2003 was our third straight year of total unambiguous sheer poverty. We made $750 a month and paid $300 a month to the bank for a payday loan company going into my account mid-month wirh 10 denominations of money, bouncing ten automatic withdrawels to the tune of $300 a month, although I kept telling them this way did not start me off with enough the next month to pay them, they just kept doing it for 6 months. Simultaneously, the electric bill was $366 a month, for a total of $660 a month gone before I saw my check. Which was $90 a month for phone, water, sewer, trash, food, cleaning supplies, laundry, and gas.i.e.., impossible. Everyone ditched us. Everyone. Except Mindy, Twila, and the Baldwins.These are true friends. And Frank Zamenski and Joe , Jay Friss , Linda Schutte. Only a few friends but they are great people and I feel lucky.
The kids are doing better and worse. Mary just won a spot in the top 15 entries in the University of South Florida's Artwrite project, pairing  the state's high school writers with artists and photographers. She placed 13th. Marina won 2nd place in the Tropicana-4-H speech contest , for her class and her school, and then did a wonderful thing--showed up at the finals to boost the boy who beat her. I think this made the diff in what happened next. She seemed to have sportsmanship, get along with everyone--so the school picked her as one of 3 kids to run the Morning Show next year. It is a fifth grade production with video daily. She has 3 or 4 best friends who give her those half-necklaces and bracelets (best, or friend)--is staying at Allison's tonight.We are all freeked by what happened to Carlie Brucci recently. Mary's novel Lavender Dreams is great--very funny--with writing too mature for her yet I know she wrote it. Writings can show you more of a person than you ever realized. Both kids show promise although the poverty makes them ask me quietly, in all seriousness, "Am I a loser?"
Our water was cut off for 7 months of 2003 and we hauled paint buckets of it from the school at night when no one was there.When we finally got it back on the lack of it for 7 months had let water left in the washer when it was cut off eat a rust spot into the tub which broke the first time we did laundry and we haven't afforded to do laundry since and here we have 7 months of it to do still. (There is no money to do it at a laundrymat. We do a load a week there and it costs $10 for 1 load. We do school clothes and one bath towel a week ;bedding and other clothes must wait til we get rich.)
At one point (when a Bronx Catholic  prayer group began praying for us ) things started happening for us to help us--the county gave me a permanent deferral on property taxes as long as I live; the electric company did an audit to see why my bill was 3 times that of a house 3 times larger than ours. They decided it was 99% because Bob West, brother of Jim West of Weird Al Yankovic's band, had installed central ac/heat with no insulation in the attic, some of the walls, and the wiring brought to a meter not wired for 220 while the meter that is sits unused for the 7th year in a row because after I paid Bob what he said it would cost to get an electrician to sign off on his work, he couldn't find one to do it for less than $1000 (he'd gotten $300 from me for it.) So he just ignored the matter. The first week our water went off he brought us the paint buckets of water and said he'd be back to fix our leaking roof in a few weeks. Then he stopped knowing us. The big baby--just stopped answering my calls and never returned any.. Since his family thinks we broke up 3 years ago, no one knew what a total classless cad he is but me. Mostly don't people tell the person? I know it's hard but aren't you sort of obligated to say," look, don't get too depressed but I am not going to talk to you ever again?" Aren't couples that are splitting get to talk about it? I guess he pounced on me when he found me married with small ones here in 1997 because he wanted to cause a divorce then ditch me to pay me back for not wanting him in 1978.He admitted to me he did everything he could to proove I'd married the wrong guy so I'd divorce Dan and be his (Bob's). I am not going to get him back because God will. It is sad but there is no way that guy is going to get into heaven. The leaking roof spread all over the living room destroying everything in there. hutches, sills, ceilings, ceiling fans. The week he didn't come fix our roof as planned all spring, it rained for the next 100 days straight. At first I was sure he died or had a stroke. Then I found out he had a boyfriend or girlfriend, I don't know which.. How do these men feel, knowing as they go for a lady that they can't use one who owns her own home or has no money--they need one to pay half their mortgage and half their bills. Jumping into a relationship because she meets the criteria--oh, trouble! Also like prostitution. I can always say I did not sell out.
Anyway the electric company tried to get Bob's co-operation but he lied and said he didn't do my wiring--an electrician did.So he kept my bill up at $366 a month. By lying.So our situation is mostly his fault. No wonder he ran away. he'd just got paid $15.000 under the table, too. My water bill was $500. That's why he ran--help someone who will never have a penny and is dying soon? Are you kidding me? Why bother?
I understand God a lot better and He really demands of us that we be big. Little Bob...
Sally got hit by a car because we didn't have the money to fix the fence. She was dead when we found her.It was an awful year but I saw Jay's 50th birthday party and at Christmas Wanda gave us  food. I am really ill these days, dying. Trying. Governor Bush is asking his brother the President of the United States this week to allow Florida to end its Medicaid entitlement. He says it is time for us on Medicaid to learn responsibility and accountability so he wants to charge us out of pocket for drugs and procedures and more for doctor visits. He seems to think we are all alcoholic unemployables all our lives. We are 9 abd 15 years old; we are a dying mom who made many lovely church windows in her youth that still grace churches all over Bush's beloved Florida. (Hey--does he even come from here?) Of course to pay anything for  our medical we'd have to go without electric or water each month. These Bushes are so smart. So filled with love for all mankind.
Marina near Christmas 2003
The Worst Year Ever
I'm always in bed now. See how losing your teeth ruins your jaw? No plates or dentures for Medicaid recipients--America blames them for their poverty..Now wants us to pay more for being poor, too..
Oh Sally! I want you! Rocket died in 2003 too. Because we can't fix anything that breaks!
SALLY                                                ROCKET
The presents came from one of the churches we made stained glass art for. They were pretty generic.Saved the day though.
Our main present was a load of food brought to us by Wanda, a Puerto Rican immigrant. (Mary, below, peeks)
I am Japanese.
We got an email from our faith-based group reminding us that 25% of voters are Catholic and 5% can swing a vote so we Catholics could get morals back into government. I thought, how cool--now they will tell us which candidates won't leave families like us in this hell where in order to have our medications and doctors we must not ever earn enough to repair our leaky roof or washing machine, oven or stove. Or pay our property taxes, so we end up homeless in a few years after catastropic illness strikes. This is OUR reality--and never mind birthdays and school yearbooks--out of the question .
But the email went on to tell us where candidates  stand on partial birth abortion and use of fetal material etc. Nothing to do with our awful lives here. The Catholics must think everyone else in America is getting their basic needs met. Everyone seems to think that. No one seems to understand how poor some of us truly are. And how a national health plan free to all would end this unjust poverty.
MOUTH BY MEDICAID
One happy little girl at Christmas thanks to Joan Baldwin. But her birthday March 6 she will be living without electric so we an do laundry finally after 8 months. We've no bedding or towels otherwise.
See our 20 year old cat Luvvy peeking out from behind Marina? We are happy people who know the reward is after death not now but it does make us feel sad to see every one of the 1000 new homes just built around here has a his-and-her vanity and his toilet and screened lanai with pool and trey ceilings and grand foyer entrys with double doors--- all the mini-kings and queens of earth while my daughter greets her 10th birthday without even a cupcake for a cake. I don't think the sadness is as much for us as for the people not walking that narrow path and so not going to join us in heaven.