It was about 8pm and the pharmacy was set to close at 9pm, which I guess meant rush hour–all the people racing in to fill their medications before the end of the night.  Despite there “stand back for privacy” line, I could hear every conversation from my little vantage point to the left of the counter.  As I sat there for about 20 more minutes (largely waiting for the line than to pick up my order since it was filled pretty quickly) I was amazed by what I witnessed.

I counted 12 different patrons.  The smallest number of medications for any patron was 3.  The largest number was 9.  On average it seemed like people were picking up 5 medicines.  No one wanted “counseling” from the pharmacist as almost all the patrons were picking up medicine that they took before.  This got me thinking a lot about my medication and medication in general. How medicated is America?  How about the world?  Most of the older people I know closely take a whole cocktail of pills daily.  Is that characteristic of other people?  I wish I had more time to do research on this topic as it is fascinating how many pills people take on a regular basis.

There are plenty of studies on how taking too much medicine is bad for our health (makes diseases resistant, etc) but what about all of the other medications?  How can that be good for people’s well being if they are all on a bunch of pills all the time?  And how frequent is it–how many people are taking 1, 2, 3, or more medications?  From my night of observation at the pharmacy it sure seems like something someone should be thinking about.

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I walked in the door last night and my arms were filled the the usual baggage–my laptop bag, my hand bag, a jacket, and a spare pair of shoes (I have a strong affinity for very high heels, so when I always try to carry a practical pair of shoes with me should I ever need to walk a long distance).  I set everything down on our little black leather chair in the entryway and greet the puppies.  Then I head to the fridge where I try to come up with what makes sense for dinner, sometimes the answer is going out, other times it is left overs, and then other times it is snacking on whatever food we happen to have in the refrigerator (yes, I have had dinners consisting of pickles, saltines, and some carrots because there was nothing else).  Once I have finished eating then I usually log on to my laptop, work for a while, maybe watch some TV.  On the nights when the hamper overflows I might do some laundry–most of which makes it through the washer and then dryer and then lays in clean piles until the weekend when I have the time and energy to fold them.  On some nights I work on my many projects like the iPhone application, my GMAT studying, my blog, or my workouts.

The thing is, I wish I could do more.  I wonder if maybe I am spreading myself to thin across too many things?  And when do people find time to cook healthy dinners?  Moreover, when do people find time to clean?  And how can I possibly pack everything I need into one handbag?

Do you know anyone who is one of those super moms?  The ones who can do everything?  The ones that when someone shoes up they have cookies, crackers, lemonade and fresh fruit out on a plate for their guests.  These are the same ones whose house is always clean and when you open a closet a mess of stuff doesn’t spill out, no, everything is labeled neatly and stored in boxes.  I read the magazine Real Simple and I aspire to be as organized and put together as the people who must contribute to that magazine.  I just don’t know how anyone can actually do all of this Martha Stewart stuff, have a career, and still manage to have fun once and while.

So with this in mind I am thinking of trying to organize my life a little better and get better at prioritizing.  I am planning on spending this weekend organizing the house.  We are going to a wedding on the 5th (which I am very excited about) but I am going to try and spend Saturday going through closets, hanging up the pictures on the floor, putting things away and creating the big pile of stuff to sell on ebay.  Maybe I will even go and look for the coffee table and bar stools we are missing.

And maybe I will do another blog posting on the little things you can do to help you get more organized and pulled together.

Listen to the show: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1242

Read the transcript: http://www.thislife.org/extras/radio/355_transcript.pdf

Also here is a good graph that depicts the history of home prices and how things were affected from the aggressive lending: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/08/26/weekinreview/27leon_graph2.html

I was reading an article last night that was on on cnn money, that said go ahead and get mad about the bailout, but then feel comfort in the fact that things would be much more painful without it (which may very well be true).  But to be honest, I am really frustrated for a couple of reasons–I feel completely powerless to change the decisions, it is going to impact me in a negative way.

There are two parties that can benefit from the bailout–the rich wall street bankers or the reckless homeowners.  It seems like every article you read is looking for someone to blame.  Of course it is easy to look at the incredibly wealthy executives with the golden parachutes and think that their greed finally got up with them.  Part of me thinks they are to blame and should suffer for the risks they took–after all isn’t that what the whole free market is about?  You take risks and sometimes they pay out (everyone knows about the big paychecks and bonuses the guys on wall street received year after year), and sometimes they don’t (when your risks don’t pan out).  It only makes sense those people should be responsible for these losses.  Of course I am slightly jealous of these people.  I am all for saving our economy, but I think we should figure out a way where these people could have hiring taxation or should have to help pay for some of the losses from their risks.  Of course, I would love to one day be able to have a job like that–when I can work hard I can really be rewarded for that hard work.

Here is a good blog post that lays out some rules for the bailout that helps with the richer side of the story.  All of the rules seem really fair and seem to place blame on some of the people who made the hefty profits.

Other people look at the poor reckless homeowners that are losing their homes and think they need rescuing and should be the recipients of the payout. In some ways that makes me even more mad.  if you listen closely to each of these stories, there is almost always some track record of irresponsible spending, people living beyond their means. These people took out loans they knew they couldn’t afford–many of them bought mountains of junk (the reckless consumerism that plagues our society), many took expensive vacations, and some leveraged their investments on speculation hoping to make some easy money.  Why should these people be saved?  The only family I know who could be considered one of these victims certainly spent their way into their problems.  The wife has a nanny and doesn’t work, the husband wears a rolex.  They eat at the most expensive Seattle restaurants and have two brand new cars.  Every time I would talk to them they were buying something new.  In my (perhaps heartless) opinion these people deserve to lost their home.  They should have made sacrifices, not bought so many new things, and saved money.  Didn’t live a champagne lifestyle they could not afford.  Of course it is easy to feel sorry for someone who is losing their home, but it is hard for me to blame a mortgage broker for giving them a loan–it is much easier for me to blame the people for their exuberant lifestyle.

So that leaves the people who have been living within their means, working hard, and trying to get ahead–those people are the real victims in this whole scandal.  It makes me sad that this is the way things shake out.  I know life isn’t fair and I truly hope that when all is said and done the government will think about the responsible citizens.

Just my $0.02.

Well I can’t help it if people are stupid, but this is an election year and it is important to vote.  It doesn’t matter what your opinion is, but just simply filling in a ballot tells your representatives that you care.  This means that they will tailor their campaign to your demographic.  For example if only 50 year old people vote then they will pay more attention to legislation that affects like them like Medicare changes and social security. If a lot of 20 somethings cast their vote then they are more likely to pay attention to issues that generation cares about like 401k contributions (increasing the limit in the event social security dries up).  Just voting represents your demographic of the population and will likely skew legistation to be in your favor–this should be a reason to vote unto itself.  Of course, you should also consider that so many people have sacrificed their lives and families for your rights and you wouldn’t want those losses to be in vain.