Tax Returns and Road Rage

For most of my adult life, I prepared my own taxes. But things got complicated after my husband died. A few years later, I was putting my kids through college, further complicating things. So I started using a CPA to prepare my return for me. One less thing I had to deal with. This went on for several years, and each year, the fee was a little higher than the year before. Meanwhile, my kids had flown the coop, and my financial life became much simpler. But it took me until this year to return to doing it myself. (It's so, so easy to become spoiled!)

I follow rules. I don't cheat. (Well, maybe I've broken a rule or two, like wearing white after Labor Day. And I admit to looking in the back of the crossword puzzle book for the answers on occasion.) I am terrified of getting into legal trouble. Someday I'll tell you about the time I got kicked off a plane. Or the time the DEA came knocking on my door. (I was innocent both times.) But I don't want the Tax Man coming after me for tax fraud. I forced myself to put my paranoia into my pocket and get on with the job.

I am very proud to tell you that, as of today, both my federal and state returns have been e-filed! Was it fun? No. Was it easy? Well, it wasn't as hard as I'd expected. Did I save some money? Yes, about $350.

And what the hell does road rage have to do with this? That's a different story:

Last Friday, I was all packed and ready to drive north to my significant other's place for the weekend. (We were both scheduled for our second vaccine!). Suddenly, it started to rain. Now, in Florida, a rainstorm can make roads dangerous in a nano-second, so I decided to wait until the shower had passed. I texted Ed at 1:10, informing him of this delay. By 1:30, the skies had cleared, and I was on my way. A 20-minute delay.

As I was driving north on I-95, I saw a couple of bulletins stating that I-95 was closed up ahead. But everyone else was still motoring on, so I did, too. Until the exit for Donald Ross Road, where we all had to creep along at 4 mph. I spent 45 minutes in this logjam, with no idea what was going on. And then there was a complicated exit from the highway and some decision-making on how to bypass whatever was holding things up in order to get back onto I-95. I successfully navigated the U-turns and ramps and continued on my way.

It wasn't until the next day when, while reading the paper, I came upon the reason for the hold-up. Road rage! According to the article, there had been a minor collision on the road. Both drivers pulled over to the shoulder. And then one of the men was shot! He died at the scene. There was a picture of him in today's paper, along with a request for witnesses to contact the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office with any information. The dead man was 29 years old, the same age as my son. Oddly enough, the other man was questioned but not arrested. Surely, there's a story to be discovered here.

Anyway, I did some rough math in my head and realized that, had rain not delayed my drive, I might have been one of those witnesses. Timing is everything, isn't it? Hell, I could have been the driver who got side-swiped! There but for fortune . . . 

So how do income taxes and road rage connect? It's simply this: I'm grateful that I am alive and here to do my tax returns. Amen.

Block This Caller

I doubt that I'm the only one who's noticed that the volume of spam phone calls has increased during pandemic. I guess the spammers think the general population is more susceptible to falling for their ruses? Unfortunately, that's probably true.  I cannot begin to articulate how this infuriates me. Who are these people? Or these robots? More importantly, do they really have car warranties to save us from certain bankruptcy?

I've been blocking spam callers for years. Seriously, how many phone numbers are available in this universe? Block two, and five more show up. I have an advantage . . . the area code for my cellphone does not match the one where I live. So I immediately know that the phone call is NOT from someone in my home county. And so, I don't answer. And then I jump through the hoops necessary to BLOCK THIS CALLER. I think I could do it in my sleep. But I've noticed of late that spammers are now able to text their evil, and those are a bit more confusing to block. (BTW, does anyone else get text messages addressed to "Antoinette" as I do? WTF?) Oh, and raise your hand if you've gotten a spam call FROM YOUR OWN NUMBER! Next election, I will vote for the candidate who presents a plan for eliminating spam!

The other day, I got a voicemail telling me that a new iPhone12 had been purchased on my account and was being mailed to an address in Tennessee. My guess is that the spammers are counting on recipients to contact them to dispute this, and then somehow, they would get credit card info from the person who'd been spammed. So effing clever.

But wait! There's more! While I'm on a rant, can we just quit with the surveys regarding recent purchases?  I recently got one from Staples, asking "How did you like your cyan ink cartridge?" Seriously? This is ridiculous! It's a friggin' ink cartridge! Am I supposed to award it five stars for being what it's supposed to be? But the bigger question here is this: who actually answers these surveys? And who actually reads them? I will confess, once I did respond to a survey regarding a purchase I'd made (again, from Staples), stating my disappointment with the product. Do you think I heard back from them with an apology? An offer to replace the order? No. Crickets.

And while I'm on a roll here, let me just offer my two cents about commercials. When I was in high school, I took a course in "Advertising Arts." I wanted to go to art school and work on Madison Avenue in advertising! (Confession: I became addicted to the Mad Men series a few years ago, so maybe there was still a residual fascination with the field of advertising.) These days, I watch very little television, but enough that I've had to suffer through some of the worst advertising ever. Those people that get off on the smell of their laundered clothes annoy the hell out of me. But local advertising is the worst. These people may be talented in cleaning out your gutters or changing your oil or performing your colonoscopy, but they are NOT talented in performing in front of the camera to hawk their talents. Am I right? And please, someone explain to me what a guy in a yellow shirt with a pet emu has to do with Liberty? Who in hell came up with "Limu Emu and Doug" for selling insurance? Okay, so the Aflec Duck was somewhat lame, although I actually didn't mind the Geico Gecko. (I liked his accent.) But I will be grateful when that annoying emu and his equally annoying partner, Doug, have been deposited into the trash bin of has-been advertising icons. I ask in earnest: When there's a need to purchase insurance, does anyone actually think, "I want the one with the emu in the yellow shirt!" OMG, what have we become?

(Don't answer that.)

Glad That's Over!

I know you're agreeing with me before you even know what I'm referring to. While I look forward to the day when we can say "Glad that's over!" about the pandemic, I seem to have no trouble finding other things to want to be done with. Am I a certifiable Debbie Downer? Or is there just too much bad stuff happening around me? Maybe if I write about it, I'll get it out of my system.

So . . . 

Glad Valentine's Day is over! I'm no longer big on holidays (except maybe for St. Patrick's Day when there's beer), but Valentine's Day is one I particularly dislike. And it has nothing to do with the fact that my father (who was born on Columbus Day) was named Valentine. You see, my birthday is the day before Valentine's Day. So going out for the traditional birthday dinner in a restaurant was never a good experience, especially if those days fell on a weekend. I don't mean to sound sexist, but I think there are a lot of men out there who fulfill their romantic obligations once a year when they treat their woman to dinner out on Valentine's Day. So restaurants are crowded (at least when there's not a pandemic out there). And the hearts! Everywhere hearts! Why hearts? Why not brains? Was I misinformed when I was told that the brain is the most powerful sex organ? I know you're thinking that brains aren't particularly attractive, but neither are hearts! You know that particular organ has been stylized to serve as a symbol of love. And if you want to argue with me and say that Valentine's Day is about love, not sex, then how come so many people have birthdays in mid-November? Huh? Think about it! Anyway, maybe you enjoyed your Valentine's Day, and I'm happy for you, but I'm glad it's over. 

Glad my birthday's over! Yep, you saw that coming, didn't you? You can reread the above paragraph for some of the reasons that I don't particularly like having a birthday in February, but wait! There's more! While I will admit to having had some lovely birthdays, especially ones where I was somewhere else, like the Bahamas, there were twice as many bad ones. Some of them even occurred on Friday the 13th, like when I turned 26 (2x13) and 31 (13 backwards). For how many of my birthdays do you think I was snowed in? More than I want to remember. But one stands out. Turning 21 is a big deal. You get to go into a bar and order a beer and proudly show your ID. When I turned 21 in college, all the bars were closed because of a storm. And it was a Saturday night! Someone in the dorm had a bottle of Cherry Kijafa, and so we had to make do with that. I've never had Cherry Kijafa since. But the main reason I dislike birthdays is because they come with expectations. Like how many cards will I get in the mail? How many presents? Will there be a surprise party? And these days, how many FB "Happy Birthday!"s will I get? Now, at my age, I've been able to let go of those expectations for the most part, but there's still some anxiety leading up to the "big day." It's akin to "Who loves me?" and I hate that insecurity. So, yes, I'm glad my birthday's over.

Glad that impeachment trial is over! Now I know that some of my readers dislike when I get political, although it's hard not to these days. After the election, I was going to ease off the attention I'd been paying to all things political. Then January 6 happened, and I was back in front of the TV way too much. And after that coverage eased up a bit, along comes the Senate trial. We knew how it would end, but some of us kept hope alive. (We still do.) Anyway, it was good theatre, it was bad theatre, and it was all-consuming. And then it ended the way we expected it to, despite the reality that there should have been a different ending. (See McConnell's speech after the vote.) Let me take this opportunity to highlight something that continues to bug me. There are many who think that the acquittal means that he was not impeached. That is wrong. He remains impeached - twice! - but not convicted. I don't want to go any further with this topic because what's the point? I'll just say that I'm glad it's over.

Glad that I'm still kicking. Yeah, here's the result of my ranting about those things. The realization that I'm still here to bitch about them. There are good reasons for me to stay hopeful and positive. I may be 71, but I'm in relatively good health. There are people who love me. There is renewed hope for this country. There are vaccines. (I get my second dose this weekend.) I have my first grandchild to love (even if it's remotely for now). By mid-July, all three of my children will be married and on their own journeys, likely giving me more grandchildren, grand-dogs, and grand-cats. There is a man who loves me (and does NOT buy me stupid chocolates in a heart-shaped box, but instead sends me a copy of John Fowles' The Magus because he's pretty sure I will like it). I can honestly say that, despite all the bad stuff, life is good. And I'm glad it's not over.

Between a Rock and a Kind Place

For many of us, this pandemic has brought out some latent talent (OMG, OMG, look! Those two words are anagrams!!) that we'd been neglecting during the time when the world was normal. My friend Shelly has rediscovered her affinity for painting rocks. She gifted this one to me (mostly because I made a shameless plea for her to give it to me). Truly, I love this rock as much as I love my friendship with Shelly.

So the main point of painting rocks is to mark them with words (or pictures) of kindness and then leave them in places where unsuspecting wanderers might find them. I guess at that point, the finder can either treasure the gift and keep it to remember kindness . . . or hide it again for someone else to find. Yeah, I'm just going to be selfish here and keep Shelly's rock for myself. Because I love it.

The rock is painted in shades of blue, purple, yellow and green. It features only palm trees and sun. But for me, the message is one of hope, that the world is, indeed, beautiful, whether it's a tropical paradise or a snow-covered mountain or a field of corn. It's a simple reminder to look for what is beautiful in your landscape and to worship it. My rock will now live on the nightstand next to my bed, so that every morning when I awake, I will remember to look for the beauty.

In "researching" the origins of rock-painting, I happened to find that painting and depositing rocks in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is illegal. Really? I've been to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There are a lot of rocks there. Lighten up, Tennessee.

In composing this blog post, I couldn't help but recall a story my son told me several years ago. He was still in college, and he and some friends hiked up a nearby mountain . . . in an altered state. He told his sister about the experience, in which he found a rock on a bench in one of those hiking shelters. The rock had his name on it. Even though he thought he was imagining it, he nonetheless put the rock in his pocket. His sister, prolific writer that she is, used the story to create a poem, which I happen to love. Here it is for your reading pleasure:

Altitude

At twenty-two you will take magic mushrooms

and ascend Mount Mansfield alone. You will

breathe deep at the summit, the very air

hallucinogenic, at the thin panting place between

the real and the fantastic, you will find a rock 

with your name etched in its surface

And this, I'll say, is when you have to choose:

paranoia, coincidence, or sign.

But you'll say the stone at the summit

is meant for your pocket, and just before

fate forces a choice, you'll take it with you

in your measured descent

ready to reveal your name or nothing

when you finally come down.

(The rock really did have his name on it.) And the rock Shelly gave me has my name on it. The name is "Peace, Love, and Understanding." (Credit: Elvis Costello)

Namaste.

Liquid Nails, Covid Arm, and a Map of the World

I buried the main topic of this post in between two other subjects of no great importance. I didn't want to alarm you. You can chill now.

Yes, I have "COVID arm." It's not like "COVID toes," not at all. Covid toes is a symptom of the coronavirus. Covid arm (I'm going to stop capitalizing it) is a side effect of the vaccine. I'm going to tell you about it as a Public Service Announcement. To start, let me say that research shows that Covid arm affects 2% to 9% of people who get the vaccine, and they're mostly women. (Lucky me!) Anyway, it's not a big deal.

After getting the first shot of the vaccine, it's normal for you to see a slight swelling at the site of the injection, red and warm. It usually kicks in the next day and is gone within a day or two. So yeah, I had that. Covid arm kicks in several days later, usually on Day 8. Covid arm is a rash, hot and itchy, which can "grow" to 5" long! Mine started out (on Day 8) about the size of a clementine, grew to the size of an apple, and was morphing into a small eggplant when it decided that it had tormented me enough. Today (which is Day 12), it's hardly visible and no longer itches.

So here's the thing. A couple of days before my rash made its appearance, I'd read an article in the morning paper about Covid arm. At first, I thought it was about that normal next-day swelling at the injection site, but when the article said it usually kicks in on Day 8, I realized this was something else. I filed that information into my pandemic brain and moved on. Two days later, I started itching!

I recalled the article in the Post, but I couldn't remember what issue it was in. So I started googling "Covid rash" and found nothing. An archive search on the Post directed me to the article I'd read, in which it was referred to as "Covid arm," and so I then googled that. I found a few articles that assuaged any worry I had about the rash. They all pointed to the same thing: if you develop Covid arm, it's a sign that (a) you have a good immune system and (b) your body is doing what it's supposed to be doing. And just like that, my worry turned into a big, fat "Phew!"

Since googling "Covid rash" gave me no information, I wanted to alert you to the term "Covid arm" in case you develop such a rash after you get the vaccine. You're welcome.

As to Liquid Nails, I spent a few hours with that amazing adhesive today to complete a home improvement project. It does the trick. I also completed a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle of a map of the world today. I patted myself on the back when I knew where to direct the various pieces, but I also mourned this pandemic curse on travel. There are so many more places I want to see!

So, to tie it all together, let me just say that like Liquid Nails, I'm stuck here with my Covid arm, wistfully studying a map of the world. (I heard that groan.)