WIse Bread (Margaret Garcia-Couoh)

Calling all Artists: Be Your Own Cheerleader and Find that Room of Your Own (free)

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:02:38 +0000

I once got to watch something so masterful it took my breath away. One of my best friend’s (who is a brilliant singer songwriter whose had little or no success at it) has this sister that, well doesn’t have a shy bone in her body. She’d just moved to our town. She wrote one-woman shows that were good but not great. We’d taken her to see a play and on the way out as everyone was filing out for the evening, she was searching the crowd for the people to ‘know’. Who owned and ran the building she wondered out loud? And when could she get her show in here? She’d been in our town less than two months when I got word of her show being up and running. Wow. That was fast.

There were times when I didn’t even get along with her. Her brother and I both did not have the ability to self promote--but that was one thing she was always amazing at---self-promotion and demanding that all around her pay attention and acknowledge her as an artist. When I was younger, I was a wee bit intimidated by her abilities. Now I realize that most artists would be a little better off it we had this gene or DNA that she has to move herself forward. If you are out there somewhere, Nancy? I get it now!

It’s tough being an artist, writer, musician, etc. in America. You try to work in your medium and art form and perhaps you can manage that okay. But you also have to be your own manager, your own secretary, and your own cheerleader. The most successful artists in our culture are not necessarily the best out there—they are the ones however that mastered the art of being four people at once. You have to care when no one else does. That’s not easy especially if you are insecure about your abilities.

Art is subjective. Just because no one gets what you are doing yet doesn’t mean it ain’t art. There are tons of grants, contests, and little opportunities here and there for artists and writers and the like. But there’s also everyone and her grandpa trying to apply for finite resources. It’s much easier to get a grant or a residency if you already are a recipient of one of these things. Recession years aren’t a great time to go begging for money for arts anyhow. So take it into your own hands.

So----? What can you do to help yourself master one of the four parts of American artist harmony?

First, be your own cheerleader. No matter how silly or weird it seems to put yourself out there, do so. Dude, Britney Spears? Sucks. Janet Evanovitch? Sucks. Thomas Kinkade? Sucks so hard you can throw his paintings in your trashcan and they’ll keep you up at night because you’ll be able to hear them sucking two stories below you. But these hacks have a vital thing that you don’t have: confidence that they are awesome little super stars. Of course it’s pretentious to call yourself an artist, writer, poet, whatever. But at the same time if you really are an artist, writer, poet, dance, musician, etc. you need to start owning it. Odds are that your family and friends kind of get the feeling you are one of those artist types anyway. Own up to it. Use the words: “I am an artist.” Yeah, I know. It kind of sounds like you just said ‘I’m an idiot.’ But you have to take yourself and your work at least a little seriously. How do you do that?

Set aside creation time and don’t budge around it. I know a woman who paints every Sunday all day. She doesn’t change that schedule for anyone or anything. Beautiful. I try and often fail at this but each week, I try again to make sure I get in at least a half-day.

Remember that no one cares unless you care. Put yourself out there. I came out as an artist to the arts association in my area and now they asked me to do things and other random organizations do too. Do the open mikes. Do the stupid little writing gigs that you might not like. If nothing else, someone might buy your next beer. Do the volunteer work. Do the blog that pays nothing. A girlfriend of mine and I four years ago decided we’d make more of an effort to get our stuff out there. I chose the blog and barely paid route while after writing one article for an online magazine for free she decided that she’d hold out for big money. She’s still waiting. But the little tiny gigs here and there that paid nothing are starting to pay off a bit for me.

Being a writer and artist in some ways has never been cheaper than right now. Gone are the days of sending giant manuscripts with tons of postage. Slides! Oh my goodness. Now I only submit to people who take online submissions. My friend Lysa, a painter, does the same. Your overhead doesn’t have to be big. I know it ain’t always pleasant to be your own secretary, but you can maybe make one half day a week secretary day and do all that research and send yourself out there during that time.

Ignore rejection and become a star. My all time favorite children’s book is Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Legend has it that it was rejected some 54 times? Geez. I gave up on my first novel after 15 rejections. What a wimp I was! 54 is my new high bar. Go Me! Go You! We Rock!

Where have I been going for advice? One of the best writing books I’ve ever read is Ariel Gore’s How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead. It’s hilarious and you can find it for under $10 bucks. Read it. It’s full of cheap, easy ways to go about becoming your own literary star. Lynda Barry's awesome new book WHAT IT IS is a bit pricey at $26 but it's got more advice and brilliant illustrations than any creative life book I've ever seen. Put down 'An Artist's Way and those freaking Chicken Soup books and pick up Lynda Barry. You'll be glad you did.

Make friends with rich people who like art and literature. This sounds horribly calculated but it probably isn’t. I had an amazing patron for many years that accidentally found out that I wrote poetry. . When I finished a new story or poem, I would send them to him and his wife. Often he sent hundred dollar bills to me with notes to tell me to keep working. He got me through a major time of low confidence and often took the edge off of poverty. Thanks Howard. I now try and do the same. A good friend of mine who was an artist used to buy paint for artists he knew had less money than he had. There’s a great karmic quality to all this.

I put art in my budget to try and be part of the solution. It’s not a very big part. Not even a full tank of gas. But it’s there. How can I expect people to buy art and literature and music if I don’t?

I can’t write in my house. I can blog here, correct papers here, teach here, cook here, but I can’t write fiction or poetry here and I certainly can’t paint either. I needed a room of my own. But like most of us, I don’t have money to rent a studio or office. But I do have friends. An ex-boyfriend of mine had a good friend that wanted to start an art gallery with absolutely no money. They passed the same empty buildings day in and day out on their way to their day jobs. One day the budding curator called the number on the lease sign and said, “Look. I’ve walked by your building for six months and it’s been vacant. Can I hang some paintings in here to maybe liven the place up a bit? We can be month to month and if you find someone to lease the space, I’ll be out in a day. “ Steve spent the next six months with free gallery space with openings once a month. The building finally did lease—what caught the person’s eye? The paintings.

I used this same basic strategy when I was looking for a studio. Good friends of ours moved across country and lived very near a campground about twenty minutes from my house. They were a little anxious that both their cottage and their cabin would be left there unused –and inviting to possible vagrants and campers, but they didn’t really want to rent it out because they wanted to be able to vacation there themselves. Enter me. I asked if I could use the small day cottage as my studio in exchange for keeping an eye on the place, a little watering, and picking up of any litter. They went for it. (Thank you John and Lisa!). I go down to the cottage once or twice a week. I keep the weeds down. Pick up litter. Let them know when I think the boy they have mowing has slacked. I let them know when there’s been bears. But for the most part? I take long walks around a private river bank, and write more than I’ve been able to in years. Oh yeah, they are definitely front and center in the acknowledgement page if the novel ever sells.

I didn’t think this situation was unique, and it isn’t. Since I’ve found my room of my own, I’ve talked to other writers who’ve been able to strike deals like this one. Up where I live there are many second homes sitting vacant---especially with the price of gas. People who normally drive their SUVs and RVs up here to stay in their cabins aren’t doing it nearly as much. People are striking deals. Knowing that good people will be looking out over their properties is sometimes really all they want.

Just ask. See something vacant too long? Ask.

There isn’t an artist I’ve ever heard of who hadn’t mastered somewhat the art of frugal living. We’ve all eaten pasta and beans & rice for weeks at a time, furniture that came to us free, lived in a one-bedroom apartment with ten people, etc. But living on that edge will only get you so far without a crazy notion from within you that says, you know what? I’m an artist and I’m not afraid to say it. When you get to that point that I got to earlier this year. Say it really loud, out loud to yourself. Scream it into the street loud. When you believe it start making your demands and requests. Ask for the freebies. Ask for the space. Ask for class to teach. Apply for the grant. Ask for the free rent. You might just sound a bit like my best friend’s sister---so confident that the person you ask just can’t say no. We creative people are supposed to be creative. So that should go for confidence and fearlessness too. What’s the worst that can happen to you when you declare yourself an artist? Nothing. What’s the best? Recognition, jobs, free space, grants, and just maybe a quiet cottage on a beautiful river.

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Fresh Fruit for Rotten Cheapskates Like Me

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:41:12 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

Fresh Fruit for Rotting Cheapskates

It’s almost harvest time. The grapevine on the side of our yard is so huge that I can no longer see the neighbors and its wound its way into the pine tree above it. The Asian pears and apples have only a week more before we can begin harvesting. Want to know the best way to keep your fresh fruit and vegetable budget within your means? Eat with the season and stay on good terms with your neighbors.

I don’t have a green thumb, per say, but I was smart enough to buy a house with two 65 year old grapevines and about ten fruit trees. The neighbors tell me the family that lived here canned fruit all fall so that what grows in our yard could last the whole year. I don’t have that kind of stamina and I’m a raw food person, so that isn’t quite do-able for me. But what is do-able is forgoing baskets of expensive fruits in the market and sticking for three months with what I have plenty of: pears, apples, and grapes. By consuming what’s here, I cut down on the grocery bill. By looking around and seeing what my neighbors are growing, I can yield a little variety.

I’m trading pears for late summer squashes, which don’t seem to grow in my yard, as well as late summer lettuces. I love going around the town and being able to negotiate based on my trees. I’m trading apples for raw food crackers that would cost me an arm and a leg if I were to purchase them out right from the woman in town that makes them.

But what to do if you have no fruit growing on your property? Ask absentee property owners if you can go pick their fruit.

Honestly. In our community we have quite a few residences that are ‘second homes’ for people who come up in the summer to fish but clear out in the fall and winter. Perfect. If a tree is left, say at my neighbors with all sorts of fruit clinging to the branches and beneath the tree, what happens is our neighborhood becomes an outdoor dining facility for local deer, raccoons and bear cubs. I’ve seen it happen. And no one wants that or the mountain lions that such fauna eventually attract. You are doing your absentee neighbors a favor and your neighborhood a favor by asking for food.

Some businesses also have fruit trees and no time to pick and some residents –particularly elderly residents might have trees they can no longer tend to. Ask! Ask! I collected rhubarb last spring and in exchange baked a few extra pies to return the favor. Some fruits go out of fashion. Do you have a neighbor from the Midwest with an avocado tree? A young 20 something couple with a fig tree? Odds and tastes are that they aren’t enjoying what these trees are providing. Just ask. Be bold. Break that unspoken American barrier of not talking to your neighbors, unless suing them. Hey, you gonna use all those apples? That’s all you have to say. They’ll be so shocked that you aren’t quarrelling over the easement that I bet they’ll say go for it.

Admittedly, eating the same three fruits for three months might get on most people’s nerves but there is at least anecdotal evidence that eating with the season is better for your health. And somehow eating with the seasons gives one a better appreciation that the seasons exist. This is especially true for those of us that live in unreal places such as deserts and Los Angeles.

And if you have an apple tree in your back yard and are stuck for quick healthy recipes, consider my raw applesauce recipe:

Raw Applesauce

In a food processor, mix cut up apples with the skins still on, 4 or 5 medjool dates, a squeeze of lemon, a teaspoon of blue agave syrup, and cinnamon and nutmeg to taste. Serve immediately or freeze until needed.

Enjoy the fruits of the season.

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Less Expensive Ways to Enjoy San Francisco

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 08:18:20 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

It’s almost that time again when I’ll be packing the kids and husband into the car and heading to my former home base of San Francisco. While admittedly, it’s one of the most expensive places to visit in the USA, there are some ways to cut corners and enough free and low priced activities that can make it a little easier on the budget.

First things first. When to go? Go between November and February. The www.joyoflifeclub.com Joie de Vivre Hotel Chain has winter rates and great places to stay—just by going within this four month time frame can shave $100 off of a room a night. If you don’t want or need to be classy, go completely frugal there’s the hostel route and the best of the best is the one at Ft. Mason in the between the Marina neighborhood and Fisherman’s Wharf. http://www.sfhostels.com/fishermans-wharf/. In general though, like living in the city itself, San Francisco has either great accommodations or questionable with relatively few in between. The farther away you get from downtown though, the more likely it is that either parking will be thrown in free or much lower in cost. My family tends to stay in Japantown as the out of the wayness of Japantown makes it slightly cheaper, with more available parking, and a pedestrian only area the kids can run around in, etc. Japantown is also just a quick cab from anywhere and won’t costs too much to go in any direction (Golden Gate Park, North Beach, the Marina, etc).

So you are settled in to a room. Now what? If you go the first week of the month more than likely you can hit many of the museums for free if you plan to hit them all on a Tuesday! The Legion of Honor is a good bet as the area surrounding is beautiful and the parking is free as well. The de Young Museum ( which shares a parking lot with the Japanese Tea Garden which is only $ 4 bucks to get in for adults and free for kids) also has free first Tuesdays. The SFMOMA does as well (though parking in downtown can kill ya).

Want to see the real Chinatown and get great deals on random plastic objects, cool kitschy stuff, and housewares? Then do yourself a favor and don’t go to Chinatown. Go to the Inner Richmond neighborhood (Clement street between 2nd and 10th is the heart of it) in San Francisco instead. Honestly the same people own shops in both neighborhoods with the same merchandise in each. The tourist factor in Chinatown means a big mark up. Shop with actual Chinese people in the Inner Richmond instead. The two best deals in this neighborhood are across the street from each other: Green Apple Books----with the best selection of new and used and new remaindered books anywhere (6th Avenue and Clement) and Kamei Restaurant Supplies across the street. This store is wall to ceiling dishes, pots and pans, and all things for the Asian kitchen. A set of bowls I saw at my local co-op for $7 a piece I found at Kamei for $1.99 a piece. You too (like me) can outfit your kitchen to look nearly identical to any of your favorite sushi restaurants for cheap (you can even buy fake sushi to stick in your window).

It almost goes without saying that there’s Golden Gate Park and hours you can spend roaming around the place. My personal favorite part thing is to go stare at the Buffalo herd, take the kids paddle boating at Stowe Lake, and the aforementioned tea garden. Minimal cost for maximum enjoyment. The closer you get to the beach by the way, the more available the parking and the cheaper the parking (and sometimes the rent for that matter). We like to let the kids run around Sutro Baths area and Land’s End and the area around the Cliff House on Ocean Beach. All free parking! There’s a great little throw back building out back that houses the Camera Obscura—worth the few bucks to stand in the dark and watch the surrounding area on a big ceramic disk in the center of the room. I’ve suckered friend into going here plenty of times. Cheap and it never gets old.

Back in the day, below the Cliff House restaurant was the Musee Mechanique http://www.museemecaniquesf.com/
–housing coin operated mechanical musical instruments, vintage arcade games (1910—1990s), fortune telling machines and other remnants from the defunct Playland on the Beach. It is now housed in Fisherman’s Wharf Pier 45 instead. The new location is a little too pristine for my tastes (I preferred the old moldy, dripping with god knows what location instead). But it’s FREE admission. Save up some quarters though –everything is in working order and there’s no way to leave there without playing something (I usually wind up on Centipede…).

We try to schedule our trips around what’s playing at the Castro Theatre http://www.thecastrotheatre.com For $9.50 for an adult ticket and $7 for a child, you can see any number of great revival flicks. Our personal favorite is for the Sound of Music sing-a-long the day after Thanksgiving (which does cost a tad more). Regardless of what movie you see you’ll see the gorgeous movie house and be treated to a brief live organ concert beforehand. The movie curtain will open and close the way it is supposed to and the theatre will get dark the way it should. Everything is done right! You can show your kids what life was like before tiny, bland suburban movie screens took over. Afterwards we head across the street to the Thai Restaurant in the lavender Victorian above Daddy’s Bar (I think the restaurant is just called Thai Restaurant but we’ve been calling it Pump Daddy Thai for years on account of the uhm…pumping music one hears on his or her way up the stairs). Anyhow they are super friendly and inexpensive and you have a great view of the Castro Theater Marquee and the neighborhood if you sit in one of the bay window table areas.

And this sounds weird coming from me but now that I have kids my SF night life is pretty much shot. More than likely if I can squeeze a few babysitting hours out of my sister in the evening I head to Kabuki Springs for the communal baths www.kabukisprings.com. For $25 you can spend hours soaking in water, steam, or sauna; drinking good teas and nibbling on salted apples. If you stayed in Japantown you just walk down the street to the Geary/Fillmore side of the Japantown Mall. If finding nirvana isn’t your thing. You certainly wouldn’t need my help to find a nice cheap dive bar. Throw a rock and you’ll hit one (though I end up at Tosca's in North Beach and The Plough and the Stars in the inner Richmond more often than not).

It’s all about the daytime now with the kids. And for that we do spend more time than I ever have in my life in the Marina. I brave this yuppie enclave for two things: Wandering around the Palace of Fine Arts and taking the kids to the enclosed playground outside the Marina branch library and softball fields on Chestnut Avenue. Order your Peet’s coffee to go up the street and brush up on your Spanish and Russian with all the nannies at the park. This is absolutely my 5 and 3 year olds favorite place in the city and it of course costs nothing! The sand and bouncy rubber beneath the jungle gym installations makes this ideal for little ones that like to jump. The Exploratorium Museum next to the Palace of Fine Arts is the quintessential kid’s science museum and is FREE on the first Wednesday of every month.

These are our places to hit next time we are back in the homeland. And if you happen to love alcohol and all things Japanese and are traveling on the I-80 on the way to San Francisco, get off on University Avenue in Berkeley and hang a quick right and go down the street to Sho Chiku Bai Takara Sake Brewery. FREE TASTINGS! That helps take the edge off the five-hour drive and gets us prepared mentally for manual transmission driving up steep hills. There’s a mini (FREE) Sake Museum, and great prices on sake from the company. http://www.takarasake.com

I would add in more suggestions for eating out cheaply but frankly, we now live in a tiny rural town of 300 people these days without a single restaurant. When we go home to the city the ONE thing we don't skimp on ? The food.

Enjoy my former homeland. Where do you go for cheap in The City?

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Back to School: The Case for majoring in English

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:46:11 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

Let me preface this by saying I’m an online instructor. Nearly every student I come in contact with is either a child development, information technology, criminal justice, business, nursing, or psych major. Occasionally we would get a liberal studies major intent on teaching elementary school. But in the realm of online majors, that’s pretty much it.

(I won’t even go into the whining from my students as they write persuasive essays regarding their fear of immigration and all of India coming over to take their jobs. You want HB-1 visa immigrants to stop taking your jobs? How about majoring in science, engineering, and math? Too hard? Alright then. Shush. )

Today’s online student and increasingly today’s traditional student as well, is treating college not so much as a place of higher learning, critical thinking, and broadening of the mind, but instead a vocational training ground for what are sometimes non-existent job prospects. Remember in the early 90s how everyone was a graphic arts major? Welcome today’s version of criminal justice. My husband is in IT and we've watched companies get rid of their in-house IT people left and right.

Students are spending thousands for very specific majors. Textbooks for these majors can amount to $90 for a paperback book. In four years, the jobs they are training for might be gone, curtailed, or outsourced. I don’t want to burst their bubbles. I say nothing. And personally, except for nursing which truly does have a shortage, I don’t know that I’m too keen on there being more cops, more self-esteem boosting majors like Child Dev. and Psych. I mean, isn’t the great American problem that we can’t take a freaking joke?

So with this all in mind, I offer the best major of all American majors—the one with the most job options, cheapest on books, and frugal on investment—the English major. Don’t laugh. Hear me out. You need reasons?

While in school these are the frugal and quality of life perks you can hope to enjoy.

•Textbooks. While still in college being an English major already saves you money. While most of your fellow college students are schlepping off to the campus bookstore to buy textbooks only found there or on a few college sanctioned websites at jacked up prices, you get to squander hours in used book stores and Amazon and eBay. I have an Elizabethan Prose and Poetry book that retailed in a college bookstore for $65 in 1990 which I bought used on the top of some dusty used book shelf for $2. You don’t really have to worry about which ‘editions’ you pick up. Most of things you’ll be reading are from dead people with little or no royalties owed them. And after your initial surveys you can take things in any order. My best friend sprung for the big Riverside Shakespeare edition in the fall semester and then I borrowed it from her to take the same class in the spring while she borrowed all my Milton. English is the cheapest major for books.

•Depression. While in college, you tend to be less depressed as an English or World Lit major—saving you valuable cash money that could otherwise be squandered on therapy. You get to read Crime and Punishment, so you don’t need therapy. Dostoevsky spells it out for you. That sounds weird doesn’t it? My most depressed moments in college weren’t with English majors, they were those moments in general education classes with future elementary school teachers who said things like “Ohmigod! Do we have to, like, read, all these books in one semester?!” Now that totally depresses me. I don’t want my kid in her second grade class, that’s for sure.

•Non-Impacted. I remember trying to get into some class for my minor and being waitlisted with no chance of getting in. And then it occurred to me in that same time slot was Modern Critical Theory. I ran across campus hoping not to be late. Wait a minute, I said to myself, sweat dripping off my brow, why am I running? Sure enough there were only 10 students in the class and the professor looked at me gratefully as I stumbled in late and asked if I could add it. This doesn’t happen in the major du jour departments.

•Better Parties and Drinking. Sure, there might be keggers a plenty down at the frat house with the business majors, but you just got to try a 30 year old single malt scotch that your Irish poetry and prose professor brought to class to make the class more ambient while you watch slides of his favorite pubs in Dublin. After all, you’ve just finished a slew of Yeats and Joyce. You can’t buy that sort of story.

•Coolest part-time jobs. English majors get hired to work in bars, bookstores, and record stores. We take all the cool jobs you wish you had. There’s a bookstore in San Francisco that seems to only hire college graduates and what did they major in? You guessed it—English.

•Heads up on the Surreal. Let’s face it. Life after college becomes this weird surreal madness of social networking, begging for work, allegiances that might go nowhere and the randomness of landing a job because you sat next to the right person on a plane even though you know next to nothing about the job the nice man in the suit wants to give you. Only great literature prepares you for the absurd.

And after you’ve graduated and you are looking for work and you are wondering just how those seminars on Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner and that other one on the Existential Novels from Germany and France are benefiting you think about this:

Critical Thinking in the Mad, Mad, World. My first job out of college was at a newspaper where the first thing the editor said to me was, “English major? Good! You can think!” Apparently it’s what we are known for. We’ve been writing random papers for four years comparing and contrasting things with no similarities whatsoever. We’ve given esoteric a new name. We’ve written twenty page papers on poems of ten lines. This translates straight into the real world. No task too odd or strange. We are at the desk immediately researching any wacky thing a boss can throw at us and we do it with a smile. After all, we are the kind of people who can play Scrabble for days on end without getting bored. Corporate America loves us for this. You will be hired for your ability to take weirdness and run with it. The creative mind!

•Vague Enough to Encompass Anything. The English majors I know and love from undergraduate days to graduate school to now have a diverse resume of careers: lawyers, politicians, K-12 teachers, professors , writers and editors of all genres, small business owners, web designers, bartenders, singers, waitresses, IT analysts, preschool teachers, librarians, artists, graphic designers, and seasonal forestry workers. None of them have gone into Nursing that I know of, but other than that, they’ve covered all the bases that the more popular majors insist are the only way to fly. The English major yields many more job opportunities. The average person sometimes is even a little afraid of the English major. It works to your advantage.

And so incoming freshmen, it might first appear that becoming an English major is antiquated and useless in our contemporary high tech age, but I think you’d be sorely mistaken to take this view. College should be about experiencing the world and the English major will get you there without the investment of expensive technology or books—and how else will you get to read about bestiality in early American Puritan settlements, write papers on it, and get an A?

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The Letter Always Wins

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:11:45 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

Somehow among our many ways to contact a company and complain about products: email, toll free numbers, in person—the old fashioned letter still seems to be the squeaky wheel getting the oil.

Case in point. This week Smucker’s Jam agreed to replace two of my grandmother’s Pineapple Jams that she ordered. She talked to them on the phone and they apologized that the shoddy packaging caused the glass to break. But it was her letter that got her two free bottle replacements. (I’m not sure why they even make pineapple jam but grandma digs it and hardly anyone seems to stock it).

The husband thinks all products made now should be made just like they were made sixty years ago. He holds companies—especially old companies to high standards. But he’s also a cheap bastard that predictably buys the same brand over and over again. He’s bought the same model of New Balance running shoes four times and they’ve all worn and cracked in the exact same place. He called and complained a few times, but his last letter earned him a pair of new New Balance shoes free.

Okay. Two is a coincidence. But we’ll go with three being a rule of thumb. Playtex replaced not one but two nursing bras I had because the stitching around the underwire came undone and nearly poked my son in the eye (it did poke him in the back before I realized what was happening). I called their toll free number and they apologized but I got two free ones after my letter was sent.

I have to credit my husband with all this. I am a product of our throw away culture and am apt to give up on a company or product and just move on, but Julian is another story. He insists that things should be of good quality and when things break down he believes it’s good for companies to be held accountable to his standard. I tend to believe that all wear and tear is my fault and so I should eat all cost. He, on the other hand, believes that a good product holds up with wear and tear. From the lowly toothbrush to my Toyota Corolla, he makes the inquiries, writes the letters, gets the answers—and many replacements, coupons and rebates along with it. I can’t complain.

I’m not sure where he gets the extra energy to write the letters ---always pleasant and detailed and not rants—but I appreciate that we have at least one family member crazy enough to believe that good companies should stand behind their products. ANd I shouldn't doubt him. His letters always deliver.

I’d tell you the stuff he got from Apple but I don’t want to jinx it.

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Strategic Thriftstore Shopping

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:47:33 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

There's nothing like a little shopping to get one's mind off of debt, bills, mortgages, taxes and all things she needs to pay. I know that for most people, men in particular, that statement sounds insane. The cure for the blues of unemployment or debt is to go out and spend money?! Well, for some of us...uhm....yeah.

But there are methods to the madness. I'm not talking about running up the credit card for a clothing spree at H & M. I'm talking about opening the belly of the piggy bank (in our case a Neko welcome cat) and counting up the limit of our fun for the week. Usually we find $40 worth of quarters between there and the coin box in the car. I head for the thriftstores.

Thriftstore shopping can be a gross disgusting experience or it can be exhilirating. I have a dust allergy myself so I really like to be strategic about where I go and for what.

It's been my experience that the big chain thrift stores like the Salvation Army and Goodwill should be avoided. That's not to say they don't have anything worth buying, but your interesting pieces and quirky things are generally not found there. Figure that since they are the Wal-Mart and Target of thriftstores the donations are more mainstream and so is the clientel. They also can't cut you deals the way a smaller thriftstore will. You can find an emergency skirt at Goodwill and even donate a few items to you but they aren't going to budge on the $3.00 you now owe them for it. If you are looking for inexpensive treats and an opportunity to wheel and deal, you have to go smaller and strategic.

Case in point. My best friend Lysa is coocoo for expensive art books and cookbooks. Her number one thriftstore? A branch of Out of the Closet in out of the way Atwater village in Los Angeles. Because it's out of the way and because the people donating are largely from nearby Silverlake (an artistic enclave). Books that would cost up to $100 she winds up getting for $1. Her best find? A $7 cursive typewriter.

This might sound as morbid as people who look at the obituaries to find apartment openings in New York and San Francisco, but my favorite thriftstores to shop in are those found close to retirement complexes. Two things happen to make these fountains of plenty. 1) As seniors move from their houses to retirement condos and apartments, they downsize and throw out whatever has been sitting in boxes and with tags on in their closets for thirty years. They throw them out en route to their new place. 2) Anything that makes it to their new condos and apartments usually gets donated after they pass on by relatives that live too far away to cart it all back. Santa Barbara, California was a particularly good city for both retirees and thriftstores following this model. I scored three vintage sweaters for $15 --one with the tags still on and all with their beads and sequins still attached. Another favorite stop for thriftstores for me is tiny towns in the southwest and (this will sound weird) Reno , Nevada. People unload great things when they are desperate to keep on gambling or to keep on moving. For $3.00 in Tucson, Arizona I got a Thomas Brothers guide for Los Angeles in 1950 and an unused train ticket for a route that oddly enough goes right by my house now! (Only the train doesn't stop there any more).

My favorite thrift experience hands down was in Japan. Thank goodness for a national obsession with new things. I picked up great kimonos that just needed a good cleaning or needed a little stitching. A great new kimono will run in the thousands but only about $30 -$50 used. You might be wondering how a thriftstore survives in Japan--I did. Apparently it's the number one place to shop for foreign workers (and indeed it was).

If an area is too upscale though, the thriftstores won't be there and if the area is too low end, you won't find anything worth finding.

So Saturday morning is rolling around in a few hours and I'm sitting at my grandmother's retirement complex. Of course I'm spending my stimulus check on bills, but I'm saving $20 of it for the thriftstores less than a mile away. Maybe my economic depression will be cured by some hidden treasures tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers.

Where's your best thriftstore?

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Buying (and Trading) on Etsy

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Mon, 26 May 2008 04:35:48 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

Positively one of my favorite places to shop online when I need a present is www.etsy.com. And I have to say, most of the time when I go to buy a present from this site, I have no idea beforehand what I'm actually going to buy. I just browse endlessly by random criteria. My favorite is by color. I want to see something blue and voila! Everything from buttons to yarn to pillows and barrettes in blue.

Etsy only lets vendors who are selling handmade items post their wares on Etsy. They are pretty strict about this. If a vendor even tries to post something not created , other shoppers and artisans will flag it immediately. When they say handmade they mean it---but there's such a broad interpretation of that. The t-shirts a friend of mine silk screens are on there, my old zines are on there, and restrung jewelry made with vintage beads are there too.

If you want to set up shop, etsy boasts some of the lowest cost fees around and the percentage cut is tiny. It doesn't have the traffic of eBay yet, but it doesn't have the high cost either and stuff can sit in your store for three months straight from one posting. A girlfriend of mine who dyes her own yarn has sold about $500 worth so far with not that much effort put into it. You can go in with a few artists in your area and have one store between you.

On the flip side, since artisans and artists make up this site and ususally can't help themselves when they see something fun, clever or beautiful, you can bet that other artists and artisans are looking around their fellow etsy sites. You can totally work out trades of merchandise and can post on your site that you are up for such things (there I go again with the trading). I traded a few books for some earrings.

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The Art of the Trade

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Sat, 17 May 2008 04:28:12 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

Things are getting worse not better—my work has been scaled back, our bills have not been scaled back and there’s little sense in being angry at the budget when not enough money was made to execute it properly in the first place. So how are we going to make the home repairs for summer? Tune up the car to go visit grandma? Get swimming lessons for the kids? Acquire the dehydrator for the raw foods diet?

Perhaps, rural living is helping---we know most of the neighbors and they know my husband has a valuable part-time skill---he’s a computer handyman---and that in a pinch when you need some quick little blurb written or kids need tutoring, I’m your woman. And that’s all we’ve needed to get by this spring.

We have a new queen size bed that retails for $2000 but we are on computer repair installment with an extended family in trade. We get a bed, and they get top priority for computer servicing. Our local mechanic suggested we ‘horse trade’ services. So, we pay for parts, but not labor and in turn, his computer problems are solved without the big bill. I’m tutoring a kid for a woman who will carpool with my husband to save on gas.

While this does mean we are taking in less cash for both my sideline and my husbands, we are seeing more clients and are banking on them telling their friends. My husband has never advertised his business but he always has a few consistent jobs to do every week. Taking in more trades means getting to know more people in the community. In turn, we let people know what we are looking for and they spread the word.

Case in point is my new Excalibur Food Dryer that I priced at $179.00. I didn’t have the money but my husband helped the owner learn how to sell his stuff on eBay and in exchange we got the dryer for free. We didn’t know this guy, but the family that we traded the bed on knew we what we were looking for and hooked up the connection for us.

Sometimes trades don’t work. Don’t just take a trade because the people are offering you something. If it isn’t something you use or need, don’t trade. Those are the clients that should just get charged your regular standard amount for your service. We’ve gotten caught in this one a few times. I’ve got extra Tupperware I don’t use because of this. And one year I had movies I never got around to watching. Make it worth it! I think we’ve been blessed by being a diversified household. Someone always needs one of the three or four skills we have. If you do this as a family, it really works.

My greatest trade is a rent free cottage in the woods in which to write in peace. It’s kind of a karma trade. Two years ago my husband offered this couple our garage and DSL for their business as they were moving across country. Now, I’ve secured the vacant cottage and cabin they left behind unrented. I’m watering their orchard and mowing the lawn in exchange as well. Summer retreat is looking nice!

Truly a fine way to meet the neighbors and to get that community spirit flowing. What karmic trades are happening in your neck of the woods?

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Have an Amusement Park & TV Free Summer (and if you can’t, find a way to make it cheaper)

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:52:34 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

• If you haven’t begun to plan summer vacation for your kids—lest they spend the majority of it in front of the idiot box (as my mother called it) watching bad re-runs of bad sitcoms–now is the time to begin thinking about it. The more occupied the kids are outside of the house , the better. But left to their own devices kids will always find the most expensive diversions possible, but with a little planning and networking, summer vacation doesn’t have to be expensive and their minds don’t have to turn to mush. First my take on the amusement park issue and then, my suggestions for free or nearly free summer activities to keep the kids away from the TV and the video games.

• When my kids hear the word summer nowadays, even at the ages of 3 and 5 , they think two things: they are going to be in a wedding (three so far) and they are going to Disneyland (thanks to one of the weddings being next door to Disneyland, thank you cousin Briana). This is problematic for me. Disneyland costs something like $70 for my three year old to get in and the only thing they don’t seem to charge for is breathing and going to the restroom. And technically you could use the picnic tables outside the gate and bring your own food, but socially you do so and you scar your children (I can see the therapy couch now). If one must be dragged to Disneyland, befriend an employee to help you out with tickets. Seriously, I haven’t paid full price for Disneyland since they started making “Passports” and we could no longer just bring the Buster Brown shoebox full of E—through A tickets saved up and stored above the microwave in Grandma’s kitchen.

• Disney employees tend to be geeky and take their employment as a brush with fame and greatness. They like to show off they work for the Mouse. Exploit this factor. They love feeling a little bit special and different from the rest of us. Use it and save $400. Of course the easiest way to get a family of four in is probably on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in February but you can try a week day in June as well.

• Other amusement parks have the same sort of employee and friends and families discounts but even if there are block out dates, the next best exploitation is to saddle relatives with a wonderful day out with your children at said amusement park. This works well because if they take them , you don’t have to go! What works in my family is cultivating relationships with my twentysomething childfree but in a relationship cousins and sister with my two kids. Of course it helps that my kids are well behaved, independent with an uncanny savvy streak when it comes to well placed hugs and I love yous for their aunts and cousins. This summer, I don’t even have to go to Disneyland. A cousin and her husband want the challenge of faux parenthood for a day, bless their silly souls.

• But still, amusement parks set a dangerous precedent of summer expectations so in reserve, I keep a good deal of other activities handy that hopefully will become routine enough that they’ll never notice they were suckered into free and intellectually stimulating activities.

• Museums and libraries. Often both of these have summer programs for kids that either cost nothing or next to nothing. Library summer programs usually come with free t-shirts and crafts and pizza parties at the end. I schedule kids museum visits for the one free day a month. For example, when I do this in San Francisco, I can get about three free museum trips in if I plan ahead and hit the right museum on the right day (first Tuesday of the month for one, first Wednesday of the month for another). Most museums have ‘family activities’ on Sundays that are free or low cost.

• Little kids are entertained by empty boxes and playgrounds and wading pools. I drive the extra mile to take them to bigger or better playgrounds and parks with more stuff in them because it entertains them longer and wears them out (key). These things might seem boring to you but can give you lots of mileage. We’ve also mastered the art of having a really cool picnic basket and blanket that we cart everywhere so we don’t have to stop for food. It helps that we’ve seldom gone to fast food so they don’t really know it exists as a temptation and money sucker.

• My son’s preschool teacher has started giving the kids the task of creating ‘trash art sculptures’ when they get bored. They clean up the neighborhood, make art out of found free objects (some of the last couple were pretty darn cool). They can clean up the neighborhood AND make art at the same time.

• We’ve been collecting old puppets from thriftstores all year and have created a ‘puppet theatre’ in the backyard. I’ve told each of my kids to think up the characteristics for each of their puppets. For preschoolers and kindergartners they’ve got some pretty elaborate storylines developing. Puppet theatre in the backyard can eat up whole afternoons and you only need to bring out some snacks and keep them hydrated.

• Good old swimming lessons. Many communities offer scholarships for swimming lessons at local community centers since swimming is something all children need to know how to do. You are sure to qualify if you live in a high cost of living area with more than one child.

• My husband uses the summertime to teach our son more computer skills. The fun type. The old delayed reaction digital camera is now the kids’ camera and the old eMac with iLife ’06 is now the kids learning and creating vehicle for them to learn on.

• There’s always farming the kids out and getting them to take on jobs. We’ve told our five year old if he wants any more Star Wars Lego he has to start his own blog and get his own Google Adsense account. Of course he just barely started learning to read and write so , he might need a bit of help on this one. But older kids can always be forced into labor with enough shame and guilt. My mom forced my butt off of the summer couch with a summer hire job at the age of fourteen. My clothing options were much better in the fall that year—that works too.

• With a little creativity and advanced planning the coming summer doesn’t have to be expensive or lethargic. Who knows? Cultivating their creative side could always work out in your favor. And perhaps any residuals from their fifteen minutes of creative fame they might share with you. And if that doesn’t work, there is always Disneyland.

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Joy of Life Club

Margaret Garcia-Couoh — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:51:56 +0000

By Margaret Garcia...

Thinking about vacationing in San Francisco or anywhere else in coastal California and don’t want to spend your little bit of cash on a faceless, nameless monolith hotel chain that’s charging you to use a business center and gym you’ll never use? Give the Joie de vivre Hotels a chance and sign up for their Joy of Life Club (http://www.joyoflifeclub.com).

After living in San Francisco for some years and moving away, I regularly make visits back to the city. But doing this with kids is problematic. I can’t couch surf with a three year old and five year old (well , I could but then those people wouldn’t ever want to talk to me again). My friends don’t have kids, have dogs, or live in studio apartments. No more couch surfing. But San Francisco’s main hotels are all downtown in places I don’t want to go (downtown) or don’t want to go with children who still like to lie down on sidewalks now and then.

Enter my saving grace: Joie de vivre Hotels and their Joy of Life Club. Basically, they are a chain of boutique hotels up and down California—a few of which are slightly off the beaten path (read: cheaper) and a little eccentric (read: older buildings). When you join the club each stay is worth points. I’ve racked up enough points that my next stay in San Francisco will be free.
Free stays in San Francisco! Can it get better than that?

As a club member you get funky little perks: emails giving you a discount during certain months or dates, a bottle of wine at check-in, fresh milk and cookies, sake happy hours, wine tastings, the local paper instead of the godforsaken USA Today. It’s damn well cute really. Most gimmicky club things just don’t do it for me. I hate joining things that’ll give me a discount on a pizza I wouldn’t want to put near my mouth in the first place. Free alcohol though? Dude, after a day schlepping two preschoolers around the city all day, I am so totally there…

This time around we’re staying at the Hotel Del Sol in the Marina. It’s kitschy in color scheme (read: that’s so gay). It certainly ain’t fancy but very friendly and uber kid friendly (becoming a very important element). Another family favorite is the Hotel Tomo in Japantown over the hill from this one (it’s like Ikea mated with a 13 year old Japanese anime girl and gave birth to a hotel). Last time I did the very elegant Hotel Kabuki in Japantown (they have the only hotel rooms I ever wanted to permanently live in—plus Japanese style bathtubs (read: deep and drawn by a bath assistant). The husband and I spent an anniversary at the Hotel Rex which channeled the 30s in a non-pretentious way.

A few spas are also included in their mix---notably the Kabuki Spa in Japantown (I think the perk for that one is free parking at the Japantown Mall).

Some of the reward options are pretty over the top (Choose your own adventure type stuff or VIP Sonoma County Vineyard weekends) and I know I’d rather just work up to a few free nights stays. Check it out if you are out this way.

And just cause they are quirky doesn’t mean they don’t have the basics—which for me seems to be wireless Internet access. Spending less on accommodations in California is always a plus—and it’s great when you can tell the people running things have some taste--I’ve wanted to steal every print in every room I’ve stayed in –when does that ever happen that they don’t all look like thirftstore rejects?

Happy travels…meet you for free milk and cookies at 4 pm by the pool.

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