The perfect mixture of lowbrow and highbrow, our beloved local weekly newspaper The Stranger posted an article back in March that I haven't been able to get out of my head. I adore it so much.
Their Economic Survival Guide for 2010.
The article is a hearty jumble of practical advice, bad advice, good advice and potentially lifesaving information.
The bad advice covers such diverse topics as how to make money off of getting hit by a car (mostly just etiquette for the injured cyclist rather than a guide for scam artists) and the half-joking suggestion to build ridiculous bike-like contraptions to generate a little electricity. (I might actually try this one sometime, mostly for the exercise.)
The good advice includes ways to legally get into local art museums for free and the suggestion to read/perform the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at home with four friends. (Brilliant!)
The practical advice includes a recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese, info about a Seattle-specific iPhone app about the local bus service and detailed information about chicken ownership in the city, including info about local coop-building workshops and city municipal code limitations.
But best of all--very, very best of all--is the potentially lifesaving information that The Stranger opted to include in the article.
It explains how to use food banks, how to get low-income assistance on utility payments, how to get dental care when one is horribly poor, it supplies the name and locations of a cheap medical clinic for the uninsured (The Country Doctor) as well as FAQ information about getting extended unemployment.
I LOVE that this humanitarian service is being provided by the same article that lists which Seattle bars have free ping-pong! I wish a similar guide was available for people who live outside of Seattle. (If there is and I haven't heard of it, someone please tell me. A guide that covers the Skagit and/or Whatcom counties would be amazing.)
The truly adorable article ends by gushing about three gorgeous, local public parks.
What a city!
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