It's easy to be bitter

This month I lost my home to foreclosure. This month Chas celebrated his 20th birthday, and his family (I'm assuming) has seen fit to wish him well on several billboards around town.

Rudimentary research reveals that billboard advertising costs run anywhere from $700 to $3000 a month.

Even at the lower end of the billboard advertising cost spectrum, the price of three billboards would cover my rent, utilities, and gasoline for three months.

It doesn't seem fair.

Today I took Jack to an end-of-the-year swim party at the home of a classmate. Newly remodeled, that home could have engulfed my apartment 5 times over. Everything looked high-end and the parents were the type of overachievers that scare me. I was talking with one of the dads, a guy I've had a few really interesting conversations with, who knows my situation. We were sort of gazing around, taking it all in, and I said, "It's easy to be bitter." Rob was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "You can't buy happiness. And you can't resent them for what they have."

He's right. He and his family struggle, too. He said he wouldn't trade his for theirs, and I agree. They wouldn't want mine anyway.

Comments

memory

Girl Asleep

Congratulations, Rosemary Myers! If Miyazaki had made Napoleon Dynamite and set it in Disco Australia it couldn't have been better than your movie.

monday melee

Photo credit goes to xeriscapeaz.org On Monday morning Jack woke early and had plenty of time to play with Cassie in the backyard before school. I was inside making Jack's lunch when I heard Cassie's Alert Bark, so I went outside to investigate. She was barking ferociously at the resident herd of javelina, passing through the wash behind the house, trotting on their ridiculously tiny hooves. "Jack! Come see the javelina!" I said. He ran over and leaned against the wall by the lemon tree, where the wall runs shortest. "Here pig pig!" he called. And what the hell? The big ones started coming over, and the little ones followed. "Oh-ho!" Jack was delighted when the entire herd of seven javelina---five adults and two babies---walked over to stand just on the other side of the wall, lifting their round wet snouts and sniffing our air. "Someone's been feeding them," I said, over Cassie's barking, and turned to go inside to get the camera...

chock-a-blog

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