My Life in Argentina and Beyond

Friday, July 31, 2009: He is a 5 month old orange kitten. The area around his nose and mouth is dark. Wesley turned his head around when he heard a big bus going by Nassau and North 15th. Hi moved his tail as I held him yesterday afternoon. At first they thought he had a liver shunt and that surgery would solve the problem. Now another vet says that he has some sort of terminal illness. I wish I could do something besides hold him and pet him. Wesley is such a dear little thing and he deserves to have a long and happy life with a good family.

Soup kitchen in the Rain: 5 P.M: I went early to the soup kitchen on 51st. between Park and Lexington. There were already at least 10 people ahead of me. The sky was grey, but it didn’t look too threatening, though it had rained hard earlier. Then, at about 5:15 P.M. it came down with a vengeance. People in their cars gawked at us and the guy behind me was pushing his transparent plastic bag to the side. It had all sorts of empty cans in it. A lady walked up to me out of nowhere and handed me a sandwich. Thank you very much, I told her. Then, she moved on to another person and gave him another sandwich. I couldn’t wait to get inside, get somewhere out of the rain. Somebody down in front got testy and started yelling at the woman behind him. He accused her of pushing him. The man in charge of the church volunteers went up to see what was going on. He motioned for the woman, me and another woman to go in and get our food. In the cafeteria, the guys had our soup, orange, milk and bagel in the bags. After we got them, there was another guy offering cheddar cheese and broccoli pies. The guy moved down to the other end of the table where we choose from croissants, pieces of brownies and Balthazar bread loaves. I walked out and thanked the church volunteer supervisor. The food came in very handy. The rain wouldn’t stop pouring. I opened my umbrella I went to the subway down the block.

Different Flags not an autobiography. It got mostly (8 out of 10, let's say), good reviews. The reviewers liked it, most people who read it liked it. They have written to me and told me so in plain English. If I had wanted to write an autobiography I would have done so, but my life has had many very interesting experiences and it would have been longer than Gone With the Wind. Besides, I am not dead yet nor am I 80 or 90.Eugenia Renskoff

Sex is not love but sex and love (between a man and a woman, for instance) often go together. When you are in love, you want to touch and feel the person you love. You usually do not want to admire one another from afar. Eugenia Renskoff

I am not in favor of priests having lovers. It is true that the longer living a lie goes on, the worse it'll be. It will just go on and on. That is why I so strongly believe in Optional Celibacy. There is no reason why priests cannot have wives and girlfriends. Eugenia Renskoff

It baffles me to think that anybody would even consider the possibility that I would willingly commit mortgage fraud and that I would get myself into a situation where I would lose a home. That is similar to saying that a woman deserved to be raped because she did wore a low cut dress and therefore invited someone to sexually assault her. The experience that I lived through in GA turned my life into a living nightmare. I often feel that there is nothing worse than this. The real estate professionals I was dealing with knew what they were doing and they were aware of the consequences of their actions. I didn’t. They acted out of self interest and greed. Later I learned that at the time I bought the condo the real estate market in Atlanta and GA was very soft. I hate to think that they are doing the same to someone else. Why should they be protected when they did what they did? Why let this go on and on? Consumers, especially borrowers, should be protected.

I think that the fact that this is a sex drenched society has nothing to do with how ridiculous the Celibacy Ruling is. Priests having lovers and girlfriends on the side is something that has gone on for centuries. There is nothing new about someone wanting and needing love. Eugenia Renskoff

Tuesday, July 21, 2009: For a while, I thought that the loan officer who engineered the loan that got me into mortgage fraud had left the business. Yesterday, while googling him, I think I discovered that he's back doing what he used to do when I met him back in June 2002.

Saturday, July 18, 2009: I stood there and looked t the white walls. They were the same white walls I had known before, a long time ago. The apt. seemed smaller, a space that in my imagination had been twice as big. The shower. I looked at the shower with longing. The new person had changed the shower curtain. The new one was white with some black flowers. I had to leave it. I knew I couldn't stay. It hurt so much that when I  got down to the street, I cried.

I walked by the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue late yesterday afternoon and saw lots of cops and people near it. The cops were talking to passers by and the people were holding up their cell phones to take pictures. President Obama has come to town to give a speech to the NAAPC at the Hilton. I had a strange sort of thought: Wouldn’t it be great if he could stand in line with me and the other people at the soup kitchen on 51st. between Park and Lexington? He could share one of our white plastic bag meals and talk to us, listen to our stories. Maybe Mayor Bloomberg could join him and give him a tour of the church. The St. Bart’s soup kitchen is only a block away from the Waldorf. I know the NAAPC is important, but when will our turn to be seen come? We are sometimes paid a little bit of attention, but not much. Many of us have been homeless; some are still homeless, pushing carts all over town with large plastic bags full of Pepsi and Coca Cola bottles to trade for a few dollars. Even if you have been without a home for a short period of time, it’s still a bad and horrible thing to go through. The experience leaves a mark that, in many cases, cannot be erased, even if you later are lucky enough to get back on your feet.