Hey y'all, I know it's been an eternity. Here's what Team Borowiec is up to......
In 1996, Gregg Mortensen decided to give up a lucrative career and comfortable life, moving to Afghanistan to open schools for the children there who had a less than zero chance of education. These schools were built plank by plank on the sides of mountaintops by the determination of ordinary people who possessed an extraordinary need to give something to people less fortunate that would sustain them in a way they had never thought possible. Now there are books and TED Talks and probably a movie with Liam Neeson in a beige caftan at some point.
I'm a lucky, lucky ho, because my man's idea of altruism was giving up a six-figure income to go work for a manufacturer of solar inverters in lovely Rocklin Ca. BFN, yes, but not the kind of BFN where burkas and M-16's are the standard. Even with a 60% pay cut it's (probably) still better than picking rocks out of my ass all day and fighting off scorpions.
When he told me what his plan was I was a) Glad we'd given up the ditch digging fantasy that had been rolling around the dinner table for the past few months and b) hopeful that the move from Northern Tijuana would do us a little good. Los Angeles has a decent taco, but the fact that it takes 40 minutes to go 12 miles is not enough to make up for forty pigs worth of carnitas.
So we gave notice, said goodbye to our resort-style apartment at the beach, and landed in Northern California just as it got all nice and grey and suicidal. Oh, and did I mention the trash-pickers?
Now Mama gets to rejoin that special group of folks known as the poverty-stricken. Normally a group of miscreants who couldn't get off the meth or make it through junior college. We're like the King and Queen of the white trash here and as soon as I can afford it, I'm going to the WalMart to replenish my wardrobe of Miley Cyrus-wear and hit the Dollar Store HARD.
