a city versus suburb argument. Whether you live in an apartment building on the Upper West Side or a house in a leafy hamlet, life these days feels tenuous at best. Where are the well-paying jobs? (Not in journalism, at least, for which BurbMom and I are trained. Not in academia, as my friend is discovering.) Where's the reward for hard work and years of schooling? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

Here's a trailer:

—CityMom

New! Clause to deny freelancers health coverage

2009-10-20T12:03:31-04:00

Sent today.

October 20, 2009

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey

Appeals

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have just been told by your Customer Service department that you will not cover hearing aids for my 8-year-old daughter, as mandated by Grace’s Law [state law that mandates paying for hearing aids for kids 15 and under], because our policy is self-funded.

That you would use this clause to deny coverage for my daughter for this very expensive equipment is unconscionable. Because we have the bad luck to have to pay for our own coverage, having been laid off two years ago, we are denied?

I realize that our particular policy does not cover durable medical equipment. But to be told that we are not eligible for special assistance in this unique case, while others who are lucky enough to have their employer pay your bills do enjoy this benefit, is simply unfair.

I hope you will reconsider this decision.

-BurbMom

Hot air

2009-10-15T21:53:22-04:00

Was going to blog today about something entirely different, but like everyone else, was transfixed by Falcon Heene, the Colorado boy who, for a while there, appeared to have taken flight in a hot-air balloon. As it turns out, it was a false alarm. While the authorities sent everyone possible to chase him—even the Denver airport was affected—he had apparently fallen asleep in a box in the attic where he'd been hiding, worried he'd get in trouble for somehow letting the balloon loose.

Already, the post-game quarterbacking has begun, and I'll leave that to the experts, but here's what the debacle taught me: Sometimes, we really do make a mountain out of a molehill. Not all disasters end up disastrous.

Let that be a lesson to worrywarts like me. Seriously.

P.S. Could there have been a more appropriate name for the boy than Falcon?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

—CityMom

My own bizarre health care tale

2009-10-07T11:05:05-04:00

There are plenty of scary health scare stories circulating out there vis-a-vis our proposed health care reform. This one went blind without coverage; this one will go blind if we change our current system. And so forth.

I've already added my own two cents here -- $751.23, actually, the amount we pay each month for a family of four, as both The Dude and I freelance. That covers hospitalization and related tests and a stipend for sick and well-care visits. Everything else, we pay for should we need them, including drugs; rehabilitation; home nursing if needed; mental health care. On top of the monthly premium, which is about 1/3 of what we pay for our mortgage and taxes each month, and is more than we spend on food and transportation.

Oh, and it's roughly twice what we put away monthly for the kids' college fund.

So, I get sick.I think it's a cough and I'll get over it, but it doesn't go away. It ebbs and flows; some days better, some days worse. I have other stuff to attend to, like kids with their own coughs, and deadlines. Finally, I'm Sick. You know. When you just can't function anymore.

I go to the doctor, who diagnoses a bad bronchitis. We discuss the small possibility of pneumonia, and she says, given my health care policy, that we should perhaps hold off on getting a chest x-ray for now, because that would be forever on my health care record. The takeaway message: It could imperil my current and future insurance coverage. Apparently, if you actually get sick, the insurance company doesn't have to pay. Come again?

She also gives me drugs (suitable for both bronchitis and pneumonia) for free. Expensive drugs, drugs that would have cost me some $200 in co-pays on my former employer's plan. I imagine they might have cost some $400 out of pocket. I'm happy, because I really need that money to buy a new computer, because I need it to earn my living and contribute to the hopeful renewal of our glorious nation's economy.

But wait! Who's paying for those free drugs? Do pharmas really have that much profit, to give so many samples for free? Because this isn't the first time I've gotten freebies, and I know some of my other freelancer friends have as well. Or are they taking the costs of these samples out somewhere else, like raising prices for people who can afford them even less than I?

As for the chest x-ray -- I think we're test-happy in this country, and it's one reason for the ballooning health care costs. When my neighbor is told to get an MRI for a stomache, you know something's wrong. But three days from now, if my chest still hurts, what next? Do I wait it out a little more, or risk potential bankruptcy from having no insurance?

~BurbMom

The suburban housewife experience as interpreted by comedian Sally Brooks

2009-09-30T10:48:12-04:00

Friend of mine forwarded us this YouTube video, and we almost spit out our cereal this morning from laughing too hard. All in jest, of course...

—CityMom

Why I loathe my fellow man

2009-09-29T09:20:30-04:00

Just got back from a weekend in D.C., filled with the warm 'n fuzzies over the history and grand intentions of our great nation. Honestly, I had thoughts of fleeing recently; first, when faced with my dismaying freelancer health care bill each month and second, having to have the face of an insane, blathering t.v. idiot shoved in my own face everywhere I looked, along with the inanities of imitators and followers, grunting cruel lies, personal slurs and vague threats. (No, not Sarah Palin.)

It's a mark of how hard it is to disagree with the basic premise -- our health care system needs an overhaul -- that folks have to resort to incendiary, ridiculous stunts, instead of any kind of real discourse.

But D.C. reminds you that we have and will endure. Plus, I read the Dalai Lama's latest book, or one of them: The Little Handbook of Inner Peace, which is all about getting rid of your anger by finding compassion for fellow humans. I would try, I vowed, to find some common ground with this rabble, because I'm an idiot every now and then, too.

Then I read about this, and I'm right back in a nasty place of rage and contempt. Why do we cross the line, time and time again? Why are we so uncouth? Why are we always drinking the K*ool Aid? Is it just in this country, and if so, why? I know parlimentarians shout at each other in the U.K., but that's amusing rather than this, which is scary and primitive.

As we lined up for our scheduled tour of the White House last weekend, we were told there was a "delay" due to security reasons, which explained the crowds, guards with oozies and general angst. We are heading for a police state. Is that what you want? Thanks, yammering yokels, for handing this victory to Bin Laden.

The complicit silence of our leaders in all of this is even scarier. They're indirectly responsible, if not overtly getting into the act. Shame on all of you, on all of us. I should be protesting all of this myself, in the street somewhere with a sign, instead of plonking away at the keypad in the safety of my kitchen.

~BurbMom

Surprising stats about divorce in NYC

2009-09-25T14:04:26-04:00

You'd think a place like New York, teeming with actors, gazelle-like models and other beautiful temptations, would be Divorce Central. (Certainly, some speak of it as a den of iniquity; I, on the other hand, just think it's a pretty damn fascinating place in which to live.) But according to the New York Post, "New York state had one of the lowest divorce rates in the nation last year, according to new Census figures. Only New Jersey and North Dakota had rates lower than New York state's 8.4 percent divorce rate in 2008, a number that dropped even lower in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island."

Pretty cool, if you ask me. But yes, we still have filthier streets than your average burb. (We have more people living here, after all.)

The city with the highest divorce rates: Nevada's 14.2 percent divorce rate was the highest in the country. (It's easy to get married there, but also to disengage, apparently.) The most divorce-friendly county? Wayne County, Ind., 19.2 percent.

It just goes to show: You can't judge a city by its glossy, shiny, Sex-and-the-City cover.

—CityMom

Waste or Want: PEVA shower curtain

2009-09-18T09:34:30-04:00

It was time to update the girls' bathroom from fluffy rugs and pink checks to something a little hipper and more modern. I started with the light, installing a sleek tubular model from one of my favorite lighting designer brands, George Kovacs. (Too bad it's much smaller than the previous light, necessitating a paint job over the remaining white space that will probably take me months to cover.)

Installed a teak shower mat, which won't harbor dust, cat hair or dampness -- and never needs to be machine washed, hoorah. Now for the shower.

As you all know, I try to avoid heavy swathes of material whenever possible, as mold is darned hard to extinguish and those nasty neurotoxin pollutants, PCBs, are most likely to linger in house dust. Plastic might be fun and clean, and give the room an edgier look, but most shower curtains are made with PVCs, or polyvinyl chloride, and ooze phthalates, a nasty chemical that acts like a false hormone in our bodies and has been linked to developmental and reproductive problems.

What to do? Well, as it turns out, there are now eco-friendly plastic shower curtains. They're made from PEVA or EVA, which has no vinyl or chlorine, and is based on polyethylene plastic. It's not biodegradable, but is generally regarded as less harmful to use and to make than PVC.

I chose an Ecoplast brand PEVA curtain in a fun cats pattern, playing off the black-and-white photo prints already hanging in the room, from vitafutura.com. For $28.99 plus $7.98 shipping, it wasn't cheap; though certainly cheaper than nice fabric ones. When the curtain arrived (from Germany, where it's made, via the online retailer in Tampa), it had no odor, unlike PVC models. It is, however, a bit on the thin side, and has no grommets for hanging, which makes me worry that it will rip easily. Time will tell. It was nice and long, though, and completely watertight.

I'll finish the room with a Benjamin Moore Kitchen & Bath low-VOC paint in sunny yellow, in case you were wondering. When I'll get to it, that is.

The Verdict: At the outset, PEVA is a great alternative to PVC shower curtains.

~BurbMom

Examined Lives

A family travels the world

Waste or Want: Pantry oddities

What's it all about, Alfie?

*New!* Clause to deny freelancers health coverage

Hot air

My own bizarre health care tale

The suburban housewife experience as interpreted by comedian Sally Brooks

Why I loathe my fellow man

Surprising stats about divorce in NYC

Waste or Want: PEVA shower curtain

New! Clause to deny freelancers health coverage