Archive for June 19th, 2009

Yahoo News caught my eye this morning with a link to Kiplinger’s “Ten Quirky Economic Indicators” showing the effects of the economic downturn, which said, among other things, that alligator farmers in Louisiana are going bust because no one is buying alligator skin purses. Meanwhile gardening has become far more popular, as people try to grow their own food as a hedge against inflation, and mosquito populations in Arizona are out of control, living in the swimming pools of foreclosed homes.

I had to ask myself: are any of these phenomena hitting this house?

Well — gardening is way up here, because we took time to prepare and plant we now have huge tomatoes, boudacious basil, and blooming squash plants.

I have not bought an alligator bag in years … in fact, the last non-cowhide purse I bought was eelskin, back in in the 80′s … since that time, eelskin has gone “out” and eels have breathed a sigh of relief … but I haven’t bought any other new bags or shoes, except for work, in 6 months.

I said this before, but the quality of stuff you can get at garage sales is down and the price is up. People are wearing their old furniture and clothes out instead of selling them and buying new ones. I can’t really blame them, but since 15 or so years ago, when you could basically go out on Saturday morning and get brand new things for free, the garage sale situation has really gone down. To tell you the truth I no longer like to go, to me it’s depressing.

The biggest economic concern around here, however, is the possible lack of teaching jobs … it seems people aren’t retiring, or quitting, as much as in most years and so there aren’t as many jobs opening up as in past years, and my colleagues in our certification program can be discribed as somewhere between concerned and panicky, including me. Of course, looking for a job is always a difficult and unsettling experience, I tell myself. And you only need one, you don’t need to set the world on fire. But still …

The most important economic indicator this week was my mother. I had a slew of repairs done in the last 2 weeks — over $1000 of unbudgeted money — and I was telling my mother I felt insecure about funds.

“Over 5 million people are out of work,” she said, “and another 5 million are working part time out of 85 million. That’s a huge level of underemployement. Things are bad.”

My mother usually thinks things are bad, economically. It was the quickness of recall and the finality of her statistics that got me this time. She was more serious than ever. The bad things she’s talked about for years are now, apparently, even worse.

Somehow this news made me feel better. For some reason, when economic troubles hit the house, I feel all alone. I think everyone else is enjoying a fiesta of spending and I alone am suffering. As they say, misery loves company. And if I’m not alone, maybe I can do this tough economy thing  – maybe we can all do it. We may not think so, but actually, we already are, and have been, and will be. It’s the human condition.

Guess I’ll go out and hoe those vegetables.