...for me. My kid had an okay day except for the buses taking extra time dropping off children on the home trip, owing to security roster check-off procedure. He was worried we'd be upset about his tardiness that he ran, tripped, fell and skinned both his knees. I don't know what happened between then and his arrival other than he lay on the ground until a neighbor "Juan" helped him walk home.(If it were any other kid but mine I'd have been concerned, but mine equates a nosebleed with a near-death experience.) Bandages, there-theres and vanilla custard made for a rapid recovery. His haste was in vain: I already got a phone call from the district transportation. I wonder if he's seen too much "Sons of the Desert" (1933 film, Laurel and Hardy star in it -- at the end they await punishment). I've not EVER laid a hand on him south of the neck--I don't believe in corporal punishment--but let me whip a belt in front of him and he's a

tearful Stan Laurel.

CoreLogic's 2011 first quarter report on home equity is a downer, although its headline claims a slight decrease in negative equity. My Schadenfreude spreadsheet shows the largest negative equity amount as -$32679, half of the national average. We have been in an equity downturn for so long I am beginning to feel like a chump for paying the mortgage. Ohio's average negative equity amount among underwater homeowners is -$31000, the lowest average in the nation. In my state, Washington, 16.9% of mortgages are underwater. That's a disturbingly high number: I would say 70% of the states have lower percentages of negative equity mortgages.
Average property value in our state is $303874. Average equity in our state is $97289.

Once in a while I will read newspaper columns and online petitions about people who want loan modifications from their mortgage processors, and frequently I read notice of trustee sales where the mortgagee owes dozens of thousands more than what the property would sell for. Some lawyers advise their clients to live in their houses for up to a year without paying, and then walk away. As the Sex Pistols say, "when there's no future, how can there be sin?"

I received an e-mail from "ReadyForZero.com" -- I must have signed up for this at some point but everything is a haze as my brain atrophies. I don't believe I'd put my debt accounts info on a third-party website. I have one page of my debts on my credit union page. And several freebie debt repayment calculators. ReadyForZero.com boasts that its registered users pay debt twice as fast as those who don't use the site. Maybe that claim is true. I'd like to pay off my HELOC, but not to sacrifice the pleassure of paying for the car in cash, or my precious metals. I'm uncomfortable enough with my debt to post about it here, but for now I'll content myself with tooling about with my spreadsheets.

Listening to "Old Codger", an occasional WFMU podcast where someone pretending to be a contemporary of Mamie Smith and Sophie Tucker "plays 78rpm records like they're going out of style!" Paying off mortgages seems to be going out of style, too.

Signed, My Kvetchy Mama


Aren't women grand?

Feeling brain-damaged, sleep-deprived and unsuitable to be out with humans.