06 March, 2010

Astrology Triumphs Again

So there it was the day before Jupiter conjunct Mars in the eleventh house and all that seemed to have happened was that I'd been bitten AGAIN by the cat I was fostering and the bite had become infected. Yes, it was drama workshop at the senior center in the morning and workshop leader wanted to know if I'd be available to be in the Celebrate Women's Month or whatever is it show/pageant later in March, and I would, so we all go over our parts and I'm Sappho, oh great, and will have to read my little blurb from Great Women's Hall of Fame or whatever it is, but gimme a break - THAT'S Jupiter conjunct Mars? Final proof that God has a sense of humor?

Not quite. That afternoon was also the final collage workshop with The Artist From The Whitney at the senior center, but in between my two visits to the center I had, of course, to check what is laughingly called my portfolio - a collection of equities, as I now know to call them (as opposed to stocks, which is what I called them when I knew even less about them than I do now) - a motley collection indeed, all bought without the help of financial advisors, all based on whatever *trend* my hayseed self might have thought was about to *pop*. Years ago I bought a big 190 shares of TIVO. Usually I buy 100 or less, but TIVO when I bought it was $4.99 so I could splurge.

It's some kind of box that connects to your TV that lets you record programs that are on when you're not home so you can watch them when you are, she said vaguely, showing the acute understanding she has of each equity in which she *invests* (read 'gambles') ; there's a monthly subscription rate that is way over what I would pay for such a service. I get (almost) the same service from Dish network, the satellite TV provider I use in Silver, for $5.00 a month. That was the problem with the stock - a great idea but one that could be easily copied, and the company has been in a legal fight with Dish for so long I'd forgotten about it.  The poor thing has struggled its way upward over the years, and gotten stuck at around $10.00 for a long time. That's a 100 percent return, but with 190 shares, still nothing to write home about.

But - Jupiter conjunct Mars with no other manifestation that I can see  and TIVO wins its latest battle against Dish and is awarded $200 million and the stock jumps $5 in a day and my *investment* is up by $1,000 since I left the house to go to drama workshop.  And with not much angst at all - Citibank having rejected me for having a portfolio worth less than $25,000 and passed me on to some lower form of financial caretaker, with said transfer taking place the day after I want to sell my TIVO so that when I go to my Citibank account online and attempt to sell my TIVO I'm told "You cannot sell a stock you do not own"-  a simple panicked phone call puts me in touch with a Citibank investment advisor who is as surprised as I am when he sees what I'm trying to do and asks me if I know of any reason for the stock's pop. When I tell him, he gets as excited as I am, and lo and behold, a month and a half gets taken off the time I have to live comfortably and $3000.00 or close goes into my checking account.

And people say Pisces means spirituality...  
  

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