Had to talk the Perfect Child down off the independent ledge last night.  Not that I’m really in the habit of doing that, but sometimes, you just need to talk some straight sense into a mind wrapped in romance and fantasy.

She’s a great kid, and there’s not a whole lot I’d change about her.  But once in a while, she gets hooked on the idea of living on her own, paying her own bills, doing her own thing.  When she starts talking like this, I remind her that she cannot afford to live on her own yet, and she needs to see the long term goals she has to fruition while she still has mom’s financial support, such as it is.

She has done some checking around, and has realized that without being on mom’s insurance, her $70-a-month payment would end up being $200-300 a month, more than a week’s salary for her.  Then I reminded her that I pay for her health insurance, which she can’t get through her jobs.  And reminded her that her cell phone would cost another $100 a month.  And she wants to buy a car, with payments, so there goes another $300 or so a month.  Financially?  She can’t do it.

Right now she pays us about $100 a month; part of that is her car insurance, the other part is her cell phone costs.  Pretty easy living.  Mom buys the food, pays the rent, keeps the cable on, and takes care of the doctor. It’s hard to see how much it will cost to live on your own, until you actually do it.  I know.  I was there once.

“I don’t want to still be living at home when I’m 27.”  Silly child.  She’s barely 18 now.  She’s a loooooong way from living in Mom’s basement for her spinster life.  I did ask her about what bothered her so much, why she didn’t feel “independent” enough here.  We let her come and go pretty much as she pleases; she does pick up her sister from school every day and watch her until we get home an hour or so later, but other than that, she has pretty good freedom.  I don’t monitor her facebook, cell phone, or where she goes in her car.  She has pretty good sense and I trust her judgment most of the time.  I don’t mind if she goes out with her friends, stays out late with her boyfriend, etc.  She said she doesn’t like having to be quiet, and having to be home at a certain time.  I reminded her that she has never woken me coming in late (or getting up early to go to work) and that her ability to stay out late had everything to do with her job (she has to be at work by 5:45 a.m. every day) and not so much with me.

I’m trying hard to remember what it was like for me at her age.  I was not a night owl, didn’t go hang out with my friends often.  I did go away to college when I was 19, and lived in a dorm.  I also didn’t have a boyfriend.  That came much much later.  I was comfortable in my parents’ house, as far as I can remember.  I did chores and ran errands for my mom, I do remember that.  But I don’t remember feeling like I needed to get out.  I suppose I did, I just don’t remember it.

Ah well.  She’ll be fine.  She was just having a bit of a crisis yesterday.  These days, with her two jobs, she’s tired, and that doesn’t help.  It’s hard to see clearly when you’re tired.

Took the girls to the local Earth Day celebration today.  I have avoided such events in the past, because of the crowds, and the way you have to park forty miles away and hoof it in.  I know I need the exercise, but if I wear myself out just trekking to the thing, then have to fight the crowds to get to the booths, well, then what’s the fun in that?

That’s the advantage of living in a smaller place.  Although our city is 86,000 people, it feels small. Events are on a manageable scale, and usually there aren’t too many lines or if there are, they are short.

Our Earth Day celebration took place in one of our city’s 34 parks (yes, THIRTY FOUR).  It was near downtown, and is the park that has recently had a new playground installed.  It is one square block, and understand that blocks in this town are small.  There were a few booths set up (less than a dozen), a giant inflatable globe, and a huge drum circle set up in the middle.  The city forestry people had set up their tree planter, and were letting kids play around with its controls, short of actually digging a hole.  The municipal power people had a booth, and one guy was doing his best Fire Marshall Bill impression with big gloves and a live set of miniature electrical lines meant to simulate power lines.  He took turns either burning up a plastic figure of a little boy “flying a kite” or electrocuting a branch from a tree (that was supposed to represent a tree).  He was having a grand time, and the kids were enthralled.

There were booths giving away seeds, helping kids build noisemakers, another booth on our county’s recycling program (we have great single-stream curbside recycling here as part of our very cheap trash service), and a guy using a lathe to make these fantastic wooden bowls.  There were tightropes the kids could walk, as well as Jacob’s ladders they could climb.  There was a meal of hot dogs, bananas, and nuts ($2 per person), and a band of four guys on guitar singing some Southern rock and 70’s classics.

Then there was the drum circle.  I have not been drumming since I left Missouri, having not found a group in my town (or close by).  Well, it turns out there’s a guy that hosts a drum circle very close by, in the next town over, about 3 miles or so from my house.  He also teaches drumming in my town.  He had brought a Subaru full of drums, and set them out, and people just gathered in, grabbing a drum and going for it. What surprised me was the flock of old people drumming right along.  I’m talking the senior crowd, 70 and up.  There was a guy sitting next to me who had brought his own chair and his own drum, and wow, was he good!  I grabbed up a drum and joined in, although I wish I’d had my own drum instead.  My Ashiko was custom-made for my height and my hand size, and I love it. But the drum I had, an oversized Djembi, had a great sound, and I had no trouble keeping up with the drummers there who appeared to have a lot more experience than me! It’s always been hard for me to describe how drumming makes me feel, but I can tell you that when I was done, my whole body was buzzing and I felt so good.  I probably only drummed for about a half-hour, but it was enough.  And now I’ll have a drum circle I can go to regularly, which is going to be wonderful.

It was a wonderful way to spend our day.  The fact that it was relatively low-key was great for me, and for my rather over-excitable Tater.  Things may not always be perfect in my world, but there are so many good things that I cannot help but to feel blessed.

It wouldn’t be Earth Day without a globe, right?

Some of the booths.

They had people stationed at every trash can/recycling station to make sure you put your stuff in the right container. This guy was cute, according to The Perfect Child.

Lunch.

The band playing Southern Rock and 70’s hits.

The tree digging machine.

Sample of a rotten tree removed from the park.

Look at the old ladies drumming!  And they knew what they were doing, for sure.

The guy on the left in the blue starburst shirt is the guy who runs the drum circles nearby.

That’s me, on the right.

The Perfect Child took this shot.  I like the contrast of the hand rattles in the foreground.  What a great picture!

Our new house is just wonderful.  So far, no problems we can’t overcome.  The basement room I want to use as a guest room/office needs a coat of paint and a few new ceiling panels.  It also needs a rug and a comfortable chair.  I have the bed in, and my office stuff, and there is still room for a sewing area, and room for a rug and a comfortable chair.  It’s going to be the best guest room ever!

But the outside…that is where I’m finding myself these days.  There are so many wonderful growing things in my new yard.  I know I haven’t discovered them all yet, but I will.  The front of the house has an area where things have been planted, and rocks have been sprinkled in. Among those rocks are Lily of the Valley.  I have not had Lily of the Valley for years.  They are struggling through the rocks, and I’m sure within a couple of years they would take over that area entirely, if I gave them room to grow.  So I will be picking out all the rocks. They are smooth, egg-sized, pretty speckled granite rocks, the kind that are very common here in Colorado.  I’ll use them somewhere else, or I’ll give them away.  So this year the Lily of the Valley will struggle, but next year it should be happier.

Further toward the street are a bunch of leaves.  They are a soft green and fuzzy, but pointed.  I had to ask someone what they were, as I’ve seen big pods on them, as if they are going to bloom soon.  They are poppies.  I don’t think I’ve ever owned poppies.  They should be orange, according to the locals.  Yesterday I went out there with pruning sheers and cut off all the elm sprouts that are coming up from an old trunk.  I am going to have to be diligent.  Since it’s elm, it will never completely grow away, but I can sure make its life difficult!

I have three rose bushes.  Two are bush-style, in decent condition and look like they were pruned last fall.  The third is a climbing rose that is growing next to (but not on) the arbor between the side of the house and the back yard.  I will give it a good pruning this weekend, when I find my leather gloves.  It is sad-looking, but I think it will be okay if I get it trimmed up and tied to the arbor.

I have two apple trees, one in front and one in back.  Both bloomed their heads off the last few weeks; now they are fully leafed out.  The owner says the apples are small, but that’s okay.  It’s something different.  I’ve not had a fruit tree in my yard since I was a kid.

The area behind the patio is almost completely taken over with a giant lilac.  It smells heavenly.  It needs a trim, however, because it is creating a big shade issue on the one patch of ground I would like to use to grow vegetables.  I may not get enough sun there, however, as it is on the east side of the house and shaded in the morning by a gargantuan pine tree.  There is a community garden a block away.  I may just rent a plot there to grow vegetables.

The small garden along the back of the house, which also faces east, was empty.  I planted two healthy peonies, with blooms.  They should do wonderfully back there, and to fill in all that empty space (it is completely weed-free!!) I will plant some zinnias and marigolds, I think.  The ground is in decent shape; the soil is loose with no clay and looks organic enough to support life.  We’ll see.  I might have to add something, but for now we’ll see how it does.

It feels wonderful to get my hands in dirt again, to think I can plant some growing things, and help other growing things along.  I have missed that.  The duplex had no yard to work with, and back in Missouri, my last house had terrible clay soil and just didn’t want to grow anything but crab grass.

It’s spring, and I feel like I’m getting plenty of new starts right about now.  It’s a nice feeling!

I’ve been posting pictures of some of my growing things over on my picture blog, 365.susabelle.com.  Check it out!

I have a coworker who loves the phrase “Hah, I win!”  She is our tech, and she’s always fighting with some piece of software or other.  When she finally makes it work, we all get to hear her trademark phrase.

Today, I am borrowing that phrase.

We are moved into our new home, a beautiful townhouse close to a park and Tater’s school.  The townhouse backs onto green space with a pond and plenty of grass and trees.  We have two apple trees (one in front, one in back), a fireplace, central air conditioning, all appliances including washer and dryer, new carpets, designer paint schemes, and windows windows windows. We are sleeping in the townhouse for the third night, and we could not be happier.

But back at the old duplex, things were ugly there at the end.  In the last three weeks mold began growing through the bathroom ceiling,not in the shower.  Something new! The day we were moving out, my city’s code enforcement people came out to inspect, at my request. The property manager came out too. Her first words to me upon entering the almost-empty house were “I hope you’re intending to pay April rent.”  I said we could talk about it, and led the inspector into the bathroom.

Now normally I am not a fan of city code inspectors; they have a job to do, and that job is to find violations.  But in the case of the duplex, violations were rampant and brought danger to my family.  This was a case when I was glad to have the code enforcement people on my side.

The inspector first started in the bathroom, where the property manager swore she didn’t know anything about the mold.  She also claimed that the mold was our fault for not opening the window when we showered, and letting the moisture out.  The inspector was very blunt: the mold problem was not our problem, it was her problem, and that it was pretty obvious that it had been a problem long before we ever moved in.

Next we headed to the basement where the inspector looked at the moldy carpet on the wall that connected to the other duplex.  It was dripping wet, and the inspector looked at the property manager and said, “You don’t mind if I pull this back, do you?” as her gloved hand was on the carpet pulling it right up off the floor, because it was not tacked.  A thick black line of mold abutted the wall and was on the back of the carpet and padding.

The next stop was the big room, which was supposed to be a large bedroom.  I pointed out the lack of egress windows, the single electrical outlet for the very large space, and the lack of heating or any type of ventilation in the room.

The next stop was The Perfect Child’s bedroom, which, while it had a closet (necessary to call a room a bedroom) it had an inappropriately sized egress window and no ladder.  The last stop was the downstairs bathroom, which has no vent, no exhaust vent/fan, but fortunately no mold problem.

The verdict:

• The upstairs bath needed a complete rehab, down to the studs, with appropriate and approved mold removal.
• The downstairs rooms could not be used as bedrooms, unless egress windows, HVAC, and electrical problems were solved.
• The downstairs bathroom would need an exhaust fan and HVAC in order to be compliant.

The bottom line:  the duplex we spent the last nine months in is now condemned for occupancy until the violations are corrected.  The problems with egress, lack of electric and HVAC in the two “bedrooms” in the basement could be left alone, as long as the duplex isn’t advertised as four bedroom, but instead two (the two upstairs).  But there is no other way than correction for the upstairs bathroom mold problem and the downstairs bathroom ventilation problem.

Busted. So busted.

Yes, I broke my lease to move, and I did not give 30 days’ notice.  I do not regret that decision, and I would not change a thing about how we left.  I had alerted the property manager to each and every issue, including the problems in the basement, and was told that the house met code and had been “approved for Section 8.”  I knew the house did not meet code.

They can no longer rent the unit out, even if they still own it in two weeks when the foreclosure sale occurs.  Any new owner will find the condemnation on any title search that is done.  No one will be able to live in that unit until it is repaired.

I win.  Finally.  And I’m glad this whole thing is over, and we are in a better place with a responsive landlord and everything we could want in a family home.  It was certainly a long time coming.  I will never rent from a property management firm/company/individual ever again.  They just don’t care, and they treat tenants like white trash. I am every landlord’s dream tenant.  It’s nice to be treated with respect again.

The other day I was at my writing group with my friends.  We meet once a month at the local Panera Bread, and eat sweets and drink coffee and try to write our terrible novels.

This particular night, as I sat with my usual group of very young people (they are mostly in their early 20’s), I realized the group next to us was way more interesting to me than the young people I was surrounded by.  It was a group of six mature ladies, talking about the things they talk about – their lazy husbands, dental problems, how good the tomato soup is, and sharing around a tin of mints.  I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation, and at one point, against the rules of eavesdropping, I interjected my own advice into their conversation.

Oh. My.

I’m old.  When I had more in common with them and their conversation than I did with the young ones sitting next to me, I knew that I’d crossed that line somewhere.  I don’t remember crossing that line.  Maybe it wasn’t marked well enough for my failing eyes.  Those eyes that need reading glasses for everything these days.

I know I don’t necessarily look my age.  I always say fat hides wrinkles.  A also have plenty of friends who are my age or just younger and just older, and I think some of the ones just younger than me look older than me.  Hard living, or genetics, or whatever.  I am blessed to look younger, I suppose.  And I can’t always act my age; I’m a mom of a school-age child. Tater will be ten soon.  I still have a long path of teacher’s meetings, PTA, field trips, and pediatrician trips ahead of me.  I have always wanted to make sure I didn’t look like Tater’s grandmother.  I do color my hair, but then again, I’m grayer than my own mother, so I have felt that it was necessary to keep up appearances in that regard.

I texted my mom about the ladies at the coffee shop, how they reminded me of her, and how I seemed to have more in common with them than I did with my young writer friends.  She reminded me that I am still her baby, and always will be.  Thank goodness someone has some decent perspective here.

I’m not old.  I’m still a baby.

I think it must be true, that there are no new ideas, and that when someone finds something that “works,” innovation stops.  It’s true in lots of things, but most notably (for me) television shows.  Especially on cable.

The formula is the same:  pick some profession, the weirder the better (alligator hunters, truckers who drive in icy places, fisherman on the high seas, people on massive diets, house flippers, ghost hunters, cake or cupcake bakers, dog trainers, etc.); start filming them doing their “jobs;”, encourage them to nitpick at each other on camera, then put all that drama-filled footage on television for the uneducated masses to enjoy.

I have yet to see a reality show where the “drama” is anywhere close to realistic.  There is always nitpicking, outright fighting, snarking about each others’ abilities (or lack thereof) and some sort of “I’m so out of here” crisis in each episode.  There is cursing, which of course is bleeped out, and somewhere in there, we might get to see how they do what they do in their profession.

The thing is, alligator hunting, or cake baking, just might be interesting enough for me to watch it.  Maybe learn about something I have no experience in.  It’s why I watch Dirty Jobs, or Mythbusters.  I learn things.  And I might learn something one of these other shows, but I’m just not willing to sit through all of the enhanced, over-hyped, “drama” that they infuse these shows with.  I don’ t know anyone, honestly, that has that much personal, nitpicking drama in their lives in real life.  I live real life, and while Klown and I have our disagreements and pet peeves, we aren’t spending all of our time telling everyone we know what those annoyances are.  I can’t imagine living a life with the kind of “drama” I see in these reality shows going on in my world.  It would be dreadful.

And in all seriousness, do I really want to hear all the horrible things you want to say about your wife, children, coworkers, etc.?  You are living with these people, and working with these people, and THIS is how you feel about them?  Wow.  Just, wow.

And what bothers me most is that people obviously watch this crap.  They watch a LOT of this crap.  Every time I turn around, I’m hearing a commercial for a new one coming out.  The shows would not survive, and new ones wouldn’t come out, if people weren’t watching them.  And that makes me sad.  Really, can we not find something better to do with our time as a people?  When I die, am I going to regret I didn’t catch that last episode of Teen Mom or Dog, The Bounty Hunter, or am I going to regret I didn’t climb that mountain or take that cruise or learn to make chocolate souffle?

Ugh.  Television was always bad to me.  But these days.  Ick.  No reason to turn the darned thing on to begin with!

I have come to this shocking conclusion as we are in the week of All Things Catholic Holy, also known as, St. Patrick’s Day.

By now all the stores in St. Louis would have had their corned beef stocked in, and on sale for 99 cents a point for point cut, and 1.19 a pound for brisket.  And cabbage would be 19 cents a pound.  And the bakeries would be filled with rye bread, and baby potatoes could be bought by the bushel.

I had my suspicions a few weeks ago, when Mardi Gras came and went with nary a purple bead or a King Cake to be seen.  I work at a college; in St. Louis there would have been a whole day of celebrating on my campus, including traditional foods and festivities.  Well, except for that whole show-me-your-tatas thing.  There would have been a parade downtown, or maybe two of them, and lots of publicity.  There was nothing here.  Not a whisper.  I never saw anyone wearing beads, and there were no local bars with Mardi Gras festivities being advertised.

Then there was Ash Wednesday and I saw not a forehead blackened.  And no Friday Night Fish Fry signs in front of the Catholic churches I drove past.  Actually, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve even see a Catholic Church in my town.  Wait, let me Google that.  Oh, look.  One. There’s one.  There are 87,000 people in my town.  St. John the Baptist boasts that it has 4500 families registered.  There’s no mention of fish fries.

Bummer.  Until now, there wasn’t much I missed about St. Louis. Well, I miss Ted Drewes, Cardinal’s Baseball, the best free zoo in the world, and giant rivers.  Our rivers here are creeks.  You can wade across them.

But I digress.  I paid 89 cents a pound for a cabbage today at the grocery store, and the corned beef was tucked away in a little corner of the meat section, and there was very little to pick from. And it was 2.99 a pound.  Outrageous!  As for the rye bread, I guess I’ll have to buy a loaf in the bread aisle because the bakery didn’t have any, and the baby potatoes will have to come from a can.  Appalling.

I guess all the Catholics stopped in Missouri where the ground was reasonably tillable and looked like Germany.  It was much too much work to come to Colorado, where the ground is hard and full of grass or granite, depending where you are.  Hard to grow a potato in that kind of dirt, I suppose.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all!

So our housing saga is about to come to an end. We have found a beautiful townhouse to rent and will be moving soon.  More on that later.

For those not keeping up, apparently the guy who owns the duplex we rented was heading into foreclosure.  We were unaware of this, and I didn’t realize I needed to research it, so I didn’t know.  We moved into the house the first part of July, and in November were served with papers indicating that the bank had asked for a “demand of sale,” which is legal verbiage in Colorado for “we’re taking the house back since you haven’t made payments in more than a year.”  Here it was, coming up on Christmas, we were finally feeling a bit settled after moving a thousand miles to be here, and we were going to be out of house and home.

Fortunately, law and time were both on our side.  A temporary federal law in place allows tenants to stay for at least 90 days after a foreclosure sale, which means that even if the house sells on March 14th at the foreclosure sale, we are still able to stay here until June 14th.  Throughout most of this, the property manager who is our contact has indicated that “everything is fine,” that a refinance is being completed, etc., and that the “economy” has been the reason for the foreclosure.  Still, after getting in touch with Bank of America, the holder of the loan, I have been led to believe that the owner has not completed requested paperwork for a refinance.

But one thing I’ve discovered is that this whole foreclosure business has made my landlord quite a bit of money.  He has a pattern; he buys a rental property, usually a duplex, and rents it out, paying the mortgage for 18 months or so before ceasing payments.  We’ll use our duplex as an example.  The property was purchased by our landlord in 2008.  He rented it out, for a combined rent of approximately $2400 a month.  The mortgage payment is $1400 a month.  Not bad.

Once he ceases making payments, he continues to take rent, and in fact, as tenants move and are replaced, he takes rental deposits as well.  Over the course of a year or so, he takes in rents of $2400 a month or so, but does not make any mortgage payments.  After about 10 or 12 months of this, the bank begins foreclosure proceedings.  These proceedings are time-consuming; using our duplex as an example again, a request for “demand of sale” was filed with our county court November 4th, 2011.  The sale date was set for March, 2012, four months later.  During those four months, his tenants keep paying, a combined rent of $2400 a month.  So by this time, he’s pocketed almost $40,000 in rent money, but paid nothing in mortgage.

At the last minute, he refinances the loan, putting him back on a payment plan that he can, presumably, afford.  So what happened to that $40,000?

This reminds me of the Step 1, Step 2, Step 3: Profit thing that goes around the Internet.  For this guy, Step 1 is buy the property and rent it out for 18 months and stop making payments.  Step 2 is to pocket continued rental income leading to a foreclosure and restructure.  Step 3:  PROFIT.  Lots of profit.  This guy owns multiple properties, and through diligent searching I’ve found he’s done this with 8 properties in the last three years, all with loans from different banks or lenders.  What’s really scary about this scenario is that this guy can continue to play this shell game, continue to get re-approved for mortgages, while someone like me, who has not been late with a rent payment in 9 years is not a good enough risk for the bank to give me a loan.  That should give a whole lot of people nightmares.

Be all that as it may, we have found housing that meets our needs, with a flexible move-in date.  It is owned by a young guy, whose parents are living in it while they search for a house to buy.  We will move sometime in the next two months. The townhouse has a fireplace, central air conditioning, three bedroom plus a bonus room that we can use as an office/guest room, and comes with all appliances including a washer and dryer.  There is a nice back yard that leads down to a pond; there is a patio and a balcony from the master bedroom, and the home has been well cared for.  We are looking forward to getting into a nice place, with an honest landlord, like we had in St. Louis.  We will be happy to kiss the current place, and the dishonest landlord, goodbye.

This week my son and his girlfriend came to visit.  They only had two and a half days.  And I was ready to make the most of it.

So the first half-day they hung out with Hubby while I worked, then we had a nice dinner, and a nice rest.  The first full day, we got up, had a nice big breakfast, put on our boots, and headed up into the mountains.  It was cloudy in the low country, but by the time we got to Estes Park, the sun was out.  There was only a light wind, nice for Estes, which can be bitterly windy at times.  We stopped so many times I lost count, first at the overlook that marks the city limits of Estes Park, then at Estes Lake, then at the Stanley Hotel, then to take pictures of mountain goats on the road to Rocky Mountain National Park, then at Lily Lake, then at Long’s Peak, then in Nederland.

Lily Lake was our adventure, however.  The lake is completely frozen over this time of year, and you wouldn’t know there was a lake there except there is a sign.  The kids walked onto the lake, although not far, since signs clearly say the ice may not be safe.  There was at least a foot of snow on the lake itself, and multiple feet of snow on the ground around the lake.

How do I know?

Because I fell into it.  We decided to walk around the lake on the path, because there were other people doing it and it seemed like a good idea.  What we didn’t realize is that most of the people were wearing snow shoes.  The path seemed packed down and stable, although at some points it was easy to sink ankle-deep into the snow just off the tramped path.  At one point, we were climbing a rise around the lake, and the path was only two boot-widths wide.  The girls had gone ahead, Klown was probably ahead of me by 40 or 50 feet since I couldn’t see him anymore.  I was walking with my son’s girlfriend, and Stinky Boy had gone back on the path to find his keys, that he had dropped somewhere out of his sweatshirt pocket.

So this particular rise was shaded well by pine trees, and my boot missed the tramped path by about 2 inches.  My leg dropped through snow to my mid-thigh, and I was tossed over onto my back in the snow, head downhill and feet sticking up.  I managed to keep my camera from the snow.  It was a soft fall, amazingly soft.  Not hard and crunchy like the Missouri snow I’m used to.  It was fluffy, feathery, and for all intents and purposes, like quicksand.  And I’m on my back, flailing my arms and legs to no effect.

And laughing so hard I thought I would never stop.

I finally managed to roll over onto my stomach, but there was nothing to grab, and the snow kept collapsing around me.  On my hands and knees, I paddled through the snow until I was close enough to the path to grab the girlfriend’s leg, and haul myself up onto the path on my knees.  By that time Klown had made his way back, and between the girlfriend and Klown, I was able to haul myself back to my feet.

Of course I was wearing jeans and not ski pants, so I was pretty wet and cold after that.

But, it didn’t ruin my day, and I cannot remember having had so much fun.  Next time, ski pants for sure!

Click here to see our pictures from our adventurous Wednesday!

Tonight, the death of troubled singer/actress Whitney Houston was announced.  She was 48 years old and leaves behind a daughter.  And troubled doesn’t even begin to describe what she was.

The same can be said for singers Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse, who both died of drug overdoses in recent years.  It is likely (but not confirmed) that Ms. Houston also died due to drug issues.  Over the years I’ve been alive, plenty of talented singers, actors, and other celebrities have died the same way, including Elvis, Curt Cobain, and many many others.

It probably won’t surprise you that I am not sympathetic.  In fact, I am probably the opposite of sympathetic.  And what bothers me the most is how people will go on and on about the “lost talent,” how she just “didn’t know how to handle fame” and how her now-ex-husband was to blame because he introduced her to drugs.  Somehow, these people will say, she couldn’t help it, it was someone else’s fault, etc.

Well, the reality is, she was a grown woman.  She made gabillions of dollars singing and acting.  She had fans, young and old, who bought her music and went to her moves.  She had a choice to be sober, or not.  She also had a choice to get help when she needed it, which she apparently did not do. And she could afford to hire people to surround her and tell her she was perfect, that what she was doing was fine, that would cover for her when she couldn’t perform or she acted not like herself but like the drugged-out woman she was.

Why, again, do we all want to be rich and famous?

I don’t have sympathy for her or her death because she chose this life.  She chose to drug herself to death.  She chose it as sure as I chose to put on my slippers this morning, or chose to have eggs for breakfast. Fame, fortune, and “talent” does not make you immune from the consequences of your actions and choices. No one made her take drugs, or drink herself into oblivion.  No one was standing there with a gun pointed at her forcing her to do anything.

What’s hardest for me is realizing how many people look up to, and idolize, these characters.  There is nothing to idolize about a drunk.  There is nothing to idolize about a strung-0ut singer living in a hotel or a mansion, their life frittering away as sure as the seeds on a dandelion head.  “She was about to make a comeback,” some would say.  No, she wasn’t.  She was about to kill herself with drugs.  This time she succeeded.  Has the world lost someone great? Not really.  She is certainly not anyone I want my kids looking up to, emulating, wanting to be just like.  No way.

That is the sad part. That people will feel sorry for her.  That people will make excuses for her behavior. That people will blame others  for her demise. Really.  She was a grown woman, completely capable of making her own choices in life. And that’s exactly what she did.  Let’s give those choices exactly the energy and attention they deserve and move on.