COMPUTER DISASTER

Another moment of the unexpected. The basement is still a long way from being completed so the dark barn wood walls; the orange plaid carpet ripped, worn, and wet; the single window well with the chipmunk stage show; and the insufficient lighting still persist. This is where Rick spends most of his day, probably not a good thing for someone trying to pull himself out of a three year depression. He set up his computer on a vintage desk we had rescued from one of the upstairs bedrooms. It’s one of those wooden desks from the fifties with a rolled front edge and pseudo inlay on the drawer fronts. This is where Rick was sitting trying to figure out his New York banking information with his online account up on the screen of his G3 24” iMac, the keyboard resting on his lap,  and a Citibank representative on his blackberry that he had cradled in the crook of his neck. Dealing with banks can be very frustrating and this conversation was not heading in the right direction. Just at the point where he thought he was making some headway the blackberry lost its signal and the landline rang. He went to grab the landline, forgetting the keyboard was still on his lap and to quote Emeril, “BAM!” The keyboard caught on his lap, the blackberry fell from its cradle followed by the computer crashing off the desk and making a direct hit on the edge of the chair on its deadly downward decent. When all was done the front pencil door of the desk was missing some of its inlay and the screen of the computer looked like a piece of shattered glass creatively portrayed with crazed lines and imaginary shards.
Rick’s ingenuity rose to the fore. The computer had not lost its ability to turn on. He figured out a way to create his own screen in a tiny corner of the original screen which when looked at with some magnifying assistance actually shows all of the necessary information. It’s a hardship for someone whose eyesight is diminishing but a plus when our pocketbook can’t take the hit of a new computer just right now.
Like our family, the fall didn’t kill the computer but it sure put a crimp in its effectiveness. On the other hand, necessity is the mother of invention and Rick has won a gold star in the book of "making do" for his ability to invent a set of crutches and bandaids to make that computer work.

TIP:
In this day and age you can’t survive without a computer and an internet connection. If you’re starting over and don’ have basic computer skills but think you’re too old a dog to learn a new trick then think again. Without the ability to connect with the worldwide web you aren’t going to be starting over you’re going to be stuck in an old world watching the new one whiz by. Besides on the web nobody knows your age they only know what you want to show them and that should be your wisdom and your talent.

THE SUN PRAIRIE CORN FESTIVAL

Emmy pleaded with Rick until he had to relent. She pulled and tugged and got him to walk the eight steps up to the ticket taker and onto the Viking Swing. It's her favorite carnival ride, shaped like a big Nordic boat that propels itself to and fro like a giant glider. The farther to the back you sit the more of an arc you follow and the more it tickles your stomach. With Emmy's encouragement, the two of them went all the way to the back. Emmy beamed, her Daddy by her side. As the pendulum began its graceful journey from side to side the two of them donned smiles of delight. As the arc increased they both raised their arms and their joy made them weightless from the simple act of being together. This image is my gift and the image of their smiling faces, arms akimbo in the air, is the image I'll get to go to sleep with tonight.

LESSON EIGHT:

Every so often you have to exit through the door marked pain and leave it all behind you. Even if it is only for a few seconds and your only option is to close your eyes and see what your imagination has to show you.

NETWORKING

 It has now been two and a half weeks since we pulled in the driveway at my mom’s house with a twenty-four footer in tow and our life in New York packed away in taped up cardboard boxes. Every day an old link to New York is broken and a new link to Madison is forged.

Our first task in our new city has been to redo my mom’s basement. This may not seem the most important objective on one’s to-do list given we are flat broke but given our history and our goals this has proved to be a pretty good move. The benefit: It has started the ball rolling connecting us with the Madison design community, revealing a breadth of available vendors, and announcing our arrival here in a smaller pond. The second objective of the renovation project has been to secure our sanity getting us unpacked and out of boxes to the degree we can begin living without having to search for a power cord for the computer or the bag with the clean underwear.
My sister, Bonnie, who handles my mom’s finances set a budget of three thousand dollars to redo the basement which is to include replacing the water softener that blew the day after we moved in. From the remaining money we are going to replace eight hundred square feet of thirty year old carpet, redo a bedroom closet to handle our embarrassing amount of collected clothing, paint the entire downstairs walls and ceilings, replace the awful outdated sliding door leading to the patio with a set of French doors, gussy up a dusty laundry room, and completely overhaul a mildewed bathroom,  a daunting task. Given a budget that wouldn’t have covered the toilet on most of our New York jobs we have been forced to really shop around. This has turned into a good thing. In my mom’s tiny Ford Escort we have been making the rounds to all the local suppliers looking for closeouts on materials and familiarizing ourselves with what Madison has to offer. Most of our searching has centered around Home Depot and another low-end mass retailer, Menard’s, but it has also taken us into some small boutique kitchen and home decorating shops that have simply caught our eye as we drove the Mad City streets. 
Two of our best finds came in the same day. The first one happened while driving down Williamson Street. Rick spied what appeared to be a huge limestone finial in the window of a small shop. We were on our way to the westside to do some grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s but we decided to backtrack around the block to take a look at the finial. The finial shop was a real tribute to the hippiedom of what once was and what still exists on Willy Street in Mad City. But our real find was a kitchen shop next door to the finial den, plucked from the Hamptons and dropped back down in the middle of the Midwest. Tom, the owner, a striking gray-hair, whose real job was as a realtor for the downtown region, had great insight into the Madison market. We talked to him about our ideas for re-establishing ourselves in Madison through our interior design business or in combining or services with a small store. He encouraged us to think about the Willy Street area saying that having New York credentials and being two gay boys would be big pluses to the Mad City design consumers. Stephanie, Tom’s store manager, piped in telling us we should also check out a store on the westside that might give us more information on the higher end design community. We exchanged cards and then headed off to Spirals on Monroe Street and an unannounced interview with Carol, Spirals owner and style maven. If serenity has been our design signature then Spirals would be the slipper we could slid our feet into. The soft lighting, the absence of harsh sounds and Carol’s monochromatic visage soothed our souls. We talked for what seemed like hours about our visions, what we thought design was and how it mattered. We invited her to lunch so we could come back with out portfolio. Today, we made some steps in the right direction.


TIP:
Trust your instincts. Never fear putting yourself out there. Everyone has value. After coming through hard times it's very easy to have an abundance of self-doubt. Don't go there. Take a deep breath, jump in and knock on every door you can find.

BADGERS

Birthdays, even at my age can have their choice rewards. Penniless and poor I still dreamed of giving my kid the world. Having been raised on the joys and sorrows of rooting for the Wisconsin Badgers, one of my first wishes on moving back to Wisconsin was to share this history with my daughter. Rick was a lost cause where football was concerned. It's an acquired taste and football to him was like sweetbreads to me. On my birthday my sisters came through with two tickets to the Wisnosin - Wofford football game in Camp Randall Stadium.
Saturday morning Emmy and I rose, ate a hasty breakfast and tore through our still unpacked suitcases looking for whatever article of red clothing we could find. She fared far better than me. She came up with a red PaineWeber t-shirt. All I could find was a heavy canvas, long-sleeve, LL Bean shirt in a faded brick color. The forecast was for mid-seventies and lots of sun. I was already over-heating. We dressed as best we could and then headed out, my sister, Ebby, picked us up and dropped us off on the Capitol Square. Madison's illustrious Saturday Farmer's Market was in full swing as we snaked our way through crowds of health conscious, fit, fresh flowers in hand consumers buying organic heirloom tomatoes, fall rhubarb and anything made from cheese. The weaving was slow but we finally pushed our way through to State Street, the street connecting the politics of the capital to the academic halls of the university. About halfway down State Street, the pedestrians began to change from Birkenstockers with carrot smoothies in hand, to students clad in various red and white costumes exposing a much young skin as possible hefting plastic beer mugs at ten in the morning. The day was going to be hot.

The practical side of me had us stop at a hat shop where we picked up three-dollar Wisconsin baseball caps to protect us from the sun. Then the devil-may-care side went into the University Bookstore where we splurged on two authentic Wisconsin t-shirts. Mine said, "Wisconsin Badgers" and hers said, "Jump Around". For those uninitiated in Badger tradition, between the third and fourth quarters of each home game the stadium erupts in a crazy rendition of House of Pain's "Jump Around". Old and young flailing arms in the air bounce around like drunken revilers. Emmy, being the modest girl we raised her to be, went to the ladies room to change into her t-shirt. I, being the boy, just stood next to the cashier, doffed my heavy canvas shirt and slipped on the t-shirt. I had held it up when I bought it and it seemed plenty big but when I slipped it on it felt a little tight. When Emmy emerged from the ladies room I was ready to head on out, we were getting close to game time now, but I stopped in my tracks before we made it two steps from where I had stood. Her t-shirt said, "Wisconsin Badgers", mine "Jump Around". There was a reason the t-shirt I put on felt so tight. Time was a-wastin' so I wiggled out of her t-shirt, handed her the t-shirt she had bought, she slipped it over my t-shirt, maneuvered out of mine without exposing any inappropriate parts of her body, then handed me mine which I  barreled into, all to the giggles of the cashier. Now in our designated attire we walked on to the stadium blending in a bit better than when we started out.
The game was great. Wisconsin won big time. Emmy jumped around. We did the wave in regular, slow-mo and mock speed. We laughed. We bonded over the Wisconsin tradition. Good things can still happen in bad times.

THE AUCTION

In preparing to leave New York we knew we couldn’t take everything with us. We wrapped up what we could, gave some things away and in the end just left stuff we couldn’t afford to hoist onto the truck either physically or emotionally. But in preparation for the end we did investigate sending what we could to auction. We had a real pension for textiles: quilts, vintage barkcloth fabrics and drapes, Marseilles spreads, hooked rugs, embroidered pillows with sayings like “Home, Sweet Home” and “Forget-me-nots” stitched onto them. I went around to some of the local auctioneers asking if they would like to take them on. They were very straightforward with me, “Now is just not a good time. I got a warehouse full of things and we aren’t pulling in more than ten cents on the dollar. We don’t want to promise you something we can’t deliver.”
I sucked in a deep breath and told them I appreciated their honesty.
One of our friends had a friend at Doyle. They made a very gracious introduction for us and I sent photos of some of the things we had. The contact was helpful and honest. But what we had wasn’t in that $5,000 to $10,000 per piece area. They all thought the stuff was beautiful. It just wasn’t for them. Then as I fished around the Internet I came across a site with an auctioneer advertising their upcoming sale of textiles and clothing. I felt I had found a home for some of our prized and what I hoped were valuable pieces. I sent an inquiry and got a response from Andi, the auctioneer. Now Andi never put a Mr. or Ms. in front of their surname so I was a little unsure of which side of the fence Andi fell on. Our subsequent phone conversations didn’t help to clarify the situation either. A gravelly voice on the other end of my cell phone only deepened the mystery. What Andi did provide was a willingness to come and pick up the carefully boxed goods, take them back to Pennsylvania, photograph them, upload them to the auction web site and publicize the heck out of them to what was to be an extensive client list and a major auction event.
When Andi finally did arrive to pick up the goods, she swung out of the driver’s seat of her van with a big smile. She was thrilled with the pieces and disappointed I was thinking of holding back the hooked rugs. I was just relieved to know which gender I was dealing with. I subsequently sent her the rugs. These were the ones I had thought Doyle might be interested in and when they declined I thought I might as well send them off to Andi.
The sale was scheduled for the middle of September. I would get weekly updates from Andi as she and her crew continued to update their site with more pictures of the pieces we had sent. All day, on the Saturday of the sale, I walked around with all my fingers and toes crossed hoping for some financial relief. I was sooo tempted to call at the end of the day to see how things went, but I forced myself to wait knowing Andi would call as soon as she could to let me know how we had done.
Saturday passed. Then Sunday came. No call. No email. Monday, the same.
On Tuesday the email finally arrived. Deer Lee, Deer John, it didn’t make much difference. I felt like a lover with that note of rejection in hand, tears making the ink run in little rivers blurring the exact words that moments ago had appeared sharp and cutting. The auction went badly. The check would be coming the following week for less than 20% of my lowest estimate. Live and learn

LESSON SEVEN:
Desperation can cause you to do things you shouldn’t do, but then a penny is better than no penny at all.

GINNY PIGS

Our first real tangible money making venture in our new city has been to turn ourselves into Ginny Pigs, test rabbits in an area run amuck with scientists and statisticians on the prowl for bodies willing to be mentally and physically poked and prodded in the name of science and the advancement of consumer goods. The first of us to jump under the microscope of available candidates in the name of research ended up being our daughter, Emmy. Yes, we're pimping the child in the name of science. We spotted an ad looking for children and adults between the ages of nine and thirty-five willing to have their faces smeared with ointment for an hour and a half and then placed under a medical light source for an additional nine minutes to determine the efficacy of a zit treatment currently used in Norway but not yet FDA approved here in the U.S. of A. When Emmy turned twelve she started having some moderate bouts with acne so we had been trying to find some dermatology help for her, but when we first showed Emmy the ad for the free treatments she shrugged her shoulders with an, "As if". This lasted until we got to the part about the $440 paycheck at the end of the study. All of a sudden her eyes grew to silver dollars and a smile spread like a nineteen ninety's IPO across her face. Never has a child been so thankful for a third eye.
Now Rick and I have added our names to a local consultant firm looking for willing participants to add their two cents on such things as the taste of a new toothpaste, the most recent pizza commercial, or how to operate the next hot video game, all of this at $50 to $175 for a two hour session. This is not going to get us out of debt or provide a down payment on a new house but it will buy us a weeks worth of groceries and that means a lot.

TIP:

Look through your local newspapers, pay attention to notices posted on your local grocery store's bulletin board for help wanted. The things posted range from part-time elder caregivers to research ginny pigs. During the transition these part-time and one-time job offers can be a lifesaver for paying the basics.

THE DMV

Here's where the real work begins. Of all the nitty-gritty things I'll have to deal with, the one I've procrastinated the most about...going to the DMV to renew my license.

DMV TIP ONE:

If you're moving to a new state, check out your driver's license expiration date before you leave. Setting up residency in a new location is no easy task. I waited too long to pull out the license and check the date only to find I had less than two weeks before my New York license expired. Not a good thing when you're sitting in Madison and the New York DMV is more than a thousand miles away.

DMV TIP TWO:

If you're moving to New York City rather than out of it, the driver license thing is no big deal. Take the subway. If you are moving out of the city to a place like, say, Madison, Wisconsin where the nearest Trader Joe's is a thirty minute ride in off-hour traffic or a midnight snack requires keys and gas, living without your own transportation is not an option and we haven't even gotten to what getting around in winter is going to be like.

DMV TIP THREE:

Call ahead and see what is required: What do you need to bring with you? Will you have to take a driving test? How long will it take? Then expect most of the information you garnered will be incorrect.

I called. This is what happened after I made it through all of the prompts.
"Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles. How can I help you?" This was delivered in a serious monotone.
"I've just moved to Madison and discovered my New York driver's license is expiring tomorrow. What do I need to do to get a Wisconsin license?"
"You'll need a certified copy of your birth certificate, an original utility bill with your name on it, a copy of your mortgage payment with a Wisconsin address, or a local bank statement more than thirty days old showing local purchases and deposits from your Wisconsin employer."
"We just moved here to take care of my ailing mother so I don't have any of those things. I can't live here without a driver's license. Isn't there anything I can do?"
"You could go back to New York and get a temporary extension on your current driver's license." This was said in all seriousness but it cracked me up.
"Do you think there are any direct round-trip flights today?"

DMV TIP FOUR:

Never, and I mean never, joke with the DMV

I gave up on the phone route, called my sister for a recent utility bill (My mom kept all of her bills in my dad's name even though he died in 1985. Fortunately, we have the exact same names.), and headed on over to the DMV. What the heck, I thought it was worth a shot. I even managed to think far enough ahead to bring a bottle of water (illegal in the waiting room), a pen and pencil and the daily crossword puzzle. I knew the wait wasn't going to be pretty.

DMV TIP FIVE:

Smile at the hefty ladies behind the counter. A little flirtation can go a long way, even at my age.

I went straight to the information desk where you get a number placing you in the queue for confrontation with the person who holds your fate. The lady behind the counter kept her thin lips in a straight line, it was neither a smile nor a frown. She went through the same itinerary as the woman on the phone but seeing my smile she added, "Have you ever held a Wisconsin license before?"
"Sure, but that was a long time ago."
"Well, let me look it up. Oh, here it is, but it says you were born in 1909."
"No, that would be my dad. I haven't sent my info off to Willard Scott quit yet."
"Sorry, here you are. As long as you don't need a commercial license we can put you right through, you're eligible for a renewal."
I didn't even need the bogus utility bill. I sat and waited my turn.
An hour later, "C212 - window 3." I walked up and handed Wanda my paperwork. She looked through it, fiddled with the computer, and wrote her signature on the bottom line of my form. "Thirty-four dollars"
WHAT! No one mentioned it was going to cost money and the eight dollars in my wallet wasn't going to cut it. No checks, no cash, a sign behind Wanda saying no credit or debit cards accepted, I was back out the door plotting my life as an illegal driver until I could find another twenty-six bucks.

DMV TIP SIX:

Never expect anything to go the way you planned when dealing with bureaucracy.