I Am Very Busy Being Unemployed, Thanks

My absence from this page is due not to any actual busy-ness on my part. However, my mom visited last week, and my computer is in the room where she stayed, and the kids are drawn to her like little fireflies at all times, so I couldn't really sit down and think much. It was great to have her, especially to celebrate my 35th birthday, which was largely uneventful. 

I did make the mistake of looking at this book, The Book of Ages, in a bookstore. This book has a list of all the important things that have happened when various famous people were a certain age. By age 35, many famous people had done many important things, and some of them were listed at "35" only because they had died at that age. Merriwether Clark committed suicide at age 35, for example. Van Gogh cut his ear off. These are things for which people are remembered, and so of course I had an existential mini-crisis about how I haven't done anything for which I can be remembered, and don't even seem on track to do, unless one of my kids turns out horribly terribly wrong and I have to sit behind him for a 6-month televised trial. 

Can't dwell on it though.

Other stuff: I have interviewed for one job FIVE times, with 10 different people. Hopefully I will hear about that this week, in which case I will be able to step up my car purchasing. That is to say, if I get the job offer, I will accept it, and then we will need a reliable car for my job-related use, and our family's comfort. Currently, we all wedge ourselves into a two-door 1997 Honda Civic that has no radio and no leg room. Its awful. So what car to get preoccupies me. As I have said before, I want the VW Jetta Sportwagon TDI (it's a clean diesel engine). Mr. Scobie alternately prefers a Prius (for the internal space) or something with 4 Wheel Drive and a third row, because of all of the trips to Tahoe we will no doubt soon be taking with all of our kids' friends piled in the back.  A friend has suggested the Honda Civic GX, which would require installing a Natural Gas pump in our garage. Since I have this kind of time on my hands, I have not only considered it, but I have read up on starting a Natural Gas filling station franchise.  JOB NEEDED.

Because its unlikely I will write another post immediately after this one, I will go on. The other new thing I am into is Kiva, which is an on-line community/non-profit organization that does micro-lending. I had heard about it awhile ago, and then read an endorsement from that incredibly hot African economist who Deborah Solomon interviewed in the NYT Mag yesterday. Wow, is she awesome or what? Probably not even 35.  Anyhoo, so then I went and checked out Kiva, and made one $25 loan. Loans go fast; apparently its competitive to make a loan because so many more people are interested in lending than groups can get loan recipients connected. Anyway it seems cool. Check it out. 

Finally, did anyone else read this "cautionary tale" in the NYT yesterday about how Japanese frugalness during their recession contributed to the economic malaise they suffered in the 1990s and still depresses growth? (or something. I am not totally comfortable with all these terms myself). What struck me was how all the of the things which are "bad habits" of the depression are actually sound environmental measures. Using gray water, driving less, drinking less, eating all the available food rather than throwing it out? Let me just say that is fucked up that those things would be discouraged in order for there to be an economic recovery.  Our reckless and wasteful lifestyle may be an "economic engine" but it surely means that we can only get through another couple of economic cycles before we are at a environmental end-times scenario. It seems like these things should not be irreconcilable. There must be ways to make money from re-couping gray water, for example. 

That's what's going on with me these days? How are you? Oh, and check out my cousin Zoe and the review of her dance company in the Boston Globe.