good muggy Friday

I don't know why I'm feeling so bloody cheerful. The day is dank and overcast, and earlier it poured. I've just done my finances, and am as usual far in the red. How to make more money, is the question, along with how, thrifty as I am, to avoid spending as much ... The basement suite is now occupied, someone is moving in upstairs on Nov. 1, so my job as a landlady is on again. But ye gods, a freelance teacher has almost no income all summer long. I could use a good, solid paycheque. No, royalties or an advance from the great new book I've finished.

Which I have not, not even close.

So to cheer myself up in my destitution, I went shopping - to Shopper's, where I bought a new lipstick for $10.99. That always does the trick. Then, I met my dear friend Penny. Penny makes beautiful necklaces, and she made two for me, for $20 each. They're supposed to be presents for my friends, but I confess they're so lovely ...

So here's the woman who's moaning about being broke spending $50 instantly on lipstick and necklaces. 'Twas ever thus. And yesterday I had a haircut, much needed but expensive - except that my long-term hairdresser Ingrid gave it to me as a birthday present. I realized today that the friend who does my taxes has not yet sent his bill. How grateful I am to the friends who help me through.

Highly recommended, as mentioned before: Jane Mayer's superb article in last week's "New Yorker" about the reclusive Koch brothers, the billionaires who have funded many secretive far right-wing organizations, disguised under generic, nice-sounding names. "Citizens for Prosperity," and others like it, have as their main job to undermine everything Obama tries to do, to smear the left, and to trumpet the Koch agenda, which is anti-corporate income tax, of course, but also anti any environmental protection, since the Koch's industries are among the country's biggest polluters.

And all those idiot Tea Partyers, who don't realize they're being manipulated by some of the richest men in the country, the Kochs and Rupert Murdoch - it is to weep.

But I won't weep, because I'm cheerful today, with a haircut, a new lipstick and two new necklaces. And I had a nice chat with the man who sits in a little golfcart with a long elephant hose nose, sucking up garbage. I thanked him for the job he does on my street, cleaning up after the people who toss their detritus about. He was cheerful too.

And last, I went to the Y, not to my usual lunchtime Runfit class but to the earlier one, Muscleworks, because of my schedule today. At the end of the class, I thanked the teacher for a great class. She peered at me. "You're Runfit, right?" she said, and I laughed. "Yes, I'm Runfit," I said.

Beth "Runfit" Kaplan, poor but happy today.

P.S. And there are peaches.