Featured Guest: Todd

Long time no post.

Sorry about that, dears. After that last rather apocalyptic bit about the death of good buys as we know them, I've been as busy as I have been verklempt. And I'm not saying I have anything to say, nor certainly that I have any answers as to how anyone not in the $450,000-house bracket is supposed to put food on his or her family's Ikea table while still managing to put gas in the Subaru and rent in the landlord's box on time. It's as bad as, and worse than, I intimated.

On the other hand, I've been sad that I haven't found anything to post about. I recently dug someone up from college, which is always great (at least it's always been so for me), but just today someone dug me up, which is even greater as, as you know, I so dislike having to embody the yang any more than I have to. For heaven's sake, I go to a full-service gas station! (Inside information: they don't charge me, either, because I buy all my Diet Cokes and Tums and '5' Flare-flavor gum there!)

So now I feel obliged. And if there is ever anything that motivates me, it is the ponderous weight of responsibility to others. There may be a great number of words in this blog, but there really aren't that many posts. Anyone finding it amusing will quickly realize he or she has come to the end (which is to say the beginning). So, with living proof that someone, somewhere (and better still, someone I know) (well, in a sense, and not the Biblical one) is reading this, I have renewed inspiration - and duty! - to offer to him and to you more jeremiads on the Death of Decorum, the Horror of Calvinism, the Psychic Pain of 'Comfort Clothes,' and, in the words of the current Pope, Benedict XVI, the 'Tyranny of Relativism.'

In the meantime, while you are walking around in your terrifying comfort clothes being relative and not opening doors for ladies, go over to 43Things and think about what you really want to do. I hope one of them turns out to be 'pay for a year of Comcast Internet-and-phone-service for the Greenwood Food Bank' -- because she has one line for her phone, fax, and DIAL-UP!!! Not to mention that her clientele, like that of most other food banks in the area, has risen 30% in just the past couple months.

And while we're on the topic of problems around town, I can't find the figures for this, but: housing prices for King County (Seattle's county) rose last year, while those of counties to the north and south, Snohomish and Pierce, fell. Recalling that gas prices are as prohibitive as they currently are regarding long commutes, it's not an entirely rosy picture for individuals contemplating buying a home in the cheaper suburbs. And, again, if you have money to buy a house in Seattle proper, you'll cut down on your commute but pay a great deal more for your mortgage -- although houses in city should continue to rise in value. Maybe.

However, what of the poor schmucks who bought a house in those same sad suburbs (perhaps enticed by loose lending practices, 5-year ARMS, or 100% funding) two or three or five years ago? Even many of those who did put down cash, and did have enough income to make payments are back down to zero equity on their $300,000 house, which would be a $400,000 house in Seattle, and was a $325 or $350,000 house a few years back.

Grrrr.

Well, that wasn't entertaining in the slightest. I do enjoy making global crises out of shed cat hair and ill-considered lipstick shades, but sometimes the weight of reality is such that it defeats the point of deliberately manufacturing problems when there are so many genuine ones to get sick over.