Home prices in Cleveland increased 13 percent from 2002 to 2006 but then fell nearly 16 percent through the third quarter of 2009. "There was a little bit of overinvestment in housing, and the economy started weakening," says Celia Chen of Moody's Economy.com. "[Cleveland] entered recession before the rest of the U.S., and I think weak economic conditions have pulled down home prices." Exposure to subprime lending has also played a role in the real estate market's decline. Roughly 32 percent of single-family home mortgages were underwater as of the fourth quarter of last year, according to Zillow.
My 18 year old son is home sick this morning. I'm home, too, because I have to take him to the doctor.
Is it weird that I'm taking him to the doctor this morning? I am brand spanking new at being the mother of an adult -- the slacker! -- so I have no idea what the new rules are. All I can figure is that I'm the one with the health card and the money. And since Obama hasn't shown up at my door with a check, it's still up to me.
Joe Posnanski posted his top 269 songs that make him happy. I'm not going to post my 269 songs, I'm just going to post what songs Joe and I have in common. Although, they probably make us happy for different reasons. For example, Joe has "Ain't Even Done with the Night" by John Cougar on his list and so do I. But, I doubt it's because his 11th grade, very pretty and really cool typing teacher had a little transistor radio on her desk. And one day, as were were all practicing our typing, and the room was quiet except for all the clacking of the keys, Ain't Even Done with the Night came on. She reached over and turned it up and started moving around, snapping her fingers, dancing in her seat. So I started moving around dancing in my seat at the same time my best friend did. And the three of us sang the song, while dancing in our seats, smiling and laughing.
How could the thought of that not make me happy every time I hear it?! Plus, such sweet lyrics.
Now onto the songs Joe and I share! Say it with me....Awwwwww.
A
Ain’t Even Done With the Night, John Cougar
B
The Ballroom Blitz, Sweet
Blueberry Hill, Fats Domino
C
Canned Heat, Jamiroquai
Chevy Van, Sammy Johns
Come on Eileen, Dexy’s Midnight Runners
D
Drops of Jupiter, Train
E
Every Little Thing She Does is Magic, The Police
F
Friday I’m In Love, The Cure
G
Gimme Three Steps, Lynyrd Skynyrd
Going To California, Led Zeppelin
H
Hey Ya, Outkast
Hollywood Nights, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band
I
In Your Eyes, Peter Gabriel
I’m A Believer, The Monkees
It’s Not Unusual, Tom Jones
L
Lay Down Sally, Eric Clapton
Let us all pause for a moment and dwell on the happiness of it all...
And we continue:
London Calling, The Clash
Love Will Keep Us Together, Captain and Tennille
M
Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin
Melt With You, Modern English
More Than A Feeling, Boston
More Than This, Roxy Music
N
Night Fever, Bee Gees
Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinead O’Connor
O
Our House, Madness
P
Play That Funky Music, Wild Cherry
Pretty In Pink, The Psychedelic Furs
R
Rhapsody in Blue, George Gershwin
Rock and Roll All Nite, Kiss
Rock Lobster, The B-52s
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), Bruce Springsteen
S
The Safety Dance, Men Without Hats
Save the Last Dance for Me, Ben E. King
(Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty, KC & The Sunshine Band
Sir Duke, Stevie Wonder
Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
Such Great Heights, The Postal Service
Sultans of Swing, Dire Straits
Summertime, The Sundays
Super Freak, Rick James
Surrender, Cheap Trick
T
Take it to the Limit, Eagles
This is the Last Time, Keane
These Are Days, 10,000 Maniacs
Tiny Dancer, Elton John
The Twist, Chubby Checker
U
U Can’t Touch This, MC Hammer
Under The Boardwalk, The Drifters
W
Walking on Sunshine, Katrina and the Waves
Walking in Memphis, Marc Cohn
What A Wonderful Word, Louis Armstrong
We Got the Beat, The Go-Go’s
Whip It, Devo
Y
You Can’t Always Get What You Want, The Rolling Stones
You Send Me, Sam Cooke
You Shook Me All Night Long, AC/DC
According to Joe's rules, he could only choose one song by an artist or band. And while I could get on board with Tiny Dancer, You Can't Always Get What You Want, You Shook Me All Night Long, and Rosalita, I just couldn't get on board with Here Comes the Sun. Not when this one exists.
There's a very specific outfit I have in mind that I want to wear to a fun event I'll be attending soon. But, I don't have the outfit. And after Googling for awhile this morning, clicking six pages deep into my search, no one else has the outfit either. Or the accessory I have in mind that will look perfect with the outfit no one has.
There are outfits that are close, pages and pages of them. And there are accessories that are sort of close but not exactly what I have in mind. I think my mom might have the accessory I'm imagining and after I failed to find it online I called to see if she might find it in her closet. She said she thinks she might have something like what I described and that she'd look. If she doesn't find it it will probably be my fault. All I ever did was "borrow" her clothes and her accessories while I was growing up. And usually when I borrowed them, I never put them back where they belonged after I was done borrowing them.
Yes, what I'm imagining is somewhat retro.
After my failed attempts to find this perfect outfit, I shut down my computer and went about my day. I had a lot of cleaning to do, after all, and knew I shouldn't be wasting my time clicking around, shopping on the Internet when The Skimmer was doing his duty with the Pledge and dust mop.
So, after I dusted the coffee table, and stared out the window for a few minutes, I got back on the computer. I miss my blogging friends! I work now and am behind in my reading! It's not fair that I have to work so hard on Saturday, too!
An ad for the accessory that was sort of close but not close enough to make my non-existent outfit perfect. The actual the sort of close one I had been staring at trying to convince myself that, if I squinted it might be the one that'll work if what I borrowed from my mom I never returned years and years ago.
I'm not comfortable with Google knowing that much about me. Knowing what I had searched for, what I was considering buying and then somehow creating an ad that appeared on my friend's blog while I was slaving away for ten minutes, staring out the window.
Unless they can find the specific outfit and the perfect accessory, I am not impressed. Get to work, Google spies!
And while you're at it, I need black boots that would be ok to wear this time of year. More springy than wintery, obviously. Sort of casual, but in an ooh, you could dress them up, too, sort of way. And the heel can't be too high either.
In my mother's grieving, in her fury, she lashed out to me about the people who had stopped calling, the people who'd avoid her at the grocery store, on the street -- the people who'd glance her way then quickly head in the other direction. She lashed out at all the people who seemed not to care... anymore.
I tried to reassure her that people cared that her husband had died. That maybe they cared too much. They just didn't know how to behave. They didn't know what to do, what to say. It's too big. Too scary.
It's been a week since I got the news that Al Weisel passed away. And I still can't believe it. I simply cannot believe it. And I've thought about him every day, even when I wrote about not winning a writing contest. Even when I learned more about how to write about my life by not thinking it's all that interesting. Even when The Skimmer and I were talking about my new header design and I thought maybe the cute cartoon woman who has no feet should be bigger. And he said, "You always have an opinion!" And I said, "Well, of course I do!" And he said, "Whatever!" And I said, "Whatever!" And then I thought, Don't be such a touchy creative type! But I didn't say it out loud.
I thought about Al this morning as I was pouring a cup of coffee, thinking about how he much he drank tea. The way I think of my stepfather when I'm filling up my gas tank, remembering the times I drove him crazy when I was a teenager and would forget to put the gas cap back on after I had pumped the gas. He had to replace it a million times.
I'll be going about a normal day and something will make me think about my best friend's mom. Or her dad. Or Brando's friend. Or Brenda's mom and dad. Or Adorable Girlfriend's grandmother, Kathleen's sister, Dennis Perrin's sister-in-law, Jennifer's sister-in-law, Nicho's father, Steve Kuusisto's mother and father, Patti Digh's father and stepfather, the paternal grandmother and grandfather I knew as a young girl, or the maternal grandmother and grandfather I never met.
I've been thinking of my mother's father, who died when she was just 15, when I've clicked over to Dr. X's blog lately.
What if that's him? Did he look like that? Did he feel taken advantage of? Did anyone care? Wonder what he'd think of me?
I'll never know what he'd think of me. But all I can do is think of him. It's the only thing left to do.
On Christmas Eve 2008 my stepfather was at hospice. And we had that talk. That talk, that time together that makes you want to rip your hair out wondering if it's better that he had time for that talk at all because he was suffering so much.
From his bed, he told all of us that he'd given it a lot of thought. And he knew that to be remembered is really the only thing that really mattered.
Remembering comes at strange times. But it's a part of all of our days. While pouring coffee. While filling up the gas tank. While clicking around the blogosphere. And no one else knows that we're doing it.
But we are doing it. We're remembering. We just don't know how to behave. We just care too much to talk about it very often.
During the years of our friendship, though I was aware that he might be suffering private misery, Kurt scuttled his demons with elan as we played tennis and Ping-Pong, skipped off to afternoon movies and jaunts around town, feasted at steak houses and French restaurants, watched football games on television, and twice sat as guests in a box at Madison Square Garden to root for the Knicks.
With his signature gentle but mordant wit, Kurt participated in family celebrations, meetings of writers' organizations, and our gab and laugh sessions with Morley Safer and Don Farber, George Plimpton and Dan Wakefield, Walter Miller and Truman Capote, Kevin Buckley and Betty Friedan. I don't think it is an exaggeration to suggest that I, as well as Kurt's other friends, felt that time with Kurt was a momentous gift no matter how light our conversation. We often found ourselves imitating his amused reserve about his own foibles and those of the world.
Along with the fun and warm support he so graciously expressed to his friends, Kurt Vonnegut treated me to intimate glimpses of the master storyteller whose ironic and frequently startling observations of people emphasized the moral complexities of life. Walking uptown after a memorial service for an unmarried female author who had devoted her life to literary criticism, Kurt said to me, "No children. No books. Few friends." His voice expressed empathetic pain. Then he added, "She seemed to know what she was doing."
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