Ask NOT what these lying politicians can't do for you

Ask what you can do for yourselves to avoid starvation and homelessness. Nobody can get credit right now, so it's either do without or pay cash. Is your money in the bank or under the mattress? Lots of older people are pulling out their IRA's and hiding the cash in the yard.

Am I the only person who has noticed that even though Wall Street flattened out completely...nobody died? - no buildings fell? - Where did that $700Bazillion go then?

In the event that all this information on the news is real and the market crash has started a world-wide collision of the type of proportions only a mathematical genius could fathom...

Here's my plan.

1) We have our own garden. We can feed ourselves and our animals if we can grow food. This first year's garden did pretty well. I learned a lot and have begun plans for the bigger improved version of the garden for next year. With chickens, soy beans, vegetables and a small wheat patch we could survive as long as the air and water are clean enough to grow food in. We both want a greenhouse, and his idea is one with electricity and water and air conditioners and heat, assuming we still have power.

2) I'm crochetting afghans again. I enjoy the peaceful rhythm of the yarn and the needle. Plus they are warm and useful for lots of jobs and covering sleeping babies. They're a barterable item too. I'd trade a ripple lap blanket for a case of canned fruit. Also I can make baskets and Chris can repair guitars - soon he'll be set up to make quitars by hand and then he'll have a barterable skill too. Right now he can play music and sing, and that's a way to make a living.

3) What about gas prices? The barrell prices have gone back down to 1970 levels, yet the pump prices are still the 2008 level. Hmmmm.... do you suppose the corporations took a wage increase just about the time gas went to $4 a gallon? Now they can't lower the pump price because that money is already in someone's pocket.... sorry. OH- and sorry to those of you in Europe that are paying over $10 a gallon, I truly feel for you dudes. However, you do have major public transportation that we fat lazy American's just can't abide. We must be free to drive wherever we went to go, long as there's gas to get our fat asses there. After that, well, there's always walking, or staying home, or getting a horse, or just bitching about it.

4) I'm starting a worm-composting farm. Back in the olden days (early 1900's) I understand that a woman in the upper Entiat Valley had a worm farm and she made good money selling worms to fisherman. Nowadays it's illegal to fish with worms, but heck, if I can feed the worms my household garbage and they can poop out the composting ingredients that I can put in my garden and grow really quality vegetables, I'm hep to that. Anybody wants to buy worms, thats going to be a bonus.

5) We're talking about remodeling the house. We have faced the fact that the house is too small for us and all Chris's guitars. So, we need a bigger music studio. So, he's talking about building a studio out in the back of the lot. Yep - I agree completely. A self contained soundproofed studio, yep - thanks. Plus once the studio is OUT of the house, I can have a bedroom for Fay (aka guest room). I also want to build onto our room - put a door in the back wall, and build a new closet and change the current closet into a small bathroom. The only current bathroom in the house would be totally remodelled. Once, of course, the mortgage is paid off - somewhere in the next 10 years.

Will it be like the days before credit cards and ATM's, I wonder? Will a person have to make a direct application for credit to the supplier, like Grocer Sam? "Let me have this ham today and I'll pay you .25 a week for a month till I pay you in full." Sam would put that in his ledger book and keep track of your payments. How about buying a house? A potential homeowner in the days of my parents new marriage and home-buying had to have a minimum of half the cost of the home as a down payment!!! But that was only about $20,000 in 1960., when wages were $2.50 an hour...start saving baby.

The other part of my plan is to keep my mortgage and credit card payments in good standing. I don't want any newley absorbed bank's new owner to be looking for loans to call in and seeing MY name on any list of potential foreclosures. My advise to my daughter and all interested parties is the same. Pay cash, pay off your credit cards, pay off your mortgage. Find things to do to avoid boredom once the computers crash and the power goes off.

I think humans are really all just dometic pets. Well? Aren't we? We don't take care of ourselves in any serious way. In the event that the power went off tomorrow, most of us would starve or freeze to death in our own homes. Could I survive if the grocery stores all went out of business? Could I barter for what I needed? What would I do with all the time I wouldn't be on the computer or watching TV? Gladly I can't have babies anymore.

There's an upside to the complete loss of power and civilization - more babies!!!