An Embarrassment of Riches

"It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach." ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

***

I don't know what it is exactly about my particular malady of the moment, but despite the fact that I cannot seem to stay awake for more than an hour or two during the day, at night I have these vivid, crazy dreams or my mind is awake and filled with essays and far-flung ideas that all seem to connect, as if I have a high fever. But I'm not feverish at all. My head hurts and I can't put my mind to rest after dark. I'm becoming a creature of the night.

After tossing and turning for over an hour, plus it's quite warm here now (75º at 12:42am as I write this), I've decided to just write write write until I can go back to sleep again.

***frieze above the Villa Taverna, Hotaling Place
a private club where only being rich makes you worthy

I'm thinking a lot about having money, about not having money, and what having an extreme amount of money does to atrophy the human heart. For the past thirteen years, I've been working for and around extremely wealthy people, mostly women. I've been culling these snippets and observations for such a long time now, at first fascinated by a world that most of us will never have entree to, and now have left it for good, with a reserve of disgust built up by what I've seen. It's a specific segment of the ruling class, and by no means a statement on those philanthropists who use their wealth to improve lives, but to those petty lesser nobles whose only cares run the gamut of designer shops, country clubs, spas, bridge games and gossip.

I think about this now, as my iPhone beeps daily with little sweet messages from K and the kids over the past week: Aunty Julie, we LOVE you. Get well soon! Aunty Julie, we miss you! BIG hugs!!!

I miss them, too.

I am so fortunate. I cannot think of a single wealthy woman I've ever met (except with one brilliant and generous exception) who would have helped K. In fact, those who have been in a position to help in a profound way have completely ignored my story.

Most of these women (and again, I haven't much experience with the husbands, just the wives) are obsessed with their appearance and are deathly afraid of aging (is that the precursor to losing the husband who pays all the bills?). Plastic surgery aside, getting facials, manicures, pedicures, eyelash tinting, eyelash extensions, hair color, blowouts, massages, fat reduction ... all of these sometimes weekly activities, not counting the endless hours of private designer trunk shows at Neimans, Saks and Chanel, tea parties, socials and the like... a life so unexamined leaves little time for anything of substance. In fact, it renders many helpless, if not downright ignorant (why learn to use a computer if you can have someone use it for you? Or even possess the skill to write a complete sentence, for that matter?). Of course a staff is needed to cook and clean and maintain the home so it looks like a perfect hotel, not to mention the retinue of gardeners that are on site five days a week.

One employer who begrudged me a measly $2 hourly increase in pay and never failed to mention it with a sigh ("I never paid my previous assistant as much as I pay you"), as if I was robbing her blind, as I filed her numerous bank statements, each account holding monies well into the millions, had three closets. One contained only shoes from floor to ceiling, the cheapest pair starting at around $400, and many of them unworn because her bunions were too painful. How many trips did I make to the shoe repair man to have these perfect shoes stretched to accommodate growing bunions? And still she made a hobby of buying expensive shoes she couldn't wear.

Again, I am fortunate. That sort of wealth without the heart or mind to claim some common sense and decency instead creates a prison of the soul. These people are so afraid of not having money that they're probably worse off than people who really are impoverished. Not having money means not having the right friends, power and position in "society." It sounds very Jane Austen-ish, and it is. Nothing much has changed in that regard where position and money rule. At one time, I thought I'd write my own version of The Nanny Diaries, and capitalize on the inanity I've been exposed to, but when I think about it now, I realize these people just aren't worthy of my attention any longer. I am grateful for that.

I am looking forward to feeling better soon (!) so I can see my little family of friends again. This week Aunty Julie will be ready for them, BIG hugs having been stored up for days on end.

Full of riches that don't cost a cent but that still can't be bought at any price.

Strawberry Money

Anna was left a young widow with four small children when her husband Nathan died. His death certificate says that he died of pneumonia, worsened by a cardiac condition, but the family rumor had it that his death might have been from complications resulting from when he had been shot while trying to smuggle weapons into Russia after the Revolution.

Whatever the story was, Anna, or Annie as she was also called, was a young widow in Brooklyn, left to raise four small children in a brownstone tenement. The year was 1924.

***

Anna was my paternal great-grandmother. Nathan had supported the family comfortably as a furrier. After his death, Anna opened a beauty parlor. She also made bootleg whiskey in her bathtub and delivered it to her customers in a baby carriage. My Aunt Edna's baby carriage.

Great Aunt Edna had fond memories of her mother, that she was impulsive and good-natured, despite their constant struggles to make ends meet. When Anna would come upon a little windfall of money (maybe from the whiskey or a generous tip from a customer), my great aunt remembers that her mother would go out and buy a treat for the family. She remembers the strawberries vividly, an expensive luxury but how cherished those berries were and how special it was to have them.

I have always enjoyed imagining those strawberries, and the family of children delighting in them. Whenever I have a little windfall, I call it my Strawberry Money.

***

Yesterday I wrote that post about how Dickensian the world has been feeling and about not having money for a sandwich and all of that. I literally pondered if there would be a treat after all of this economic madness.

But when I got home, there was some Strawberry Money waiting for me. A check for $29 from Blurb, meaning that more than one person actually bought one of my books online, so I could accrue enough to get a little check in the mail! Hooray! Thank you, mystery customers!

Now, what will I spend my Strawberry Money on? That's the hard part. But like Annie, I'll figure out something delightful. I get to see two special friends tonight. Maybe I will spend my Strawberry Money on buying them an ice cream.

What would you do? When you ask for a little treat, you might just get one!

***

Photo of strawberries by ~MVI~ on flickr.

Will There Be a Treat After All of This?

Yesterday, despite what else I may have mentioned, I also got a little treat. From my new book friend (who you'll meet soon), a small book-shaped box filled with Hershey's kisses. Totally unexpected and totally welcome.

And how did she know about my Dickens fetish? Somehow I must exude that. Bleak House, with its labyrinthine and gloomy descriptions of the Court of Chancery, is a favorite, as is Nicholas Nickleby and the heartbreaking tale of the relationship between Nicholas and poor Smike. Gosh, I cried my eyes out over the book and the original BBC stage production starring Roger Rees and David Threlfal. (It's eight hours of the purest, most memorable Dickensian experience you can have. And you can own it or rent it because it's on DVD.)

But my favorite story might be Little Dorrit. For some reason, reading about "the child of the place," a little girl who grew up in a debtor's prison and remained a lovely, innocent soul has always stayed with me. I know that Dickens based this character on his own experience as a child, having endured the misery and embarrassment of his father's own economic ruin that brought his own family to the Marshalsea prison. (On my one and only ever visit to London, that pilgrammage to the remains of the Marshalsea was a must-visit for me.)

Anyway, the concept of a dark Dickensian novel containing a sweet treat made me think. Times in general seem quite Dickensian of late. When I watched Slumdog Millionaire recently, I couldn't help thinking that it was an updated version of Oliver Twist, with those poor mudlarks trying to escape a world of cruel poverty.

***

Today, it's official. The giant Virgin megastore on the corner of Market and Stockton is going out of business. What's next? Barney's up the street? The new Ferrari store that just opened a few months ago?

So many store fronts are closed downtown. More and more people unemployed.

And this couldn't help catching my attention, not only for its dire warning about stealing and how the poor paper deliverer needs that income, but also because downtown they are giving away the Examiner for free, and the SF Chronicle may cease to exist very soon. Meaning that San Francisco will not have a "real" newspaper of note anymore.

I was eating a can of soup for lunch yesterday and feeling somewhat waifish about it. The fact that I have to decide if I can afford a sandwich just isn't something I thought I'd have to ever worry about. I guess I can say the Global Economic Crisis (or the GEC, as julochka calls it) will have a slimming effect on my waistline, but still... For a long time, I've not had a credit card, and just paid for what I needed or wanted from what I earned, but even that doesn't make me feel too much better.

It's like we all somehow entered the Global Marshalsea together, and I'm not sure how or when we're getting out. I just hope there's a reward for us somewhere, and not just that we survived.

ps.: after embezzling some lunch money, I just read Thomas Friedman's column today. Don't do that while you're eating your purloined lunch.