How Did This Happen?

Last time I wrote it was April and I was complaining. Now it's already mid-June and I'm complaining again. Still.

My Kindle/iPhone/Sony Bravia 26" TV fund has been tapped yet again. This time because of a vet bill. T, the wonder horse, stepped on a huge nail which went in the bottom of his foot, though the wall of the foot, and out the back. And while it's incredibly lucky that there wasn't significant damage - the nail missed anything vital - it would have been much, much luckier if my horse didn't get a 5" spike through his foot. If you know what I mean.

I should explain that I'm not a horrible horse owner who lets her horse run around on ground strewn with nails except that it seems that I am. New drains were being installed at the boarding stable where T lives. Unfortunately, while the work crew was digging for the drains, they dug up some old nails that had been buried on the property long before it became home to T and his fellow equines. No one noticed the nails on the ground until one ended up in T's foot. The chance of this happening was incredibly remote. Except that happen it did.

The next time something this unlikely happens I hope it's that I have just won the lottery.

Work is still not good - thus the desire to win the lottery. However, I have passed the point of wanting to throw up every morning.

Ain't life grand?

Look How Far We've Come

My concentration has been shot lately. I don't know if it's the meds, weather changes, old age or what. It stinks but there's an upside. (There's always an upside in my happy, optimistic world.) I've been expanding my online horizons and finding all kinds of interesting things.

Yesterday, ABC News ran a story about a class action lawsuit against the company owned by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In the suit, 72 women claim pregnancy bias saying that they were demoted, lost career opportunities and suffered reduced wages as a result of their pregnancies. The article states that according to charges filed with the EEOC, the company has a "systemic, top-down culture of discrimination" created by Mr. Bloomberg himself.

Earlier this week, personal finance blogger, FruGal, posted an entry about a conversation she had with a business owner acquaintance who admitted that if he has two candidates of child-bearing age, he'd rather hire a man than woman. He sees hiring as an investment in his company. Men are the better bet because men don't have to divide their attention between work and children. He'd rather hire men even if the women applying for jobs don't actually have children.

Last week, the findings from a study on the impact of gender views on wages were released. The study followed male and female participants over a 25 year period . The study found that men who held traditional views on gender roles earned, on average, over $11,000 more a year than men who held less traditional views. (I won't mention the wage differences between the men and women. There's no such thing in my happy, optimistic world.) I told one of my co-workers about the study and said that in order for him to get ahead in the wage game, he had to tell his wife to get barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. He said he'd have plenty of time to earn more money when he saw his kids every other weekend after saying that to his wife.

Obviously we now know why Michael Bloomberg is richer than God, FruGal's acquaintance owns his own successful mid-sized company, and my co-worker is languishing away at company X.

Here are links. Enjoy.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/TheLaw/story?id=5940693&page=1

http://www.totallymoney.com/frugal/?p=374

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/21/AR2008092102529.html?sub=new

What is up with that?!

So, today I was at Barnes & Noble browsing magazines when I heard a male voice say "they always want to have children and I don't".

Because I'm nosy I looked around to see the guy who was talking. It wasn't some young guy. No. The man had to be at least 60 and not a "Paul Newman when he was 60" either. I'm talking scrawny with weather beaten face, scraggly white beard and stringy white hair dressed in a faded blue work shirt.

I wanted to walk over to the table where he and his friend were sitting and say "how about dating someone your own age? Women past menopause normally don't want children. Think about it."

For Pete's sake, how can someone who looks like that find young women to date? I may never know. He left before I could check to see if he was driving a Bentley.

The Economics of Riding the Horse to Work

I've been reading about people who are protesting high gas prices by riding horses to work. Besides being a logistical (what do you do with the horse while you're in the office?) and safety (ride in traffic during rush hour?!?!) nightmare , it doesn't even come close to making good financial sense.

As much as I love T, he is not cheap. Board is $500 a month. Shoes are $110 every six weeks. Supplements, equipment, vet bills, etc. add another $50 to $100 per month. My monthly average for basics is around $650. If I had a place to keep my horse at home, I'd still have feed costs, farrier and vet bills, increased property taxes, a larger mortgage, and I'd never be able to go on vacation again because stabled horses need regular, reliable, constant care and all my spare time would have to go to maintaining the stable/pastures/etc. Plus I'd still need a car to, at a minimum, haul grain and hay.

My car, on the other hand, gets fairly good mileage. I fill it up about once a week. Even with today's gas prices, I spend about $200 per month for gas. The car sits quietly in the parking lot while I'm at work requiring no care, it doesn't shy in traffic, and, when lousy drivers have run into me, we've both come out of it relatively unscathed.

So, buy a horse if you want, but don't expect to be saving any money.

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BTW, the picture on my blog is of T, all gussied up for a horse show. Isn't he handsome?

Just So I Don't Get Confused (Psychologically Speaking)

While I was surfing the web, I found this on MSN. Someone sent a question to the lifestyle section asking why models have such smooth skin. The writer asked, do they shave?

Ying Chu, Marie Claire's beauty director, responded by saying "Face shaving is such a masculine act that it can be psychologically confusing to do it as a woman. If you feel like you have excess hair on your face, try waxing, plucking, using depilatories or laser hair removal."

OK, maybe it's just me, but is she kidding? Why is it feminine to rip hair from the root or burn it off with harsh chemicals or laser beams?

I think I prefer the lie from the old days when beauty magazines said if you shaved the hair would grow back thicker and darker.

Excuse me while I go pluck some hair. It may hurt but my psyche will remain unharmed.