Mendolonium

As I was recovering from childbirth, nursing a baby a dozen times a day, potty training a two and half year old, and trying to figure out where to send a five year old to school I thought:  my life is simply not complicated enough, what I need is an unprecedented natural disaster to add a little excitement to my day.  Well, Mother Nature obliged and this happened:

That would be most of our 72 year old redwood tree lying directly over our bedroom; you know, the room we sleep in with our newborn nestled between us.  Wednesday night saw what I have seen the local newspapers call simply, “Wind 2011″.  A few days of strong winter winds (Santa Anas) are typical here in Southern California.  In fact, 10 years ago, one such set of winds capsized the boat that Jeff was in thirteen miles offshore, resulting in him and his research colleagues narrowly escaping death in the frigid waters before being rescued by the coast guard.  The winds this past Wednesday night started innocently enough.  As the winds picked up throughout the evening Jeff made multiple trips outside; first to put away a few of the boys’ toys, then to turn over our patio furniture and secure it against the house, then to turn over the garbage cans so that they wouldn’t take off.  By the time Jeff came inside the final time, I didn’t think it was safe for him to be outside.  The winds were coming in fiercely from the north, the side of the house with our bedroom and living room with a large bay window of untempered glass.  We nervously hung out on the south side of the house making occasional forays to look out the windows and see trees convulsing violently in the wind.  And then there was a boom and the house shook.  Jeff jumped up and through the haze of blowing branches saw a huge trunk of our redwood tree lying on our house.  This was a new problem for us and we weren’t initially sure what to do.  We then heard the wind rolling the tree trunk around the roof of our house; a very disturbing sound.  I started by calling the police non-emergency line which was busy.  Then I moved on to 911 which transferred me to the fire department.  The dispatcher asked me if we were all ok and whether or not we could leave the house.  I told him that we could leave, but that it certainly didn’t seem safe to go outside!  He told us that as long as the tree wasn’t actually in the house or the house was on fire, then we should stay in and they would get to us as soon as they could.  Minutes went by, then an hour, and through the power of our neighborhood facebook page, I realized that the fire department would probably not be coming as people began posting pictures of trees that had actually come through their roof!  The police department sent out emails and text messages asking residents to stay home and off the streets.  Most of the streets in Pasadena were now blocked by downed trees and power lines, while transformers were sparking all around us.  We could hear sirens and realized as bad as a tree on our house was, others had it worse and we didn’t have a choice but to wait and hope that our roof would hold.  Much of Pasadena and all of the neighboring cities of Altadena and Sierra Madre were without power.  We called our insurance company and started a claim; they had already declared Los Angeles Country a “catastrophe” area after receiving more than 1000 claim calls in an hour.  Given that we still, for the moment, had a roof we were told that it would be days before our damage could be assessed, to take care of what needed to be fixed, and save our receipts.  There wasn’t anything more we could do at 1:00 am, but there was no way I was going to sleep with a tree poised over my head so Jeff moved our mattress into our windowless dining room and we hunkered down with Baby Girl.  I think I literally hovered over her tiny body all night trying to shield her from anything that might invade our house.  In the wee hours of the morning the wind died down and we finally slept marveling as we awoke at how quiet the world could be without the fury of the wind.  Seeing the devastation in the morning light was surreal; our lawn was green, not with grass, but with redwood needles.  In a stroke of amazing luck I called a tree service company  just as they opened and they said they would come by with a crane.  They warned that they wouldn’t have time to do much else, but would remove the tree from our house.  The schools were all closed and normally we would have stayed home given such a disaster, but in case of very bad timing we had a long arranged court date at 8:30 am sharp to finalize Theodore’s name change.  It was comical, getting three kids up and dressed properly for court, traipsing out to our car via our side door (the front door was blocked with debris), me in high heels stepping around huge branches.  The drive to the courthouse, only two miles away, was slow going.  The major streets in many spots had only one lane open with cars in each direction taking turns around huge downed trees.  Streetlights and traffic signals lay broken.  There were pieces of roof everywhere.  In the end, we made it to court and Henry William officially became Theodore Gregory.   When we arrived home, the redwood on our roof was gone and our front walk was even cleared and swept clean.

Besides the wind apocalypse it hasn’t been an easy week.  While not truly colicky, Baby Girl is going through some significant newborn fussiness.  Theodore is sick with some evil daycare germ and actually threw up on his baby sister (and me) today.  And Thomas is just plain moody and difficult.  But one of the most wonderful things about being a 33 year old mother of three children, rather than a 28 year old first time parent, is that nothing much phases us anymore.  As long as our family is safe and healthy, everything really is ok.  I was a little shaky the night after the wind storm, vividly envisioning what could have happened if that tree had crashed through our bedroom with us in it.  But the fact is, that it didn’t.  Our 72 year old house is, apparently, made of pretty strong stuff; as is my love for our perfect Baby Girl.

*The title to this post is in reference to the “Holy shit bees!” in last week’s post.  And yes, the tree service company,  told us that the Holy shit bees were, amazingly, still in the tree (surviving 100 mile per hour winds and a fall!) section that fell on our roof.

So, in keeping with the advice of my last post, I will assume that you have gone and informed yourself about the economy. And I will assume that you don’t like what you have heard and read. Now what? You didn’t cause this mess, but unless you are already living on your fully paid for self sustaining farm with some gold bullion stashed next to the squash in your root cellar, you are certainly going to be affected. The first order of business: protecting your assets. I am going to broadly lump assets into five categories:

• Monetary Assests: savings accounts, retirement accounts, etc.
• Property Assets: home, land
• Community Assets: schools, libraries, parks
• Health Assests: your and your family’s physical and mental health
• Job/Skills Assets: your job, your education, other useful skills

And you thought I was just going to talk about money.

Monetary Assets

Savings accounts: Most of us have one (or more of these). First off, whatever you do, don’t keep more money in any one institution than is covered by the FDIC deposit limits. Now I realize, that most of us don’t nominally have $250,000 sitting in our bank account, however, there are situations where this might apply. For example, you might receive an inheritance. Or perhaps after selling your home you may have a small gap before purchasing another – even just a few days where a couple of hundred thousand dollars or more (if you’re lucky) might sit in your bank account. It would be rather unfortunate for you, if the bank happened to fail on one of those days. For more information on the current limits go to the FDIC website. Second, there have been 15 bank failures this year – expect more. I would be wary of most commercial banks. Yes, your deposits are insured, however, in the event of a failure you may have limited access to them. Furthermore, given enough failures the FDIC insurance fund will be depleted and then there will be trouble. We use a relatively small, local credit union. Credit unions are not for the profit of shareholders, therefore they generally took on much less risk than the commercial banks. As an added bonus, credit unions almost always offer better interest rates on savings accounts than a traditional bank. Finally, I think it is always a good idea to keep some cold hard cash on hand. Enough to buy a couple of weeks worth of groceries and gas. Even if the economic apocalypse never comes to pass, the next earthquake/hurricane/flood might be just around the corner.

Retirement plans: I am not going to tell you whether or not pull your money out of the stock market, although I will say I doubt it has hit bottom yet. For many young people, such as myself, there is nothing much you can do about the money in my retirement account even if you wanted too. For example, I simply am not permitted to access the money in my retirement accounts unless I retire. So we are stuck. I was joking to Jeff that I am just going to consider the tens of thousands of dollars we have lost as a sort of indirect campaign contribution for Obama since the economic crisis has clearly helped him in this election.

Property Assets

If you own a home, it is probably your most valuable asset. As such, treat it like you would a family member and keep it in good health. Take care of things such as roof repairs, leaks, termites, etc. that have the potential to become major expenses and/or render your home uninhabitable. If you have some land associated with your home, treat it as an asset as well. Land is good for much more than a manicured green lawn, you can use it as humans have for thousands of years – to grow food. So treat your soil well – don’t use pesticides/herbicides, fertilizers, etc. Build up your soil and it’s fertility through composting. If you are lucky enough to have shade and/or fruit trees maintain their health. For more information on how to turn your lawn into food check out the book: Food Not Lawns.

Community Assests

Unfortunately, as resources tighten and government appears increasingly bankrupt you can expect that many public services and institutions will be given short shrift. But remember that long before public schooling, libraries, and parks became the responsibility of the government, they were the responsibility of the people and were built up through volunteers. Become an advocate for the things that you care about. Personally, I have a great love for our library system. It provides us with books, movies, children’s music/storytime, and internet access all for free. If services do shut down or become so ill-funded that they are no longer useful remember that you can create your own. Get together with a bunch of other moms and start a music class, consider homeschooling, exchange books with friends, invite kids over to your park-like backyard.

Health Assests

Your health, and the health of your loved ones, is obviously one of the most important things to protect. That said, it is not easy in a severe economic downturn, particularly if you face the loss of your job and it’s health insurance. Now is the time to make sure you are current on your and your children’s vaccinations, go in for that dental check-up, get into therapy, and pick up that spare pair of glasses. This issue hits very close to home for me. For example, I nominally take a combination of drugs to treat my rheumatoid arthritis (RA). One of those medications, Humira, is insanely expensive. Without insurance it is $17,500 a year. Seventeen thousand five hundred dollars. Even with insurance, we pay a couple of thousand dollars a year for my medication. Needless to say, I don’t see how we would make ends meet if we lost my job and my health insurance. That said, RA is an aggressive, damaging, and potentially fatal disease. Not treating it is not an option. So I have a back-up plan. There is a cheap, generic, medication (prednisone) that I can take in fairly large doses to keep me alive and walking with a total cost of $48 a year. Despite the vast price difference I don’t rely on alone now as it has significant side effects. However, it is good to have a back-up plan. If you have a chronic health condition, mental or physical (remember that your mental health is just as important to you and your family as your physical health) it is a good idea to talk your doctor now about low-cost solutions should the need arise.

Job/Skills Assets

Job: Your job is a huge asset, particularly if it comes with insurance benefits. Now would probably be a good time to make sure that you are a “good” employee. You don’t want them to think of you first when the lay-offs come around and if you should lose your job you will want excellent references. No matter how secure you think your job is, you should also update your resume and keep it current. If you have an inkling that you may lose your job, start looking for a new one immediately. You want to beat the rush as much as possible.

Skills: Remember that you almost certainly have skills beyond your job. For example you might work in IT, but also spend your free time working on your car or motorcycle. Many hobbies can be turned into marketable skills. If it isn’t too expensive, perhaps now is a good time to polish your cooking skills with a culinary class, take an advanced carpentry workshop, or learn how to brew beer. You’ll be protecting yourself against the loss of your job and you’ll have fun in the process.

I strongly believe that the economic turmoil we see now is only the beginning of what is to come. We face not only the potential collapse of our financial system, but the (not unrelated) problems of climate change and the end of cheap, abundant energy (e.g., peak oil). Despite that, this post reminds me of how much I do have and how much I want to preserve what is good. I have a beautiful (if rather dusty and furry) house, a garden full of ever increasing amounts of food, a fantastic family, great neighbors and friends, and a good education and set of skills. That’s what is important and that is what I am working to protect. I hope that by that definition, you are all rich as well.

You take one down, you pass it around, 450 pages of bailout to read…

OK, I give up! I tried to read the final version of the Emergency Economic Economic Stabilization Act of 2008(The Bailout), but real life intervened.  The truth is, much like watching a train barreling towards a car stuck at a crossing, most of us could see that what was going to happen, but were powerless to stop it.  Even the engineer, or in this case members of Congress, who saw what was about to happen and attempted to throw the train into emergency mode could not avert the disaster this is the bailout.  There was simply too much momentum. 

While you and I can’t stop the worldwide economic mess we find ourselves as pawns in, it is important to realize that WE ARE NOT POWERLESS.  There are steps that we can take to protect ourseleves, our loved ones, and even those that we do not know but who are also suffering.  Briefly, I believe that those steps are to (not necessarily in this order):

1. Become an informed citizen
2. Protect your assets
3. Prepare for the long emergency
4. Change your lifestyle

I am going to discuss each step in separate posts starting with “Become an informed citizen”.  As someone who has experience in the intelligence field, I have found that the key to forming an accurate assessment of a situation is to use multiple sources and multiple types of sources.  Meaning, do not get all of your information from one “source”, (e.g., CNN, cnn.com, and Time magazine  – all are produced by the same media conglomerate.).  Likewise, use multiple types of sources, the internet, print media, radio, television, and the guy next door.  I’ve listed my favorite sources of information below:

• This American Life:  A weekly show on NPR covering all manner of topics.  There are two recent episodes which do a phenomenal job of explaining the details behind the current economic implosion.  Those episodes are the aptly named:  The Giant Pool of Money and Another Frightening Show About the Economy.
• The Economist: In my view the Economist is rather conservative; for example, they were generally pro bailiout.  They are refreshing for their global, rather than U.S. centric, perspective and their extensive research.  I have a print subscription, however, over half their content is available for free online.
• Bloomberg.com: An excellent source for information on the day-to-day happenings in the financial world.
• The Automatic Earth:  A blog devoted to prophesying and analyzing economic collapse.  These guys were warning of the exact scenario we are experiencing now long before Paulson was even Secretary of the Treasury.  The authors also do a fantastic job of compiling the relevant articles of the day from around the web.
• CNN:  Ah, CNN, I think much of it is sensationalistic, repetitive, and biased.  However, it is the most popular news source in America so if you want to know what everyone else is hearing, it is useful to watch in limited doses – perhaps with brownies.
• Everyday people:  The guy you know who works (or used to work) at Lehman Brothers, your friend who is trying to buy a house in the current market, your aunt that runs a small business.  Real people that you know can help you to reconcile what you hear and what you read with reality. 

“But Gina”, you ask, “if we can’t stop this train wreck from happening, why should we bother to watch it and read about it afterwards?”.  Because what you learn will change your response and empower you.  Based on our reading of “the way things were headed” we actually made a number of financial and lifestyle changes months ago which we believed would serve us well and we continue to make changes based on what we learn.   In addition, while this crisis is global in scope, it will play out uniquely for different regions of the world and the country.  For example, do you live in central California with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation and where you have a 90% likelihood of owing more on your house than it is worth if you purchased it in the last five years?  Or do you live in a city in the Midwest, where there is no public transportation and you are dependent on a car?  Being informed about the conditions in your community is vital in preparing for what may come.  Finally, being informed also allows me to give my elected representatives an intelligent opinion.  While I believe that most of those elected are not doing what needs to be done, they’re what we’ve got and I am committed to trying to make democracy work in the midst of a time when it seems that our democracy is being eroded. 

I would love to hear what you, my readers think about these issues and if you have any favorite sources for information please leave a link in the comments. 

A couple of weeks ago I sat in a rocking chair nursing and rocking Thomas (and myself) to sleep when I suddenly awoke to a great deal more rocking than I was making. I quickly realized that we were having an earthquake and calmly walked out the hallway with Thomas to ride out the quake. It was only a moderate earthquake and we didn’t suffer any damage but I took it as a warning to update and improve our “go bags”. Our go bags are backpacks filled with the basic necessities of survival (excluding water and food which we have stored separately) for three days.

Regardless of whether or not you live in earthquake country it is a good idea for everyone to have a go bag at home and, if you work farther away than a home office, a go bag to keep at work. A well stocked go bag is particularly important if you or a member of your household has any medical conditions or food allergies that might not be able to be accommodated at a shelter. Ideally you would “shelter in place” during a disaster and our home is well stocked to do so. However, sometimes as in the case of a small scale disaster such as a gas leak or a large scale disaster such as hurricane Katrina it is just not possible to remain at home. That is where the go bag comes in. So what’s in our go bags?

In my home go bag I have enough supplies (excluding water and food) to keep me reasonably comfortable for three days. My home go bag contains:

• A 30 day supply of my non-refrigerated prescription medication
• A moderately sized first aid kit with an additional bottle of Tylenol arthritis strength
• A complete change of clothing including two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, pants (that zip into shorts), a tank top, a long sleeved t-shirt, and a sweater
• Comfortable walking shoes (my old athletic shoes)
• A cosmetics bag including: shampoo (can also be used as soap), contact solution, a contact case, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush, hairbands, lip balm, a fingernail clipper, feminine hygiene supplies, sunscreen, and a small sewing kit
• A package of tissue
• A extra pair of glasses
• A flashlight + extra batteries
• Matches
• A map of Los Angeles County
• A chamois towel
• A charger for my cell phone
• A laminated emergency card listing the phone numbers, addresses, and emails of everyone in our immediate family
• An empty water bottle
• $20 broken down into a roll of quarters, a five dollar bill, and five one dollar bills
• A dust mask
• A hand crank emergency radio
• A pocket knife

We also have a go bag for Thomas which has a somewhat different makeup and includes:

• Thomas’ medications (includes infant Tylenol)
• A box of hemp milk
• A bottle
• A sippy cup
• A small spoon
• Favorite snacks (freeze dried fruit, snappea crisps)
• A onesie
• Long sleeved/long pants pajamas
• Socks and shoes
• A sun hat
• Sunscreen
• A blanket
• A sling
• 18 Diapers
• One package of baby wipes
• Small amusements (a notepad + crayons, stickers, two board books)

We have had go bags at home for a couple of years now, however, with the recent earthquake striking during the daytime I realized that in a significant disaster we might need to make our way home from our respective workplaces without a car or public transportation. I work only 2 miles from home, however, Jeff works 17 miles away. Certainly walkable but it would be a much more pleasant and safe walk with a few supplies. Therefore Jeff and I now each have go bags that we keep at work. Jeff’s work go bag includes:

• A small sized first aid kit
• Comfortable walking shoes
• Sunscreen
• A hat
• A flashlight + extra batteries
• Matches
• A map of Los Angeles County
• A laminated emergency card listing the phone numbers, addresses, and emails of everyone in our immediate family
• An empty water bottle
• 2 liters of water
• Powdered Gatorade “singles”
• Granola bars
• $20 broken down into a roll of quarters, a five dollar bill, and five one dollar bills
• A dust mask
• An old pair of work gloves

In addition to our go bags we also have a go box (actually a cat carrier) filled with emergency supplies for our pets which includes leashes for all,disposable litter boxes, three days worth of food for each animal, disposable food/water bowls, and a blanket for each animal.

I hope we never have to use the bags, but knowing we have them ready to go brings me a small bit of peace every time the earth starts to shake.