loonie tunes

I am in a funk.

When we probably far-too-spontaneously bought our casa in Riberas, I, as the financial one in the relationship, spent hours calculating and pondering, figuring out whether or not we could afford it. It's not a lavish house by any means, but since we had to pay the whole thing from our savings, I had to determine whether our assets, some tied up in RRSP's (IRA's to any Americans reading) could extend far enough for me to write out a cheque for about $150,000 American dollars.

Now, just about anyone looking at our assets would probably determine that we could, without a lot of difficulty. But just about anyone looking at our assets wouldn't be as conservative with money as I am.

I am a saver. I'm not a scrimper, by any means, but I get huge satisfaction in seeing money grow, dollar by dollar, over time. I feel rather smug, and -well - adult, when I can make a deposit into my savings. I'm particularly happy when I see the balance move up and over any significant number, such as a '999' balance becoming a '001'. Sort of the reverse of seeing a '9' ending number moving up to a '1' ending number on the bathroom scales.

I've saved money over time, in part because I've never owned property. Instead of paying monthly mortgage payments, I've put aside funds to create what the bankers call 'cash equity'. That nestegg has huge real and symbolic significance. Where other people know that their house, as it gets paid for, is their security against any financial crisis, those numbers generated in quarterly statements were my safety net.

That's why, when I agreed that a huge chunk of my money was going to a house in Mexico that I wouldn't even live in for several years, I was panic-stricken. Rob quite rightly pointed out that the money wasn't in any way gone, just put into a different kind of investment, but as a non-home owner all my life, I just didn't see it viscerally, though I understood it intellectually. Sort of. At any rate, the agreement to purchase was signed, and we returned to Canada knowing that, when the deal closed three months later, we'd own our dream home in Mexico.

That was last October. At that time, the Canadian dollar was worth approximately ninety cents, U.S. So that cheque for $150,000 U.S., carefully calculated in our B and B in Ajijic ran considerably higher in Canadian funds. But was doable without panic. Well, without too much panic, on my part.

Three months is a long time in banking terms. Imagine how the blood drained from my body as I watched, in November and December, as the loonie took a dive. In fact, dropped to its lowest point in five years. When I had to remove the funds to take the final payment to Mexico in early January, the loonie was worth 84 cents U.S. And our house cost us that much more, just like that. Did it help that our financial advisor assured me that the rest of the investments were doing particularly well because a weak Canadian dollar meant more manufacturing, and off-shore investments were bullish, and blah, blah, blah? Not a whit.

And not a whit has it helped that, since we've bought and paid for our casa, the loonie has suddenly come off life-support and is veritably jogging circles around the U.S. buck. Today it's at $1.01 and something, and according to Warren Buffett, whose financial acumen is somewhat better than mine, is expected to remain above U.S. value for at least five years. So now, my lovely little casa is worth even less than it was in January.

I know, when we come down to stay in December, I won't be looking at it, like a mother at her teenager who screwed up. You know, "Casa, I'm not mad at you. I'm just very, very disappointed." I'll see beyond the fact that money, real and theoretical, has perhaps flown out of the kitchen window, and realize that outside that window is a lovely patio where I can hear roosters in the morning, and watch the sun set over the lake.

But I'm not in my casa now. And I'm mad at the house, and the loonie, and Warren Buffett. I know I have to accept, as all good adults do, that the house has cost us more than we bargained for when we first saw it, but that the world didn't cave in. I realize that no house is worth anything until you go to sell it, and the market changes, and who knows what will happen by the time we put it on the market (hopefully never). But I don't feel like an adult today.

Being an adult sucks.

puzzling activities

Because I drive into the university for my Spanish class with Rob to save on the exhorbitant parking fees, I end up sitting in the cafeteria about an hour before my class starts, and at least thirty minutes before just about anyone else is there. I've started using that time to read the morning paper, and to do the daily sudoku and crossword.

I got into the habit of doing the morning crossword the last couple of years I was teaching, when a few of us who arrived to school early would photocopy 'the daily' from the staff newspaper, and sit, silently and semi-competitively, filling in the squares as the staffroom likewise filled up and became noisier and rowdier around us. We took a fair bit of ribbing for our concentration in the midst of our caffeine-fueled colleagues, but I always felt that some of the comments came from people rather jealous that we were able to pursue a somewhat cerebral activity so early in the morning. The math teacher who was part of the group got particular attention for his participation, almost as though it was unfair that he took an interest in words as well as numbers and somehow 'let the side down'.

Since I've retired, I've continued this morning practice: in fact, I can't start my day without filling in the crossword puzzle...an activity that is usually quite easy now that I've mastered those words that only ever appear in crosswords and scrabble games, like 'taw' and 'ogee'. I look forward to the extended puzzle on the weekends, which might take me up to an hour to complete, and I'm often a little disappointed, as well as smug, when the last square is filled in.

I started doing the sudoku, or at least trying to, when I retired. I've always considered myself a logical person, and not numerophobic in any way, so I thought it would be a puzzle I'd enjoy, and in time, master. That hasn't been the case. I enjoy it when it's easy, as most people do most things, but I'm rather too quick to place a number in a spot without sober second thought, with the result that, too often, I end up making a fatal error that causes the rest of the puzzle to fall apart. And then I stop. Not for me the white-out and redo; I simply shrug and move on to the next thing. Like the "Jumble" puzzle. Or the dishes.

Rob is different about puzzles than I. Knowing he's not a number guy, he quickly forsook the sudoku, but is quite addicted to any games or puzzles involving words. Anagrams, scrabble, boggle, and particularly the cryptics are his games. He taught me the basic principles of cryptic crosswords when we started our relationship ('started dating' sounds silly for middle-aged people to me), but, although I can fill in a few of the words, and do better if we work on a puzzle together, I don't have the keen right-brain that allows him to unscramble anagrams and decode complex puns and other wordplay. He quite astounds me with how he can get, "disobeying" from "princess shed tears watching bad behavior" in a matter of seconds. He finds regular crosswords boring; I find his brain a strange and sometimes peculiar place. Cryptics being only one reason.