A Big Enough Umbrella
Sep. 8th, 2022 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraSybyl is now on a high protein/low carb diet, so I dropped off a case of Fancy Feast and a 10 lb. bag of her old dried cat food with Lois Lane.
Literacy Lollapalooza lost a chunk of its grant money.
Not that big a chunk but enough so that they cut Lois Lane’s hours down to 20 a week—which is insane because Lois Lane is actually the only employee there who actually does anything remotely related to the nonprofit’s mission statement; the rest of the staff is paid to hunt down and shake various money trees. She still oversees approximately 70 clients receiving literacy services as well as 25 tutors providing them, and she teaches two English-as-a-Second-Language classes.
In other words, she hasn’t cut back on anything she does; she’s just not getting paid for most of it.
And Billy was diagnosed with diabetes six months ago and has lost eighty-five pounds, but his blood sugar still hasn’t stabilized because Metformin isn’t the right drug for him but his insurance won’t pay for the drug that might actually work. He can only work erratically because he’s so ill.
She laughed when she opened her refrigerator to show me how empty it is. “On the plus side, I am losing weight! Mainly because I can’t afford to eat!”
She is now working three (count ’em) jobs, and she can barely cover their rent.
I was dismayed.
About the only thing I can do for her is bring her a big bag of veggies every week.
This is more help than it may seem to be—one of the great paradoxes of being diabetic and being poor in this country is that you can only afford cheap processed foods, which are absolutely the wrong thing to eat if you’re a diabetic.
But it’s not enough help.
“You’d be better off quitting Literacy Lollapalooza and going to work for Stop & Shop,” I told her. “They’re hiring. I think they start at $19 an hour.”
“I’m considering it,” she said. “Clearly, this is not sustainable.”
She wasn’t teary or sunk into any slough of self-pitying desperation while I was there.
In fact, she was as cheerful as I’ve ever seen her.
It’s not that adversity agrees with her exactly. I think it’s more that Lois Lane is the one person I know whose childhood was actually more horrific than my own, so when things start going south, she’s back in familiar territory.
I wish I had an umbrella large enough to shelter all the people I care about from the shitstorm that’s on its way, that’s already here for a lot of people.
But I simply don’t.
In fact, I can’t even be sure that my umbrella is big enough to shelter me.
Literacy Lollapalooza lost a chunk of its grant money.
Not that big a chunk but enough so that they cut Lois Lane’s hours down to 20 a week—which is insane because Lois Lane is actually the only employee there who actually does anything remotely related to the nonprofit’s mission statement; the rest of the staff is paid to hunt down and shake various money trees. She still oversees approximately 70 clients receiving literacy services as well as 25 tutors providing them, and she teaches two English-as-a-Second-Language classes.
In other words, she hasn’t cut back on anything she does; she’s just not getting paid for most of it.
And Billy was diagnosed with diabetes six months ago and has lost eighty-five pounds, but his blood sugar still hasn’t stabilized because Metformin isn’t the right drug for him but his insurance won’t pay for the drug that might actually work. He can only work erratically because he’s so ill.
She laughed when she opened her refrigerator to show me how empty it is. “On the plus side, I am losing weight! Mainly because I can’t afford to eat!”
She is now working three (count ’em) jobs, and she can barely cover their rent.
I was dismayed.
About the only thing I can do for her is bring her a big bag of veggies every week.
This is more help than it may seem to be—one of the great paradoxes of being diabetic and being poor in this country is that you can only afford cheap processed foods, which are absolutely the wrong thing to eat if you’re a diabetic.
But it’s not enough help.
“You’d be better off quitting Literacy Lollapalooza and going to work for Stop & Shop,” I told her. “They’re hiring. I think they start at $19 an hour.”
“I’m considering it,” she said. “Clearly, this is not sustainable.”
She wasn’t teary or sunk into any slough of self-pitying desperation while I was there.
In fact, she was as cheerful as I’ve ever seen her.
It’s not that adversity agrees with her exactly. I think it’s more that Lois Lane is the one person I know whose childhood was actually more horrific than my own, so when things start going south, she’s back in familiar territory.
I wish I had an umbrella large enough to shelter all the people I care about from the shitstorm that’s on its way, that’s already here for a lot of people.
But I simply don’t.
In fact, I can’t even be sure that my umbrella is big enough to shelter me.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-08 02:27 pm (UTC)For the upcoming holiday season/s, UPS is looking for 100K seasonal employees and most of the applicants make application online and if I'm understanding correctly, will be hired without an interview. (To me, that's just weird and obviously I'm showing my age.)
[ETA: Also, at least around here any quick-service eatery you can to name---Arby's, Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell---and I believe also Bob Evans, is hiring, and it at least used to be that a shift included a meal---a limited meal, but a meal. Remove the bread and eat the protein and if it comes with lettuce, tomato and onion, eat the veggies, too.]
Good on you for the big bag of veggies to your friend! I usually understand when the price of proteins (beef, lamb, pork, poultry, eggs, dairy products) goes up, but the cost of buying produce today is enough to drop me to the floor. Obscenely expensive! Infuriating, too. (We're O.K. so far, but this morning I sowed a full tray ---72 cells---of Tuscan kale, and will sow about six more, some entire, some split, of arugula, Swiss chard, spinach, catalogna puntarelle chicory, early-maturing cabbages, pak choi, bok choy, some of the mustards, turnips. Direct-sowing beets (which will come out golf-ball sized, being sown at this time of year, but the greens are tasty, too), turnips, carrots and rutabagas which won't be a whole lot larger than the beets, I suppose, but we're going to give them a go and put some of this stuff under cover.
And some flowers, even though it's late in the season and the Old Farmer's Almanac says we may get hit with early frost this year.
Man, we do need a cold frame---!
Please tell me you're doing something to extend your growing season. Now, by the way, is the time to start preparing whatever you're going to need and/or going to do.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-08 02:40 pm (UTC)I'm very happy to see the end of this growing season. It was a disappointment.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-08 02:57 pm (UTC)You can still get some crops growing and worth harvesting, though, now that the worst of the heat should be over , and I do worry about people so for your own sake and that of Lois Lane, I hope you'll do a fall garden planting.
Himself and I are alright for the moment, but I tend to be a belt-and-suspenders type so I always want to have affordable back-up. That garden, I'm counting on it (ours.)
Chard will stand for you through the winter, and so will Tuscan kale. They won't actively grow, but you can go out every so often and harvest a bunch if you can take a leaf or two from this plant and a leaf or two from that plant, and of course you have to have enough plants at harvest size/age to enable you to pick a few leaves every so often until spring arrives for real but before the weather starts to really warm up and biennials bolt on you.