I thought we could check in with Mal this morning (now night; all I got to this AM was adding the picture, then we had to go).
Mal recently turned 11! He would be in 5th grade (because his birthday is late in September).
Almost every day, he has video calls with a couple of homeschooling friends, Caleb and Kona, who have named their group The Cool Miners. They play Minecraft, "board" games (like Battleship and Azul) on buddyboardgames.com, share silly predictive text creations, look through each other's old files, and generally just have a fun time.
He is still meeting with his Sunday friend, Ryan, but since they're kind of outgrowing McDonald's (though Mal says he will NEVER outgrow McDonald's), they've started meeting every other week at a park. This weekend, Mal can try out his new-to-him scooter which a lovely neighbor gave us after the stand board split in two on his older scooter.
We have just started the FOURTH year of our weekly library/park homeschool meetup. We'd gone from 6 kids to 5 to 4 when one kind of aged out and another moved to the west coast (but he's in The Cool Miners, so he's still kind of around). But this summer, another kid joined us and he's fit right in! So we're back at 5, and these kids get along great. I love seeing how their friendships have grown and deepened over the past few years.
In fact, Mal wants to throw a Christmas party for the group at our house in a few weeks. He's been thinking of gifts to give, and will be selecting a menu soon. He also has ideas about what to do for his dad's birthday and Christmas, and it's so cool that he's thinking about ways to make other people happy.
Mal has decided that he's ready to take a break from the one-day-a-week school he's been going to for 2.5 years. I think there have been a lot more kids join, which is good for the school but stressful for Mal, who seems to like having a couple of close friends around rather than being in a big crowd.
I don't know whether I mentioned this or not, but the second time he tried to go to the kid's club on our last cruise, he had the counselor call us to get him because he was overwhelmed by the chaos. When James arrived, Mal dissolved into tears. Poor kid.
That said, I feel like early puberty is upon us. Mal has started having lots of big feelings about things, after having taken a break for a couple of years. I'm trying to talk to him about it; preparing him; telling him that big feelings are normal and that whatever he is thinking about, if he wants to talk to us, he can do that without worrying that we'll be angry or think he's a weird-o (I mean, he is a weird-o. We all are.)
Today (the morning after I started this) is school pictures, a mystery shop stop for lunch, then Urban Air. Good times!
I wrote a thing on Medium on October 30, and Hank Green posted a video two days later where he says a bunch of things I said in my thing. And since Medium looks like it's all premium (pay to read content), I'm going to paste it here. Hank Green and I might have the same brain? Although he didn't delve into the religious aspect of this.
Also, I didn't talk about the fact that most people on SNAP work because I don't think the people who don't like government safety nets really care at all. They just like to throw around sayings like "If a man will not work..." to justify cruelty.
+++++++
“If a man shall not work…” and SNAP
In 2 days, people who receive assistance from SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) will stop receiving benefits until the government reopens, if then.
I’ve seen a lot of alleged Christians gleefully marking the end of this social safety net, and one of the scriptures I hear bandied about in times like these is: “If a man shall not work, neither shall he eat.”
I believe that our current environment of mostly unbridled capitalism has skewed what we (and by “we,” I mean US citizens at large, and Christians specifically) consider “work” to mean only one thing: generating an income.
Before I get into that, let me break down a bit where that scripture comes from and to what it is actually referring:
Thessalonians is a Pauline letter to the church at Thessaloniki. In the bit where Paul warns the church about idleness, he says, “We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies.”
Do you know who had the luxury of not working? Rich people. Poor people had to work to have anything.
Furthermore, Paul, in talking about how he and his compatriots labored when he was with the Thessalonians, indicated that some people DO have an actual right to assistance. “We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate.”
So he’s saying, “We paid for our food; we didn’t want to burden you. We certainly could have insisted, but we didn’t.”
The Old Testament has plenty of examples of “social safety nets,” one of which we see at work in the book of Ruth.
In the book of Leviticus, we find this command: “When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the LORD your God.’”
Then in the book of Ruth, we find the titular widow following after the laborers in Boaz’s field in order to feed herself and her widowed mother-in-law.
In her position in society, Ruth likely had zero options to “make a living” in the way we view that through the eyes of capitalism. She was reliant, not on the kindness of strangers (though Boaz certainly seems kind enough), but on wealthy people following the commands of their god to make sure that poor people did not starve.
There are hundreds of scriptures about caring for the poor, needy, traveling, and aliens. Here are just a couple:
“There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Deuteronomy 15:11
“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:17–18
There have always been richer people and people with fewer resources. In the same way, there have always been people who look down on and judge people in desperate circumstances, whether it’s that their situation is a condemnation from a god, or that it’s a product of their own sloth.
The fact is, the more money that is hoarded by the richest people, the less there is to go around for everyone else. There are 800 billionaires in the US, representing 0.0002% of the population, who have 1/2 of the country’s wealth. And the bottom 50% of all US citizens have only 2.5% of the wealth in our country.
This is a blatant injustice in a time where tax codes advantage corporations and billionaires. While small businesses struggle with high costs and taxes, some corporations have such favorable concessions from local, state, and federal governments that they often pay no taxes at all.
Case in point: Tesla paid $0 in federal taxes from 2018–2022. In fact, they received over $1M in “refunds.” During that same time, their executives received over $2.5B. When they moved into Austin in 2020, they received a 20-year package of tax rebates in an area that could use some economic stimulation rather than neighbors who light up the night sky like it’s Friday night in Texas.
(Side note: “ecological paradise,” he said. WHERE IS THE ECOLOGICAL PARADISE, ELON? Dumping waste into the Colorado River hardly counts.)
The same holds for wealthy people who both illegally evade paying taxes and can pay CPAs to use legal loopholes to avoid paying taxes that should rightfully be remitted to the government to fund our infrastructure and programs.
The richest of “us” are wealthy beyond most people’s imaginations (including higher class people like doctors and attorneys). And the poorest… honestly, the same.
There’s a perverted enmeshment between the Protestant work ethic and capitalism that threatens to ruin our economy and our country. (And I’m not even going to go down the rabbit hole of fascism, our government murdering people in other countries because reasons, threatening to occupy states and countries because reasons, etc.)
“Good that those people aren’t getting the money I worked for! They should make their own money!”
If you’re just self-centered prick who doesn’t claim any morality greater than “every man for himself,” then okay. Think this. It basically makes you a monster, but, hey, that’s what Halloween is for, right?
But if you’re someone who claims to believe in a God who repeatedly commanded followers to care for the poor, how can you celebrate the fact that people are in nutritional danger when these benefits are cut off?
“The government shouldn’t be doing that; the church should.”
Great. I’ll tell you: We have benefitted so much from Hill Country Ministries and their monthly fresh food giveaway here in town. We have also appreciated what used to be the Old Farm Community Center Food Pantry in Lago Vista. Now mostly just one woman who gets food from local food banks and donors, delivers it to people in need in the community, then gives what is left away every Friday at the post office.
These programs are outstanding, and people’s generosity is admirable.
However, these programs require that you’re able to be at a certain place at a certain time to access them. Many people can’t because they don’t have transportation, or because of their work schedule.
A preloaded card that allows you to select your own groceries is so much more accessible. Also, only about $7 per day, so it’s not like anyone is able to overspend or overuse the largesse of the US citizenry. Do you know that averaged out over the whole population, we each contribute less than $1 per day to SNAP? Lower earners contribute less, and higher earners more.
Don’t you think that’s the way it should be?
If you’re able to win capitalism and make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, congratulations! But don’t you need to pay back into that system? Where did the idea of noblesse oblige go? Why don’t wealthier people feel responsible for making poorer people’s lives better if they can?
And ESPECIALLY Christians: Where is the concern for fellow image-bearers? Why are you so obsessed with forcing every living being to “earn” what God seemed to consider a basic condition of existing: the ability to acquire sustenance.
As Americans, we have to stop equating the ability to generate an income as a mark of high morals and entitlement. White collar criminals make a lot of money by exploiting and cheating people. Do their riches indicate God’s favor?
If hard work means a god will bless you by directly providing everything you need, then nearly every single person I saw in Haiti should be more wealthy than most people I’ve seen in the US.
That’s not the way it works, though.
We all live under a transactional system where work -> dollars -> the ability to have the things you need to survive.
An artist might make a thing of beauty that stirs emotion deep within the soul of all who view it, but if they can’t charge a lot for their creation, does that necessarily mean that they’re not contributing to society?
A mom (like me) might keep the home’s schedule, clean, do car repairs, mow the yard, help neighbors when they need it, cook for everyone, mend clothes, find sales, steward resources wisely, homeschool, etc. But none of that brings dollars into our household. So is what I do sloth and taking advantage of someone else’s work?
What about retired people? I know a lot of people who worked very hard (including my parents) and who now live off of the money generated and saved during their careers. If you want to get technical, they’re not “working,” though I’d argue that they both still contribute to society through service to their friends and family.
Honestly, the closest thing we see to retirement in the Bible is the man who had built up so much wealth that he had to build bigger barns and only had to worry about what he was going to eat. In the Bible, God demanded his life of him when he thought about retirement! I am not down with that, of course, but I think there are a lot of retired Christians ironically angry that there are less wealthy people on government assistance.
Finally, without going too deep into the ablism inherent in our society, what about people who cannot work at jobs to earn an income at all? Is there not an inherent dignity in human existence that implies access to life-sustaining resources?
Where is the empathy and the awareness that most of us are closer to total financial collapse than we are becoming so rich we will never need to think about money again?
I feel like the God of the Bible knew that we’d be like this, and that’s why he mentioned over and over again that we need to make sure everyone’s taken care of. If you’re a Christian, can’t you view your tax dollars creating a safety net as part of your obeying what your God told you to do?
It does not make sense to me that those of us who are comfortable would ruffle that someone with fewer resources than we have would get a small break. That they would be able to buy their kid a birthday cake. That they would get to celebrate the weekend with a steak. That they might buy sodas to take to a cookout.
In conclusion: Our government’s social safety nets, such as they are or have ever been, are necessary and humane. If you are in a position where you genuinely feel like your tax burden is harming you financially to the point that your own household is at risk, then I hope you’ll join those of us banging the drum for billionaires and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.
Decades have taught us that “trickle down" does not work. While executives and businesses like Walmart and Amazon get richer and richer, WE pay for their exploitive employee practices with things like SNAP and WIC and other programs that their employees require as they are not paid adequately for their hard work.
Can we please stop cannibalizing each other and get mad at the real culprits here: oligarchs, billionaires, and everyone who enables them?
And can we stop hating poor people for being in the circumstances they’re in? It could very easily be any of us at any time. I learned this at Street Cafe in Las Vegas, and have been reminded of it as more time wears on wherein my husband is unemployed. It’s been 16 months, and do you think he does not want to work? Hundreds of applications, and maybe 3 sets of interviews going nowhere. If we lose it all, do we “deserve” it?
Where is our humanity, countrymen and alleged Christians? Where?
You randomly popped up in a dream last night (specifically, I was picking you up from jail after you'd completed your sentence??)... well, the you from more than 15 years ago. Would I recognize you now? Would you recognize me?
I can't even begin to detail how much I've changed in the years since I moved to Austin.
When I first got here, everything was mostly the same. I tried to build a life that was familiar, like the lives we had in north Texas. But pretty quickly, that manner of living started to crumble and without knowing it, I was building a totally different way of life.
Superficially... I have wavy hair now. Can you believe it? All of that time and effort I spent trying to curl my hair. I know you liked it better straight; I guess we always want what we can't have. Anyway, my morning routine was never cumbersome, but it's so much faster now: spray hair to reset waves. Get out. It's pretty great.
Also, I'm not trying to be skinny anymore. You'd probably "still love [me] in spite of it," but, with all due respect, eff that noise, friend-o. I'm happy with myself, and my body has never been healthier. I've seen the future and know what I need to do to maintain maximum ambulation for as long as I can, as far as it is in my power to maintain. I move more and with more joy than I ever have before. And I also unapologetically enjoy the food I've always loved. No shame. No one watching me or my body change. It's amazing.
I have more tattoos (with another in the planning stages), and got my nose pierced a couple of years ago. I believe you would have hated this. It's probably good that things ended up the way that they did.
In fact, there are bigger things that make me grateful that we're not still in each other's lives. Much bigger.
You'd likely hate me now. I don't think the same way or believe the same things that I did back then. You'd think I had back-slidden or been influenced by something dark... but, man, when I read my blogs from 15-24 years ago, I do not like that person. I was a closed-off, judgy, occasionally humorous know-it-all.
I no longer vote the way I voted before. I remember when I first moved, and a mutual friend called me a loyalist to a particular political party as an insult. It worked. I was upset that she would say that. Now? Guilty as charged. What changed? A lot. So much.
You know what has pushed me to change the absolute most? My kids. They have been a blessing, and they have been challenging... and even that has ultimately made me a better person, and hopefully a better parent. If they ask me a question today, I probably have an opinion, but I don't feel like I have to give a pat answer with absolute certainty that it is and I am right.
I will err every day on the side of throwing the doors wide open and embracing people, and life, and happiness. I wanted this before, but was so limited by unnecessarily strict boundaries that someone else convinced me needed to be in place.
I made so many mistakes, and I hurt so many people. Heck, I've even done that in the past 15 years, despite my best efforts not to. But at least when I do so now, it's because I'm messed up and not because I think I know the only right way and insist that other people do certain things because of what I believe.
All that time I spent trying everything I could think of to make us work, and you absolutely refused to budge. It was that realization -- that you cared more about your own self-preservation than you did trusting me enough to step out on a ledge and try to fly -- that made me leave. And now I see that you were correct. We were NOT right for each other. We would not have worked. We would have gotten to a point just a few years later where things would have come up that would have caused us to implode, anyway.
So I guess I'm saying thank you for making me so miserable that I couldn't stay in the same place for another day. Thank you for pushing me away so hard that I ended up never seeing you again for the rest of my life. It was a protection to me, and to my kids (one for obvious reasons as he wouldn't exist).
And try not to get arrested, because I can't come pick you up.
We cruised on Royal Caribbean out of Galveston, with the itinerary supposedly taking us to Coco Cay, Nassau, and Cozumel. We knew this was a gamble because it was hurricane season, which is why we got such a great deal.
Turns out, there were 2 storms hovering over the Bahamas, so instead we ported several familiar places: Costa Maya (home of the best excursion I've ever taken), Roatan (sigh), and Cozumel (thanks for the drugs!).
It was a great trip, we had good food that I didn't have to make and came back to our room that I didn't have to tidy so I have no notes (other than that everything was too loud, including the notes).
A few highlights:
D came with us! It's their first cruise in 15 years, and their first weeklong vacation in 10. It's also their first vacation since having a job, so it probably means more. Actually, D has 2 jobs now, so it was a double.
Nana and Pappy went, separately from us but we got to see them here and there throughout the day.
D, Mal, and I swam (waded?) in the pool at Puerta Costa Maya whilst James walked around. We saw wild tropical birds and a huge iguana just chilling out. We saw the Danza de Los Voladores. We caught a peep of the Star of the Seas, which made Mal super happy. We bought some local chocolate and were back on board by lunch. We didn't plan any excursions because we hadn't planned to go there, and I don't like to book with the cruise lines (plus the line on the ship was LONG after people realized our itinerary was changing).
Mal and I swam in the pool at the new (to us) Roatan port. When Mal and I were on Roatan in February 2024, it was at the Carnival dock on the east side of the island. This time, we ported where I've stopped every other time I've cruised there. We were last at Coxen Hole in 2019, and they were just about to expand the port. That included a pool area, which is smart and we enjoyed a great deal. We bought some semi-local chocolate (Honduran, but produced on the mainland), and were back on the ship by lunch time.
I'm the only one who went ashore at Cozumel. James's achilles tendonitis was acting up, and I was able to pop out of the port for steroids, which worked very quickly and for which James will worship me until the day he loses his mind or dies. Maybe longer. We did have a good time watching the storms that were rolling across Cozumel, back a ways from the ship.
Mal tied with another young boy at Flags of the World trivia. Mal and I both sang Weird Al songs ("Eat It" and "Amish Paradise" respectively) at karaoke. I did the zip line over the boardwalk. Mal and I did an all-ages silent disco, which James joined about a half hour in. That paired with taking the stairs might have been what aggravated his tendon.
We had a great house sitter who took care of the cats and who fully cleaned our house the day before we got home!
I remember whether I mentioned this or not, but the transmission in our HHR is jacked up. To fix or replace it would be more than I paid for it two years ago. So we're trying to limp along with it (it runs, but rough, but only sometimes??!) but we did NOT want to take it to Galveston. So we rented a car each way, and since we didn't have to pay for port parking, we broke even on that. AND we had a lot more trunk room! I think we were all more comfortable, as well.
We rented a 2 bedroom townhouse in Galveston for the price of one hotel room where we stayed a week in 2023 (and we needed 2 rooms). I actually washed clothes three times the night we were there, so was glad to have that option!
I realized something when I walked outside the first full morning of our cruise: Every other time I've cruised, it's been during the winter. It only makes a difference of a few degrees and a bit of humidity... but I think I'll probably stick to the winter if I'm doing anything near the equator in the future.
Theater show: cute and enjoyable, talented cast. Aqua show: unbelievable stunts and very cool and avant garde. Ice show: beautiful, incredible athletes, and the dude with the big hoop must be made of solid muscle.
Now we're home and Mal managed to bring some Influenza B with him, so we've spent the week hanging out whilst he convalesces. I think he'll be fine by the weekend, which is good because I think he's getting stir crazy. He wanted to go to open gym today, but we tested him again and there was still the faintest line.
And I'm on to planning our Mexico trip in the spring... then we're cutting off travel until we figure out what to do with our finances if James doesn't have a job by then.
He had a series of interviews and successful tests with a company right before they left, but they ended up going with someone else, I guess. Sigh. Onward and upward!
He did it! James walked into the VA clinic last week and pretty quickly managed to make an appointment for labs (which he did yesterday) and another one to establish care with a primary care physician next week.
When he went in for the labs yesterday, he was very brusquely asked to present his eligibility card, which he does not have and about which this is the first tine we are hearing. The sparkling gentleman who checked James in stated that he did not care whether or not James was aware of the card; he absolutely has to have it.
James asked what he needed to do, and the man told him that he'd have to go into Austin or up to Temple to request a card, but they did let him do his blood draw. Also, James verified that he could still see the doctor next week.
He mentioned that when he went back for the blood draw, it was done very quickly and with an absence of any kind of chit-chat. When I do lab work at Quest, they are super quick about it because they're good at it from doing it all day, but they do at least attempt to be pleasant.
Oh well! We don't need coddling; just healthcare, so James will soldier on. (Get it? It's the VA.)
I did a bit of internet sleuthing and it seemed like we could request a card online, and my only guess as to why James wasn't told that was maybe because many of the vets using the VA health system are old farts who'd rather drive an hour and a half and wait in a waiting room than put their passport online?
Turns out that was a bit of a whole deal, anyway.
First, James had to set up an account with ID.me, and it didn't like our driver's license capture. The same thing happened to my dad recently when we were trying to verify his identity for something with Social Security. I believe this to be because of how the Texas driver's licenses, which are now the Real ID version, print the pictures. They're pixelated black and white snaps, and both tines I've tried to do this to verify an identity, the system has complained that the picture is "blurry." I've retaken photos in full light, all 4 corners showing, text crisp as can be... and it's just that the pictures are grainy. *shrug*
So. We uploaded his driver's license AND his passport, and then had to do a quick video call, for which we waited in/online about 25 minutes. That "call" lasted approximately 4 seconds, and that was that.
Except THEN we had to take a picture for his VA medical eligibility card. This one is on me: I kept not reading the full instructions, so we had to keep taking new ones. They are pretty funny, honestly.
1) Great pic! Oh, but it needs to have a neutral background. 2) Cute! I see, neutral LIGHT background. And neutral expression, mouth closed. 3) Okay, But it's kind of dark in here. Let's try a flash. 4) NO NO NO NO NO. Worse than a mug shot.
We finally got that done and the website said it should be a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed, people!
I've had our trip to CDMX planned for some time, but I do check back in with our notes and my personalized Google Map from time to time.
Most recently, I had to go back in and find a new place to stay in the middle of our trip (we're staying in 3 different locations so we can see the most without wasting too much time traveling to sites we're interested in; also, we'll get to try different restaurants when we're anchored in different neighborhoods).
Last week, sitting at my desk (the dining table), I got a charge for over $800 on my Apple Card. I didn't recognize the name but went to look in my vacation emails because the name sounded vaguely Spanish. Still nothing matched, so I did a fraud notice with the card.
A few days later, I got this email: "Good afternoon, cordial greeting we currently receive a fraud alert with the payment for this accommodation. Our machine learning system provides a real-time transaction score at the time of payment, but in some cases, as is the case here, we obtain more information about the risk level of a payment, we will cancel this payment and we will send a new link where you can process the payment again in a more secure way." It was the middle place we're staying.
I thought about it, but before they sent me the email, I asked them to cancel the reservation. I had made the reservation on May 27. The trip isn't until next spring. Why would they try to charge me 3 months post-reservation and 7-months pre-stay? There was nothing about that when I booked the room. And why not reach out before you make that charge? I just didn't feel good about it.
I was a little worried because the places seemed to fall into three categories: 1) Too expensive for us, 2) Fine but lots of complaints about nighttime noise or thin walls, 3) Perfect but only allow double occupancy.
FINALLY, though, I found a place that will work for us! Yay!
So I was looking around, moving some site-seeing, when I came upon something that just filled my ice cold heart with warmth.
It is a 360 view of the park where el Fuente de los Coyotes is. I was looking around because I think it's near a pretty church I'd like to look at.
Google blurs faces a lot, but they couldn't blur these guys' good time.
I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.
We have three young guys, friends, just chilling and enjoying the park at dusk. They seem to be sharing a joke or are teasing each other. It makes me happy to see them being kids together. The capture is from 2019 and they're probably fully adults now. Wonder what they're up to. I hope they're still friends. Does middle guy still color the top of his hair?
Anyway, I don't know why they really captured my maternal feels, but they did.
There are tons of people on Street View, but I don't think I've ever seen such an emotional slice of life (never mind the naked guy climbing out of a window or whatever; it's hard to enjoy that drama).
Thanks, young men, for being cool and hanging out. I'll sit on this bench in your honor next time the jacaranda trees are in bloom!
It's been a year since we lost our insurance, and James hasn't had a physical in much longer than that.
The other day, I decided to do him a solid and apply to the Veteran's Administration for healthcare. It wasn't a difficult process, and we received a communication today that assured James that the VA was diligently trying to set up his initial appointment.
There was a phone number for him to call, which was listed as: 1-800-4231-2111.
So.
We were able to Google it and there was just an extra "1" in what should have been the three-digit middle number. James called using my phone because that's where the clickable Google phone number was.
An hour into the call, James came in to me panicked because someone had answered the phone but couldn't hear James. We fixed that, James left again, and then came back a few minutes later.
Apparently the guy had told James that his chart was empty and they needed to fill out some more information so we could make an appointment. Then he put James on a hold that seemed to be the same queue James had been in before.
I was doing something mindless and told James to just leave the phone by me. About 15 minutes later, someone finally answered. I explained what was happening, and they said they needed to transfer me to the person who could set the appointment.
James came back in as the person was answering (that was only a few seconds, so huzzah!) and said he needed to make an appointment. Guess what?
The local clinic had closed at 4:00 PM (it was 4:02 PM at this moment) so we'd need to call back tomorrow. WE HAD CALLED AT 2:41 PM.
I asked for a direct number, and she said that they don't have one; you have to call the main number. She said you can also just walk in and make an appointment on site, which might be easier? That seems bonkers to me.
James tried to explain about the wrongly-rendered phone number but she didn't seem to understand what he was trying to say, as she explained something about how recently the extensions had changed. She was fine. She was trying. But this process was ridiculous.
Wish us luck for tomorrow.
UPDATE: I got them on the phone the next day, and they told us that James has to walk into the clinic to make an appointment because they just don't answer the phone. We're off to a great start!
