In Which I Am a Bad Liberal, But a Happy Shopper

I am a liberal. I’m proud of that. But I don’t seem to be being a very good liberal at the moment.

The subject: That bizarre “economic stimulus” check. I know, because I have friends who are professional tax preparers, that the whole thing is close to being a sham. Just this side of useless. It’s actually a sort of pre-active (as opposed to retroactive) tax refund on NEXT YEAR’S taxes. The government is not giving us extra money. It’s just giving it to us early. And it’s not that much, individually.

So, I think the proper response of a Good Liberal would be to put the whole thing in to savings. Generally speaking, most of us don’t save enough money for a rainy afternoon, much less as much as we should. Even though it’s not that much money, it would still be good to save it. A more self-less Liberal would donate it to a charity, to the poor or something.

The proper response of a Good Liberal is probably *not* “Yee-Haw!” Or “Argh! I spy a PDA!”

The latter was my response on learning that the S family has received our money. DH and I very sensibly discussed what to do with the money. Half of it is going into savings for a trip we’re contemplating in August. The other half we’re dividing between us.

I barely got my butt into my computer chair after this decision was made before I had ordered myself a new PDA and various accouterments. Because, of course, the old one is working perfectly well. Isn’t that the best time to get a new one? (Hush!)

We researched prices at Fry’s (where, I’m occasionally surprised to discover, they often *don’t* have the best price around). And I further researched on the Palm website. And bought the stuff off of Amazon, for nearly $75 worth of savings from the price on Palm. I am having to do without a few things. A special USB drive for the Palm. (I already have a perfectly good USB drive.) A folding keyboard. (Which I would probably hate, as it is probably too small to be comfortable to type on. And it’s not like I’m going to be writing a book on my Palm!) A sync/charging cradle. (It comes with a charging adapter and a sync cable.) A few games that I might have played once or twice. Yeah, I’m gonna be really deprived, there.

I did order a new carrying case, despite the fact that the case for my current Palm would evidently work for the new one. And a new larger memory card, cause the one in the old one only holds two audible.com books at once. (I can really only listen to one at a time, anyway!)

DH wants to know what I’m planning on doing with the old one. Like I’ve even thought about that part! The last time I replaced my Palm, I gave the old one to a friend. I suppose I could do that with this one, or even give it to DS. Giving it to DS would be like a death sentence for it, though. He either kills or loses them. So I’ll probably just keep it around as a backup.

The rest of the money left will not buy me the pair of shoes I want, though it would get me closer. That’s next up on my list. Bad, bad liberal!

I had another recorder lesson today. I spent most of yesterday afternoon going through the entire book of the lessons. And another book, which was half coloring book and half music and clearly not aimed at my demographic. While I’m still not all that good and I have serious problems getting the fingering working between some of the notes, I am more advanced than the early class, which is all that’s meeting right now. But I still had a good time and was able to help a bit. When the later, more advanced class starts back up, probably next month, I think I might do both. I can help with the earlier class and try to keep up with the later one. Our choir director (teaching the class) suggested I go buy a book of recorder music, so I did. It’s a big book and it makes it clear to me that I am, indeed, a beginner still, even if occasionally I can go through a whole song without screeching. I now have a range of just over an octave, with one sharp and one flat. Well, *that* opens up a whole world of music, doesn’t it?

But I’ve been bopping about online and have found some free sheet music for recorder. Most of what I saw was clearly beyond me, involving notes way above my range. But there were several that I printed out. My favorite score of the search, though, was an arrangement of the South African national anthem. My choir did an arrangement of that, which I totally loved, and it’s also a part of the African Celebration piece we just did in my women’s chorus. It’s quite, quite beautiful, so I’m glad to have it.

I practiced a good deal (well, not so much practiced as played through some of the new book) this afternoon when I got home. Willow and Xander did not seem to appreciate the music much, but after a while they decided it probably wasn’t dangerous and settled in for naps. I’ll take that over the yowling I got when I was a kid practicing the violin!