ETA: Thanks to jlms qkw for placing this on the Rescue List.
This is not a hard-hitting, politically, or even socially relevant diary, and a lot of you are going to wonder, what the fuck is this nonsense doing on DailyKos?
It's here because it's been a hard year to slog through. There are no indications that 2010 will be more than marginally better, at best. And it's here because my metier is the personal touch. I started writing about foreclosures in my neighborhood in Peoria, Arizona. I added bits about my family during 2008. This year I've written about my friends and co-workers falling through the tatters of the American safety net.
Tonight I want to visit the reasons why I'll be ecstatic to see 2009 swept out on the garbage heap of history. And one of them is my mother.
You see, Mom died on December 9th, at 9:18 in the morning. And her loss is one of ten reasons why 2009 can't end soon enough for me.
- Layoffs.
My employer laid off somewhere around 15 employees in our region this year. Considering we have 500 employees in Arizona, that's not so bad--not when you consider the thousands who lost jobs with GM and Chrysler, and the hundred thousands in construction and related trades who saw their livelihood tank. My younger brother was one such; a licensed general contractor in California, he lost his business in 2008, and moved in with me in Phoenix, where the housing market has suffered just as much. Yet he got lucky, and landed a couple of long-term projects that helped him to keep his head above water.
Other friends of mine weren't so lucky. A good friend was laid off this January, and rehired by his employer as a contractor--nearly the same pay, but with no benefits at all. That means no paid sick time, no vacation leave, no nothin'. What happens to him this fall? He catches the flu, a case so bad we're sure it's swine flu. Did he get help? His wife has him on her insurance, so yes. Did he get time off? Hell, no. He went to work medicated and sick. And people ask me why I'm so vociferous about healthcare reform . . .
- Idiot retailers.
We entered a deflationary spiral, with housing prices dropping (except in markets where the Fed managed to re-inflate the bubble with that $8K "tax credit"--psst! It isn't a credit if you have to pay it back!), commodities dropping, and . . . oh, what's that, you say goods like clothes and electronics haven't dropped? Yeah, that was interesting. It may be anecdotal, but it was my experience this year that most retailers were trying to sell 2009 goods at just a bit below 2008 prices. It's true that nobody needs a brand new, LED television. But clothes are awfully important, especially if yours are falling apart, and you need garments that don't have holes in them. I'm keeping an eye on retailers to see what they offer in early 2010.
- Swine (or "Hiney") Flu.
The swine flu is a strange beast. Renamed "the H1N1 virus" (and nicknamed "the hiney flu" by a family member, because that's the word H1N1 resembles), this flu has reached pandemic levels without triggering the massive loss of life the word "pandemic" conjures in our minds. And yet, if you have friends in the medical field, as I do, once you hear about "lung necrosis," you may want to haul yourself down to the nearest clinic for a vaccine shot. Unless, of course, like me, you live in a state that has yet to receive the vaccine. (Not to worry. Arizona finally got the hiney flu vaccine. I wonder if we had to sell a national landmark to get it, since we've already mortgaged out the Capitol . . . )
- Really, Really Awful Weather.
I live in Arizona; I expect arid weather. My friends back East expect humid summers. So while I wasn't surprised (just dismayed) that we didn't get rain this summer in Phoenix (just one monsoon shower), I was appalled to find my friends in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine were suffering through the coldest summer seen there in years. But global warming isn't happening, because the Midwest is getting snow in winter . . . which is as much of a surprise as finding that bears shit in the woods. No, seriously; I had a guy tell me that because he was shoveling piles of white crap off his stoop in Michigan, there couldn't possibly be such a thing as global warming. ::rolls eyes:: Did I mention he also thinks Ayn Rand is the greatest political philosopher since Burke? (Did I need to?)
- The Rise of
The Third Reich Glenn Beck's Teabagger Nation.
I'm not surprised that Glenn Beck managed to get the morons who think he's (a) brilliant or (b) hilarious out into the streets to protest healthcare reform. After all, Bush was returned to office not just once, but twice, and I sure as hell didn't vote for him. I'm surprised because the only reaction these walking miracles of imbecility deserved was to be laughed back to their homes . . . and we didn't even manage to do that here on DKos. Folks, the Democratic and Republican Parties are not the only political organizations with circular firing squads. Take these idiots seriously, by all means; they're armed and they suffer from delusions of persecution and somebody-gives-a-damn-itis. But they're delusional, they're dishonest, and they've given permission for their masters to use them at will. They've given up their rights as free citizens to shill for their owners. Pity, laughter, and scorn are appropriate emotions to display where teabaggers are concerned.
- Don't Ask, Don't Tell Keeps Getting Kicked Down The Road.
Well, let's see. We've lost good men and women in our armed forces, who were thrown out for no other reason than that they loved other men and other women. We've lost badly needed translators. We have current soldiers who can't publicly declare their relationships, have none of the protections marriage would grant them, and who live with the terrifying possibility of losing their jobs, their benefits, and the places where they live because they love other men and other women. This is not "a pony," folks. This is a violation of the civil rights of far too damn many Americans. It is a disgrace. It is a tragedy. Support the President and Democrats all you wish, but for God's sake, recognize that it is not only right, but a citizen's duty, to criticize the White House and Congress when they are WRONG.
And in this matter, they are wrong, dead wrong, so wrong that the bells are no longer ringing, but wronging.
- Healthcare Reform Has Become A Total Fucking Misery
Yay! The House bill contained a public option! Oh, fuck! The Senate bill not only yanks that away, but throws in an unconstitutional ban on abortion! Yes, it's a step forward, but you know what? If Harry Reid had the balls God gave a chicken, he'd have pushed for reconciliation. Instead, he and Rahm Emmanuel decided to fuck over progressives and let the Ben Nelsons and Joe Liebermans have their way with the Senate Bill. I hope Nancy Pelosi and Raul Grijalva, among others, restore the public option, stomp on Nelson's shitty little anti-abortion amendment and Medicare giveaway to Nebraska, and laugh at Rahm as a decent bill gets signed.
Oh, Rahm? Go get fucked sideways with a rusty chainsaw. Mean it.
- Malia Obama, A Whore? Or, Hideously Hateful Creatures Spew Bile Over A Child's Hairstyle
When people start calling a young girl a ghetto whore because she braids her hair--a style that I thought looked beautiful on her--it says everything about what kind of people they are. And to me, it said they're the kind of people who really don't give a damn about children of color, who consider them less than human. It also said that these people aren't human themselves. And that Malia Obama has more beauty and humanity at her young age than any of the walking garbage that criticized her in such terms will ever see, let alone possess.
Also, when supposedly adult men start talking about a girl, who's not even twelve years old, in terms that would make a frat boy blush, it makes me wonder if they really know what they're talking about--and how many young girls they've hissed those words to as they're using them for just that purpose. (Yes, it made me vomit too. Here's the brain bleach.)
- Real Estate Shills And Empty Lots
It's the time to buy, the NAR's representatives trill on TV and the radio. There are great new foreclosure programs in your neighborhood! Or, Come to X Homes! Our prices will beat any foreclosure! Come now! Get financed! Get the homeowners' tax credit! Buy! Buy! Buyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
. . . um, how about not just no, but hell fucking no?
You can go to Calculated Risk and get all kinds of reasons why the housing market has yet to hit bottom, and why the shadow inventory is going to kill us in 2010. Or you can come with me, and let me take down streets in Phoenix and Scottsdale that are littered with yellow "Bank Owned" signs advertising auctions. You can pass great tracts of land in Tempe, Chandler, and parts of Phoenix where developments are frozen in time, with lack of financing turning condominiums and tract homes into squatters' paradises. You can walk with me down 19th Avenue in central Phoenix, where lots that once held 1200-1500 sq. ft. ranch homes now hold nothing but gravel, as Phoenix uses stimulus money to tear down properties that aren't attracting anything but vandals, thieves, and the occasional Arizona wildlife.
The street looks half-finished in some places, and deserted in others. There aren't even "For Sale" signs advertising the empty lots. Are we going to hit bottom here soon? Um . . .
- Mom's death.
This year was a bad one for Mom. We knew she had some problems with her memory, but she was fine until she came down with walking pneumonia in December 2008. We treated her for it, as her lungs were mostly dry; still, she had no idea who any of us were until early February 2009.
I took her to a doctor, who told me such a thing was normal with the elderly--Mom was just suffering from senile dementia, that was all. Nothing to worry about; I just had to make sure she didn't get into any household chemicals, or try to eat paste, and things would be fine. So I sucked it up and dealt with it. I made sure she ate. I gave her baths, because she had trouble getting in and out of the tub. I cleaned her up when her bladder and bowel control worsened. And Mom's cognizance remained fairly stable. She had what I came to call "fugue moments," where reality and dreams became hopelessly tangled for her. She was rarely able to finish her sentences, or hold a conversation. That was probably the most painful thing for me, as Mom and I had talked about nearly everything since I was about 9 years old.
But in October, Mom came down with a bad UTI. I tried everything--OTC medicines, wipes, constantly giving her water--and finally called the paramedics. After 10 days in the hospital, Mom came home. Early the next morning, November 4th, she fell out of bed and broke her hip. She spent all of November in a rehab facility, and was actually improving until December 7th. The doctor had placed her on a diuretic to ease the edema in her legs; the diuretic left her dehydrated, her kidneys shut down, and her heart began to fail. After spending a horrific night with Mom in the hospital, hearing her cry and whimper in pain, my brothers and I were told by her admitting physician that we could either leave her on Dopamine to keep her blood pressure--and her heart would fail within 4 days--or we could withdraw treatment and place her on comfort care, where she would be given painkillers, be cared for in hospice, and die within 12-36 hours. We chose comfort care. None of us could bear the thought of her suffering any more.
Mom gave up the fight 30 minutes after treatment was withdrawn. She was a strong, intelligent, fiercely independent woman who was also one of the most generous and great-hearted I ever knew. She was born at the start of one Great Depression, and I fear she died during another one. But I will never know anyone like her, and her loss has ripped the heart out of our family.
Rest in peace, Mom. I love you.