Daily Reminder # 435

It rained again. I tried to take an "arty" picture of the
rain on the bushes. Change of pace from birds.... 

I'm really upset this morning. Margaret, who comes here through the Office of the Aging and helps me clean and get groceries, is a victim of a bad landlord in an area of the state where tenants have no protection. The room her father was in (she has moved him out of it) has mold, which I'm guessing (based on her description) is black mold.  She has sought help from a variety of sources. She called the state and they told her to call the town. The Code Enforcer told her "it's the landlord's responsibility. I have no way of knowing what kind of mold it is... and (this is the part that makes me positively livid) "nobody has died yet." Just typing it makes my blood boil.  And gets me all riled up about how there are no protections Upstate for tenants in any case. The only protection is that landlords have to make sure you have heat in the winter. Otherwise they can rent without a lease, kick you out for no reason, raise your rent whenever they feel like it and do as little as they can to make it livable. It's another way that the poor are victimized and kept poor. Before I got my little house I moved three times. I'm not a moving kind of person. The first landlord was insane, the second was a slum lord and the third a drunk.  It was frightening to be at the mercy of every one of them. The up side was that I wound up getting a home of my own, something that never would have occurred to me to do.  Still, I don't understand how someone could endanger the life of other human beings or treat them so badly.  And in this part of the country, even the courts don't offer much help. Judges aren't lawyers and they aren't elected. They are not pro tenant. Anyway, this kind of wickedness is the small town version of the wickedness that has taken over Washington, D.C. and it makes me at least as cranky. 

But anyway. On the up side, it's an exquisitely beautiful day. The back yard was pretty kind to me yesterday, so here are some birds, some wet leaves and some gratitude. Dana (The Bug) is out of the hospital and doing well.  Please keep up your good thoughts for her, for Gabrielle and for my friend E.

Some things I'm grateful for today: (Items in red are pre-gratitude, an effort to light a fire under the Creative Forces of the Universe to bring clothes dryers, Nintendo, great wealth and other cool things into my life hopefully well before I pass onto the next life.)

• Angel and Tara Grace
• exquisite weather
• blue skies with fluffly clouds
• coffee and Int'l Delight
• water
• cherries
• granola bars
• my house
• electricity
• my computer
• the internet
• email
• my camera
• my TV
• the remote control
• the mute button
• ball point pens
• ear phones
• music
• Pandora Radio
• the joy of singing
• sight
• hearing
• taste
• smell
• touch
• beauty
• a clothes dryer
• freshly painted living and dining rooms
• blinds for the front window
• new curtains
• a ceiling fan in the bedroom
• a truckload of money (big bills)
• $5,000/week for life from PCH
• winning lottery numbers
• Nintendo
• more flowers in the back yard
• a sun room on the back of the house
• zero balance on my credit cards
• a paid off mortgage
• seeing the red list turn to black
• reiki
• angels
• miracles
• my cane
• my chair/walker
• that my legs still get me around with help
• my rock collection
• my Tibetan salt lamp
• my teeth
• my electric toothbrush
• Listerine
• Margaret
• a cleaner house
• my microwave
• Sam-e
• Omega-3
• IP-7
• Vitamin D-3
• M&Ms
• my nieces, my nephew and their families
• that they are happy and successful
• animal companions past and present
• my friends
• the ability to read and write
• the ability to type
• the capacity to learn and think
• words
• poetry
• ideas
• inspiration
• One-click websites
• Democrats (not great but better than Republicans)
• humor
• laughter
• art
• books
• creativity
• kindness
• freedom
• resilience
• the colors of the rainbow
• a bunch of things I can't think of at the moment
• the wonders of nature and creation
• determination
• love
• life

WISHING YOU A BEAUTIFUL DAY