Cash Deposit

<scrunch> <scrabble> <toss> <flip> Oh!

Hello!

Excuse my long absence from these pages, but I have been literally buried in mounds of paperwork and have just now managed to tunnel out for a bit of a breather.

The most recent events on The Road to Brookwood Court have us embroiled in the process of Applying for A Mortgage.

Portentious and important stuff, yes?

I had no idea.

Now it isn’t as if we’ve never had a mortgage before. In the last 10 years, we actually had two - one on each of the home we have in Florida. And while I certainly remember there being paperwork involved, it paled in comparison to the reams and reams of papers needed to apply for a mortgage today.

And it isn’t only tax statements and bank statements - those you would expect. It’s proofs of insurance and copies of deposit slips and copies of all the checks you’ve cashed in the last two months and copies of the credit card accounts you’ve paid off and letters from the bank and letters from the tenant in the rental house and and and and....

Every day it’s another email with requests for more information.

And why? It’s not because we’re asking for an overly large sum of money. Nor is it because our credit rating is bad.

It’s because THE GOVERNMENT requires it. THE GOVERNMENT needs to see every check I’ve deposited in the bank in the past two months, even the 10.00 rebate check from the oil change at the Ford Dealer.

But it’s the cash deposit that almost did us in. A while ago I deposited some cash into my checking account. You remember cash don’t you? It’s the green paper that you can use to buy thing with? Comes in different denominations and usually has the face of a President on it?

Well, I happened to have some cash and- not realizing the danger -  deposited it into my checking account.

“Oh well this is just a real problem,” my nervous mortgage consultant told me. “We might have to produce an affidavit explaining where this cash came from, otherwise THE GOVERNMENT thinks you’re laundering money."

Holy Freaking Cow.

After I spent about 10 minutes railing against THE GOVERNMENT and how they needed to stay out of my f#&*(%^ business, my husband looked at me over the top of the reading glasses he was using to read the fine print on even more papers.

“Careful,” he said. “You’re beginning to sound like a Republican."

Sigh. Now that’s a real reason to fear the cash deposit.

Never mind, we will not let these ridiculous rules and regulations deter us from our final goal. We will continue to collect all the minutiae required in all the acceptable formats.

However, if I don’t surface until after the closing, you’ll know I’ve been consumed by the monster that is THE GOVERNMENT.

But I won’t go down without a fight.

Free Writing

Most of the time we take this writing gig for granted. We can pick up a pencil, sit down at our computers, and write whatever our little hearts desire.

Maybe it’s poetry that inspires thoughtful reflection. Or fiction that takes readers deep into a story and away from their own worries and cares for a while. Perhaps it’s prose that incites action or changes thinking.

Words are powerful tools, and yet we give them away so freely, especially now when we can toss words onto the internet and send them speeding around the world in a manner of seconds.

Of course it hasn’t always been that way, not even here in America where we celebrate free speech and a free press, both hard won by the men who framed our most famous piece of writing, The Declaration of Independence.  Imagine the hours of thought and feather pen scratching that went into that document before it was presented to the world.

Now, 236 years later, we enjoy the fruit of their labor - the ability to write and read freely, without fear of  legal recrimination. What a mighty opportunity that is, to share the written word with others.

Celebrate your freedom to write this Wednesday.

Use  your words thoughtfully, carefully, and then proudly set them free.

Keeping the Faith

Last year one of my dear friends decided to fulfill a long time dream and start a community theater group. Because of her  history in the community as a high school music teacher, drama director, and church choir director, she has contacts galore with people of all ages. A perfect opportunity presented itself - the ability to host the group in her church (St Paul’s Presbyterian Church) - and thus, Paul’s Players was born. Despite her many friends and connections in the community, it hasn’t been easy. This is not an affluent area, nor is it one that really champions the arts. But she has persevered, getting enough donations of time and money to mount three shows in the past year as well as a successful musical theater camp for middle school students. All this while continuing to work as the music and choral director of the church, as well as serve on the Board of her local AAUW chapter, be an active participant in her grandchildren’s lives and activities, and travel on several nice trips this year.

Not a bad resume for a 70 year old retired teacher, is it?

Her plan this summer was to produce a multi-age production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It’s a fun show, she’s done it several times in her career, and was excited at the prospect of getting a group of 40 or 50 young people between the ages of 8-21 involved in musical theater.  She had a group of eager adults ready and willing to help out and we were all excited about working together.

As it happened, staffing was the easiest part. Turnout for auditions was really light. In fact, it was frightening. Despite massive publicity - including personal visits to all the middle school and high school classrooms in within three neighboring cities - as recently as this past weekend we barely had enough people to make up the cast or children’s choir, with the show just about four weeks away.

Most importantly, we didn’t have a Joseph.

But while many of us behind the scenes were getting ready to write the whole thing off, my friend never did. She kept coming up with people she could call, remembering students from past shows and putting out  direct invitations. She spread a net far and wide, casting it out among young people who had found their way onto her stages during the past several years.

Lo and behold, the phone call she had been waiting for came in yesterday afternoon.

“I have a Joseph!” she crowed on my voice mail. “In fact, I have TWO!” And she proceeded to tell me about two young men who had responded to her message within minutes of each other. Both of them recent high school graduates, both of them still finding their way in a difficult world, not quite sure which road to travel.

“The best part is,” she said eagerly, “I know doing this show is going to help them."

Her ability to remain positive - to keep the faith - is astounding, and it’s one of the things I admire about her. It’s a lesson I’ve taken with me from the years of working with her in the classroom and  on projects like Paul’s Players. Whenever I’m tempted to throw in the towel, to say “that will never work!” I remember times like this when it seemed as if we were doomed.

And then we got a Joseph.

The Road to Brookwood Court

16287 Brookwood Court.

That’s going to be our new address. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

We crossed the last hurdle today, after something of a heart-stopping moment when we read this sentence in the condominium association by-laws:

 No owner shall keep more than one dog or cat on the premises without written permission from the Board of Directors.

Yikes.

We’ve spent the last two days trying to find out who to contact and writing e-mails to get the necessary approval from the Board, all within the five day time frame. Meanwhile, our realtor tells us that a cash offer has been put on the house, so there is another buyer waiting anxiously in the wings should we change our minds.

Sorry.

Ain’t happening.

A few minutes ago we received word that Magic and Molly were officially sanctioned residents of Country Club Village.

It’s ON, people.

We’re moving.

Write On Wednesday:

The personal essayist takes a topic - virtually any topic under the big yellow sun - and holds it up to the bright light, turning it this way and that, upside and down, studying every perspective, fault, and reflection, in an artful attempt to perceive something fresh and significant. The essayist does not sit down at her desk already knowing all of the right answers, because if she did, there would be no reason to write. Dinty Moore, Crafting the Personal Essay

I’m a huge fan of the personal essay.

Love to read them. Love to write them.

Like a good short story, they examine ideas and experiences in a unique way, condensing them into one scrumptious bite like a finely detailed miniature portrait.

Though I’m no artist, it seems to me that the painter and the  personal essayist have much in common. As Moore says, they take an topic (or an object) and “hold it up to the bright light, turning it this way and that, upside and down, studying every perspective...in an artful attempt to perceive something fresh and significant."

My favorite personal essays - those that take slices of ordinary life and experience and reflect them back through the writers particular lens - offer that fresh perspective on universal situations which make them significant. Anna Quindlan, Joyce Maynard, Anne Lamott...some of writer’s I’ve counted on over the years to do that for me.

And of course, Nora Ephron (who died last night) with her wry wit and slightly edgy humor, could make me laugh out loud about things as mundane as reading glasses and double chins.

But in today’s information soaked world, does it matter what one solitary essayist has to say about life in general?

I think it does.

A well crafted personal essay opens a window into the mind of another human being, encouraging a deeper personal connection than a 140-character Tweet or three sentence Facebook status. Those are the kinds of connections that make us more empathetic people and draw us closer together in our human experience.

That always matters.