Christmas Letter: 2010, 11, 12, 13 and 14

Christmas Letter: 2010,11,12,13 and 14

      Yes, it's been that long since I've written a Christmas letter. And it wasn't for lack of things going on in my life, quite the contrary.

Let's start in 2010:

      In April 2010, I accepted a job as a census taker. I lost that job two weeks later when my fingerprints came back that I had been a very bad person. Unknown to me at the time, a crime I committed while I was 21 years old (my friends and I were drunk and they were going to teach me how to hot-wire a car), had not been updated in the FBI database and I was listed as two-time felon. I was only found guilty of a misdemeanor tampering with a vehicle. In any case, in this day and age when background checks are so cheap, I was unable to get a job. As my 99 weeks of unemployment loomed to a close in August, 2010, a textile recycling company, USAgain, hired me to find locations for their "mailboxes on steroids" so people could recycle anything doing with textile - even underwear! Unfortunately, out of the 8 of us that were hired, seven of us were let go the same day. They pitted us against each other to see who would work the hardest for them. On October 5, 2010, I received a 30 day notice from my roommate and by November 6, 2010, I was homeless.

      I spent the first 4 months with a friend who allowed me to keep my cats, Mowgli and Ming, with me in an extra bedroom in her home. Because I didn't have a job by mid-January and I told her when I moved in it should only be a few months before I landed back on my feet, as I have never had a problem finding a job, she asked me to leave by the end of February. 

       March 2, 2011, I was in a homeless shelter. My sister used her Hotel miles and put me up in a Homewood Suite on the 1st, but then I was on my own. I stayed in the homeless shelter for 2 weeks while I waited to get into "transitional housing" with the Fairfield-Suisun Community Action Council. Mowgli and Ming were staying with a couple I met while I was emceeing a Boy Scout Banquet.
       March 15, 2011, I moved in to transitional housing. I didn't know the woman who I would share the master bedroom with, but she seemed pretty straight forward. I'll call her Blondie. We became friends and totally understood each other.  She said it was due to the fact that I was a Taurus while she was a Scorpio. I do know I could leave ten-thousand dollars on the dresser and she wouldn't touch it. And she knew that if she asked for some of it, I would share, so there would be no reason for her to touch it. In April 2011, I noticed what I thought was another hernia - I had a hernia operation in December 2009 and my stomach was poking out again - so I went to the surgeon who did the previous one. I'll call him the "Hottie Doc" because we just seem to click. I wanted to make sure that the county insurance I had would cover the operation, so I had to go back the following week. That's when the abscess under my belly showed up. Instead of having hernia surgery in May, I had to have an abscess drained in the O.R. On June 1, 2011, I had hernia surgery. That was the same day my aunt found out she had pancreatic cancer.
      After I healed, I resumed my job search. I was also making some headway into clearing up the FBI mess. I think that was taken care of in May sometime, where they got it right. I kept looking for jobs, going to interviews, with nothing on the horizon. Meanwhile, outside of my roommate the rest of the women, the other four, were raised by wolves, I swear! The Program Director was also a mean person, telling us once a week, "If you don't like it here, leave. There are plenty more people where you came from. Believe me, you won't be missed." She says that to homeless women trying to better themselves. It was hell. Read my previous posts for an idea. I am writing a book on my journey through homelessness called "Homeless...But Not Hopeless". Then I had a nervous breakdown.
     My sister, who lives in Midtown Sacramento, had offered me her couch to sleep on, but at that time, Sacramento didn't have insurance for the indigent and Solano County, where I've called home for more than 20 years, does. My doctor referred me to a psychiatrist to deal with the breakdown. I didn't want to commit suicide, I just didn't want to live that life, with those people. That may sound snobbish, but I was taught differently than the people I was forced to live with and was comfortable with the way I had lived for the past 45 years.
      In October, I received a call to ask me if I wanted to be the next Office Manager of the H&R Block in the Target Center in Vallejo. Although it was a temporary job, it was a job. Of course I accepted! On the home front, the house we were living in was foreclosed and we moved to a larger house in Suisun City. That's when the real fun began. Read previous posts of this blog to understand what I mean.
       Because this job was temporary, I continued to look for permanent work and was offered a position as a clerk in the Welfare to Work office in Contra Costa County. I was originally assigned to Pleasant Hill, but there was a need in Antioch, so that's where I went to work. The day after accepting, Blondie and I were on our way to celebrate with a steak dinner when a 16-year-old boy, who had just received his driver's license, ran a red light and t-boned my car, totaling it and injuring my neck. Now I was homeless, without a car to get to my permanent job so I could lift myself by my bootstraps. I had no credit cards and not even a bank account. Thank God I had friends. One of them let me use her debit card and another paid for, a rental car, so I could get to and from my new job. Although I had given my 2 weeks notice to H&R Block, they fired me because I didn't have a car to get to and from work and to and from meetings. (I didn't get the rental until 10 days after the crash - H&R fired me a week prior)
     To add insult to injury, in California, if you are not insured and get into a car crash, even if it wasn't your fault, you cannot sue for pain and suffering. I ended up losing 2 jobs because of this crash, but I couldn't sue because my insurance ran out two weeks before the crash. I didn't pay my bill because I didn't receive a bill because my agent, who has since been fired due to negligence, didn't change my address. In fact, the afternoon, before I left the office to pick up Blondie for dinner, I called and left a message for my agent because it seemed like it was time to pay my bill. The kid's insurance company did reimburse me for the car that was totaled and paid for the rental, but that was it. I was on my own.
        I did lose my job with Contra Costa County in July 2012 because I was late too many times and took off too many days due to the neck injury. My left hand would go numb without warning, which my spine surgeon said was normal with that type of injury. Prior to becoming homeless, I applied for Social Security Disability because I couldn't stand for long periods of time due to the arthritis in my knees and the only jobs available required one to stand for long periods of time. They kept rejecting me, I kept appealing and the first week of August 2012, I had a hearing. I hobbled into the hearing room and told the judge all that had happened. The following month, I was awarded Social Security Disability and have been surviving off of it since.
      It's better than being homeless, but I really want to go back to work. I had neck surgery in June 2013 and my left hand no longer goes numb without warning. I have medical bills up one side and down the other because Medicare doesn't pay for everything and although the health insurance when you are an indigent is great in Solano County, if you bring home more than $600/month, you have a share of cost of the extra multiplied by 1.5. So in order to activate my Medi-Cal, I have a share of cost of over $900! I need a home health aid as I don't get around too well, but don't have $900 a month for one. My food stamp worker told me that if I worked I could get one cheaper. Hmmmm....
     Radio lost over 50% of its jobs in the recession and they haven't come back. In November 2011, I met a literary agent who told me that if I was serious about my writing, he could make me a best selling author. He was the one who suggested I start a blog. In 2015, I need to get to it, and assemble the book as it is already written in bits and pieces, through this blog, Facebook postings and my journal. Then I could finally get a new car, as the one I have can't seem to pass CA Smog standards and the tags ran out in September 2013.
      So that's been my life in a nutshell since 2010. My Aunt passed away from pancreatic cancer in December 2011. I found out via text from my sister while I was training for H&R Block. Mowgli passed away in October 2013 due to hyperthyroidism.  Ming likes the single life, so since she's now 17, she gets what she wants. I hit the half century mark this past year and need to get on with the second part of my life.
      Have a wonderful year!

Remembering Steve

March 30, 2014

            I met Steven Bise before I met him. I was working at a small station in Placerville where they were too busy, or just didn’t care about going over airchecks. I sent my cover letter and tape to Steve and he sent me a letter back, giving me pointers on my breaks. No one had ever done that. I was lucky to get a rejection letter. Which I did, eventually, from Steve. It wasn’t really a rejection per se, he said that maybe sometime in the future I could work the overnights on KUIC. When I interviewed for a part-time job at Quick 95, I was working afternoon drive at a station in Davis. I interviewed after work. Steve stayed and interviewed me at 7pm. I ended up getting the Sunday night, 7 to midnight slot. After losing my gig in Davis, Steve gave me more hours filling in. Finally, I got the coveted overnight gig. I was always looking for a better gig, that’s what one did in radio. Until a few years into working with Steve. That’s when I realized Quick 95 was radio fantasyland. No one was fired unless one did something stupid, such as theft. That was unreal in radio. I stopped looking and really focused on working my gig. Steve was the reason I became the disc jockey I did. He worked with me, tirelessly. Steve and I remained friends even though he laid me off twice. Who does that? But Steve was that kind of man. During both of our second employments at KUIC, Steve was raising teenagers. He once told me, as I can be quite passionate about my work, that he knew why God put me in his life. It was to prepare him for teenagers. I didn’t think anything bad of that remark, it was just true. I don’t think I ever saw Steve lose his temper. I pushed him, but he never lost it in my presence. He was so mellow, that when the thermostat caught fire in the control room when he was on the air, he didn’t panic. He calmly walked out and asked if someone was there to work on the thermostat because it was on fire. I don’t know about you, but I would’ve freaked out!

Steve’s daughters meant everything to him. The morning Delaney was born, Steve called into the station to let everyone know he was a dad. I was on the air when he called, and he was so happy. Delaney, I think he and your mom named your after some hippy group. It could’ve been worse. I think his second choice was Hot Tuna.

            I remember the first time Steve laid me off. He wanted me to come into work early and I couldn’t understand why he wanted me there. He wanted to tell me in person, but I forced him to do it over the phone. I swear I heard him crying. I wouldn’t doubt it. Steve gave everything and more to his work. When he was laid off, he said it was okay because he was able to be a house dad.

            Steve was meant to play the bass guitar. As the bass guitar anchors the sound of the band, so did its player in Steve. There could be thunder and lightning all around, but Steve was Mr. Cool even in the toughest of storms. I looked back on his Facebook page and what I wrote on his last birthday rings true. I was glad to be able to wish him a happy birthday. He fought the valiant fight.

            The world is a harsher place without Steven Bise. He was the best boss anyone could have asked for. And a better friend. Godspeed to you, Steve. Have fun in Heaven’s Bluegrass Band.

I've Got A Name (Remembering Mowgli)

     Many people name their cats on what the pet looks like. That's how we get names like Shadow (blue or gray) or Patches (usually a calico or tortoise shell) or Snowball (usually a fluffy white). Others name their cats because of things their cats do. We once had a cat that wouldn't shut up. We named him Sounder. We didn't learn until years later that he was probably deaf.

       I had just gotten a teenage cat from the pound and wasn't sure what to name her. She was a cross between a calico and a tabby, something that is now known as a Caliby. I began like most and named her after her looks. I was going to college at the time and the night before in Economics class we had been talking about Matisse. I thought that would be the perfect name for a Caliby - Matisse. She had just about all the colors that come in a cat and was 'painted' with those colors by God. Matisse was it.

     We went to the vet before going home, Matisse and I, to make sure she was all well before introducing her to her new sister and companion, Maggie T., who herself was named after Lady Margaret Thatcher. Maggie was a stray who had her four kittens under my then neighbor's porch. I named the kittens before I named her. The neighbors called her Shadow, because she was a blue (actually gray) cat. She had two tortoise shell cats, both female. I named the more outgoing one Socrates and her sister was named Aristotle. There was a male Himalayan I named Confucius and a wild tuxedo female I called Monet, after my favorite painter. I thought to myself, what woman could have given birth to such Greatness? Only two names came to mind: Lady Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir. Since 'Shadow' was not a gold color, Maggie T won out. Many people name their cats Maggie, which is why I made sure she had that T after her name. She wasn't just any cat named Maggie. She was Maggie T, the mother of Greatness. Although I wanted the tuxedo cat, Maggie won me over and by the time I moved, she was mine. When Matisse received a clean bill of health, we went home to meet her sister. They soon became best buddies.


     I called to Maggie T and she would come running to me, but when I called for Matisse, the new cat just looked at me. She was not responding to Matisse at all. A week after I brought the new cat into our home, she needed a name she would respond to. Someone suggested I name her after the lead character in my favorite book. Since my favorite book was "Atlas Shrugged", I called her Dagney. Maggie T came running to me, but the new cat just looked at me. Hmmm, I thought, they sound too similar. How about I name her after the author? So my new cat became Ayn. She still wouldn't respond to it.

     At work I was mulling over names. The new cat didn't respond to either of the first two names I had given her. She certainly was energetic, though. She REALLY wanted to go outside, but I wouldn't let her until she was spayed. She literally climbed the walls. She reminded me of the Jungle Boy. What was the name of the cat in the "Jungle Boy"? I asked my co-workers. They said it was Panther, but I knew that wasn't it. (I later found out it was Baghera, but after watching the movie, this cat was definitely NOT Baghera, the worrier. No, this cat was an adventurer.) This cat was the girl-cat version of the Jungle Boy.

     When I came home that night, I called for Maggie T and she came running to me. Then I called "Mowgli!" and the new cat came running to me! She looked at me with eyes that said, 'Gee, mom, it's about time you learned my name!' And for the next 14 years, Mowgli was indeed, the girl-cat version of the Jungle Boy.