I'm Going Down, Down, Down......

So the ex was laid off from his job and his last child support payment, unless he gets something else real soon, will be in mid-December.  Our income will now be cut in half and I have to figure out how to play Santa with about $50 per kid.  They're all teenagers and seem to be ok with our new foray into poverty, but it still stinks.

I swallowed my last bit of pride and went to the local DHS office to see what, if any, help we're eligible for.  I mean, I've paid my taxes for 30+ years so I shouldn't feel too bad for taking a little back, right?  Wrong...my pride has taken a serious hit.  The good news is that we qualify for food stamps beginning in January and with my cheapskate skills, we ought to be able to eat on a daily basis. 

I was surprised to find out that I'm not eligible for medical assistance unless I can accrue $1500 in medical expenses over the next 2 months.  It's some weird formula they use that removes my husband from the number of family members counted because he has medical insurance.  There's some other numerical manipulations that make no sense to me.  I'm eligible to get on his employer-provided medical insurance but the premiums to add me are $500/month.

I'm stuck in a bind when it comes to finding a job.  I haven't had good, reliable transportation since moving to Iowa, so I'm limited to working close to home.  Since we're in such a rural area, if I don't work in town I have to drive a minimum of 30+ miles to another town to find employment opportunities.  There's been a burst of jobs in the paper the past  month or so but there's been such a huge response, I can't even get an interview.  (That was never a problem in DC.  I interviewed for just about every job I applied for.)  So I have 2 applications out right now - one in the County Assessors office and one for a part-time cook in a daycare.  Guess which one I got a response on?  Cooking for Kiddies.  The closing date for the County job is Wednesday, so I have my fingers crossed I'll hear something.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself.  In fact, I'm more frustrated than anything else.  The auto manufacturers and financial behemoths all have their corporate hands out so they don't go belly up and throw the economy into a bigger tailspin, but what about people?  If my middle class family goes under along with many others, won't that also wreak havoc with the economy?  My DHS case worker said that there are people here applying for assistance the never expected to be among the needy.  What about us?


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Hangaku Gozen
Obama said that it was appalling that the Bush administration was willing to hand over billions of dollars to Wall Street banks, but had done nothing to help homeowners whose houses were about to be foreclosed. I'm counting the days when Bush is evicted from his House and we get a new administration in, one that actually seems to care about middle class families like yours.

But meanwhile, I think there needs to be a new Vox group, The Unemployed. I'll bet there would a few dozen members within the first day. Though for you I hope that you won't be part of that group for very long. Fingers crossed and hugs across the prairie to you, GF.


Maxvan
While I'm semi-voluntarily joining the unemployed, I've got a brother in law just laid off, hours cut back on a lot of people I know, and so on. The fact is, it's going to suck for awhile. I hope you get that job.
Prairie Robin
Thanks. I know things will get better...or maybe not. The point is, you do what you have to do. I really went off on a rant here, maybe feeling just a little sorry for myself but also a lot mad at the state this country is in. We're all going to find the road getting rougher for a while and , yes, it's going to suck.
Maxvan
Yes, indeed, you do what you have to do. There's lots of ways of saying it.
My father was fond of the way my uncle put it: if you have to, you do a "bean job": a job that puts a bean on the table. The idea being that it's like Jack and the Beanstalk: it might not be much now, but it can grow into something that supports you. ( incidentally, I think that the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk is an ideal allegorical story for the way the economy is, now. We talk about the 'audacity of hope'. Well, hope is well and good, but the allegory isn't really that investing in frivolous whims will pay off. It's more along the lines that Jack sees something his mother doesn't. Trying to sell milk wasn't cutting it. Milk is a luxury item when times are really tough. Beans are a staple, so they're a better investment; they're more stable. By investing in beans, our man Jack was able to slay even a giant, and reap the rewards of luxury and comfort (the magic harp, etc.) so for today's economy: rather than trying to milk the cow one more time, and bail out out-dated banks and autos, we should be buying "magic beans" of new, greener technologies, and more efficient financial practices)
My favorite way of looking at it is closer to what Edward James Olmos told me: "You do what you have to do so that you can do what you want to do" The context was he was talking about what prompted him to pick up a broom after the 1965 Watts Riots (as he later did with the 1992 riots) . The point was: if you want to reap the rewards, if you want to see things change, you have to put yourself out there, first. Wash dishes and agitate for a Union. Complete a GED while campaigning for a different school system, and so on. Some might question the wisdom of that (Me, included, from time to time) but, ultimately it's about the fundamentals: we all know that the system is unfair, and dehumanizing. We all want things to be better, but all that doesn't mean anything if we're starving along the way. So, we get by, in the meantime. We take the food stamps, we work the crap job, we defer those dreams of writing the great american novel. That doesn't mean that we give up. Any chance we get, we'll take. We'll tell Joe Biden when he stops by that we could use more funding for learning disabilities. We'll tell our neighbors that Obama isn't proposing any taxes that we can't afford, we'll mention to our city council that some form of public transport would help more people work, and so on and so on. It has ever been thus.

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