At the bank this morning, to withdraw The Rent (which sadly I continue to do in person until that elusive day there is enough money to comfortably move things around electronically), I first asked to see my current balance. The teller discretely wrote these figures down on a sticky note, and passed them to me:
Savings: $3,490.49
Checking: $1,826.43

“WHAT!?!” I exclaimed. “No WAY!”
Cringing empathetically she asked, sheepishly, “Is that bad?”
Ha ha!
“Maybe for other people that’s bad,” I told her. But for me… I’m just glad nothing is overdrawn right now.
Amazed is more like it.
Damn wow.
What timing too, since rent -which is late (boo hoo)- will take nearly HALF of that. Yes, we pay $2,100 -PER MONTH- for our 3-bedroom apartment in Cambridge. Insane, I know. Yes it’s a nice apartment, but not $2,100 nice!
“No that’s not right,” said a retired Cambridge police officer man I was talking to about it recently. “Something’s wrong there.”
“YES I know!” I told him, ubiquitously quoting the incomparable Jimmy McMillan, “The Rent is Too Damn High.” (With hardly enough left over for breakfast-lunch-and-dinner.)

[1 min, 17 secs] 

Yeah, so if you’ve heard or read me whinging about supporting the family on a juggler’s (let’s face it, there is no “salary”) …earnings, this *might* have something to do with it.

Anyway, let’s just say our kids are DEFINITELY going to get into that public(ly funded), nowhere-else-like-it-in-the-world, CAMBRIDGE Montessori school, which would more than off-set this exorbitant rent; shall we?  Yes we shall.  Damn!