August 16, 2004

• The new week begins. I tried to save some money over the weekend, but when I splurge on over 20 dollar meals both days, and take in a movie, the cash bucket empties rather quickly. I begin the week worrying about cash matters, because one of my maxed out credit cards went overlimit again, prompting a $450.00 payment this month, which I can’t afford. I have two accounts with the same lender, and they send me checks from the other account. Of course I can’t write a check from one account to pay for the other. That would be really funny, or tragic, as the case may be. I don’t really know what the answer is going to be this month, in which I had a car insurance payment, and my overdraft payment is coming up too. My bank account, which “borrows” from the overdraft account too often, needs to have the money to pay the minimum amount to the credit card this week, and I cross my fingers that the money will be there when the invoice comes due. All my hopes that this month, August, was the month in which I would have paid off my 401k loan, taken out about five years ago, but unwisely used for a down payment on the Eclipse Spyder, were dashed, when I realized I hadn’t “told” Microsoft Money that there was a 9 percent A.P.R. That means I won’t pay off the 401k till next year, and I knew I’d just about need that extra 50 bux a week this month to begin chipping at the debt. I haven’t bought anything lately (on credit) and I’m really attempting to cut back on expenses, but I’ve achieved a sort of critical mass where I’m just keeping my head above water. I’m still incredibly lucky. I don’t live in Florida, for instance, where I just heard that one of my correspondents lost a lot of familial memories when her parents’ retirement mobile home was destroyed by Charley. There are the usual “problems” in the neighborhood, like loud music during the party the folks threw in back of us on Saturday, but people have to celebrate, and I don’t complain (to much, anyway.) The movie this weekend was “De-Lovely” but I didn’t write a review. Perhaps I will. I really liked the film, a biography of Cole Porter, starring Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd, which was sort of  structured like “All That Jazz”, Bob Fosse’s fictional “autobiography”  from 1979. I give “De-Lovely” a 7 of 10 on the Mikometer, and both Kevin and Ashley gave Oscar worthy performances, but the movie is not making any money, and is below the radar, so will probably just “disappear.” Reading reviews on the Amazon.com site for a cross section of opinion concerning the film, some “reviewers” cite that they didn’t like the film because of the same things others liked. For instance, I rather liked the makeup, which shows the characters age over the course of the film, and the postive reviews agreed with this, but the negative ones cited the makeup as a failure and distraction. It isn’t the best musical of recent times, that would still be Luhrmann’s  “Moulin Rouge”, but “De-Lovely” certainly isn’t “De-Lousy” as Manola Dhargis wrote in the L.A. Times. I hated reading her review so much when the film came out that I needed to see it in a theater, and am glad I did. As I say, 7 of 10, and Oscar worthy performances. I’m watching the Olympics “show” every night. I get an East Coast feed of NBC, so it starts at 5pm and ends at 9pm. I like the American Womens’ Gymnastics team, especially Carly Patterson, and am following Michael Phelps, the swimmer, who is looking to beat the record Mark Spitz holds for most medals in an Olympics. The Chinese Women’s Gymnastics team is perfect, however, and the Americans are making too many mistakes. Now to work, where our engineer announced last week, he’ll be on vacation. (No notice at all, but it isn’t too busy.) This will be my first full week back since Jury duty ended last Wednesday. I served a full ten days. I’m contemplating writing an “article” about the experience. Oh my, almost 5:30. Time to deposit a rubber check in the mail, and get to work!  

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