Show Me the Money

I'm in a Seinfeldesque/Andy Rooney kind of mood today. I am taking a little creative break from sitting on a stool all day (forgot to take lunch) researching gifted programs in districts that don't fund or value such things, that would include New Hampshire not but not Maine or Massachusetts. I now see why people who sit all day for a living grow large :)

I happen to be lucky to live in a beautiful condo. My husband was involved in the building of it so we live here. However, we are not at all like our neighbors. The Mr. and Mrs. on both floors above us are millionaires. Both have other homes, using this residence as the second home (and in one case there is a third home). Their hope to sell, but there is no hurry. What has been of interest to me is what some people do all day when they don't have to run off to work at 7:30 each morning, but they do have a lot of money. Some go away for the cold New England winters to Florida or Arizona and spend the summer months up here playing golf or visiting relatives. Others stay indoors all the time (with the blinds down - wouldn't want to bleach out the furniture); the million dollar view obscured. Such people, I've noticed, can spend their entire days cleaning, polishing and moving all their things around. Move, arrange, rearrange, dust, clean, shine. Isn't there more to life than that?

I guess I just don't get this complete focus on things and on one's body. This obsession with one's body seems to go along with people who have a lot of money, but not always. The body has to look perfect from the coiffed hair to the matching outfits to the coordinating gemstones on all the perfectly polished finger nails. Have you caught an episode of The Real Housewives, recently? I watch with my mouth hanging open. Who are these people? The cars have to be continually cleaned so they sparkle...and here in New England, they have to be black. Black is the money color. Keeping one's expensive black car constantly cleaned is a trick in snowy, icy, muddy New England in the winter.

I would like to think that if my husband and I had so much disposable income to own 3 homes that we would put some of that money to better use, create a scholarship for those less fortunate. We've actually talked about that for our will someday, a fund, and we are not rich by any means. Maybe these people do fund large scholarships for the less fortunate? Ken and I work so hard for our money, just to keep afloat. I heard on the news it was over $150 milliion dollars to welcome Obama to the presidency. Does that seem a little over the top to anybody given our current economic crisis? It's like the woman who spends $150,000 on a wedding. Our wedding cost a couple of thousand dollars and everybody cried. It was a beautiful wedding, full of meaning and love. Money. Such an interesting topic. Lots of writers and psychologists write about the meaning of money. It represents who you are and how you are in the world.

Friends all around me are losing their jobs and I am saddened by that. At a recent school meeting the parent rushed off to work, fearful of being late because a list had just been published laying off some of his colleagues. In my fantasy life there is enough money for everybody and we all work together. Fantasy and reality, at least in this situation, couldn't be farther apart.