Kind of a difficult day for Kayla. This is the first anniversary of the day we had the breathing tube removed from kaylasmom. Being 3000 miles away makes it difficult for me to be a really effective daddy today. Fortunately, one of her friends from junior college moved to New York a year after she did, and he is able to spend some time with her today and this evening.
Me, I’m getting by. Still going through some depression (reflected in my atrocious housekeeping performance during the past year), but I’m making some slow progress. Reducing the squalor around me can only help.
Sometimes I believe there should be a separate pit board just for the tax season.
My broker’s 1099 statement had a new line entry for 2020, a “199A” entry. (I was so happy to find that new mutual fund. Was. ) Now I’m caught in the maze of IRS-speak trying to find out which new forms I’ll need to file.
Example of IRS speak from the instructions: “In general, the amount of your QBI deduction equals your QBI component plus your qualified real estate investment trust (REIT) and qualified publicly traded partnership (PTP) component (TEIT/PTP component). However the deduction is limited to the lesser of this amount or 20% of your taxable income.”
Look IRS, all I have is less than $200 in something called a 199A.
Now I’ll have to see again how your call-in taxpayer assistance works.
First big snow of the season Thursday night to Friday morning. I shoveled by hand, but some of what remained has gone to glare ice. And it’s too cold for salt to work. Now I have to do a Sonja Henie just to pick up the mail. More snow predicted for tomorrow. Shoveling over ice promises to be a new thrill.
Later that morning I watched the neighbor across the street as he deliberately used his snowblower to move snow from his driveway onto HIS neighbor’s adjacent driveway. I have to believe that this guy is “unencumbered by the thought process” (orig. Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers.)
There is a chance of that. We were worried when my mom started seeing an acupuncturist. And, yes, he sold her some overpriced vitamins. But he would listen while she talked about symptoms she couldn’t describe well and then tell her what to tell the doctor.
She also had trouble putting herself forward and he’d talk her into going back to the doctor. “Tell him that things are better since he took out the cyst, but that you can still feel a lump there. That happens sometimes and it’s something that he’ll want to know.”
Here’s hoping your brother also gets support for going back to the doctor.
I was ranting in the January thread about the inexplicable delays my book was taking through the labyrinth of USPS. I know nobody but me cares, but here’s an interesting observation about USPS. The package was mailed on Jan 25. It spent nine days bouncing around Iowa, visiting apparently almost every postal facility in the state, some of them twice. Then it got to the Chicago international distribution center, and languished there for four more days before finally arriving in Canada, a total of 13 days.
Once in Canada, it cleared customs in two hours and now has a scheduled delivery, Thursday Feb 11 by end of day, a total of four days after entering the Canada Post system.
The USPS delays were just a travesty. I’m wondering if this is still a lingering effect of Louis “No Joy” DeJoy trying to cripple the mail service in case any Biden supporters voted by mail.
Yes, the USPS is still crippled. The mail in vote delay was an added bonus. The object is to make service so bad, there will be an outcry to privatize it. Biden is trying to appoint a new Board of Governors to oust DeJoy.
I have been doing needlework for 50 years. I always work stretched canvas, which requires 4 stretcher bars to make the frame to support the canvas. Stretcher bars are always sold in pairs because who would want an odd number of bars?
After 50 years, I have amassed a huge stretcher bar hoard. I recently ordered a new project that took four 16 inch bars and while going through my hoard, I found one. When Mom came to stay, much of my stash moved into one of our outbuildings, so I searched out there and found two more.
We searched Mom’s room in case I had left one there, but no dice. Searching the rest of the house didn’t have positive results, but I did find my expensive laying tool hidden under a power supply. While I couldn’t imagine hubs ever touching any of my stash except my scissors (and he only did that once), I asked him (while showing him an example) and he had no idea where the missing bar is.
They are cheap, replacing the missing bar is not a big deal, but I just KNOW that all I will have to do to find it is come home with replacement bars.
A couple of weeks ago, Mom lost a screw out of her glasses. Despite knowing that we have several glasses repair kits, we couldn’t find one, so bought another one at the dollar store. After hubs fixed Mom’s glasses, he opened the pantry cabinet where we keep that sort of stuff and put it on the shelf next to two other repair kits.
Which two places did you first search for the repair kits? Put the old ones there for the next time. (But you probably thought of that already, right?)
You’ll always find it in the last place you look. .
I recently had to buy a pack of sewing needles. There used to be a full pack in my Mom’s sewing kit, I remember removing them. But ( you know how it goes) a few months later I looked for them and couldn’t find them.
But the original pack hasn’t resurfaced, which is awesome because I don’t have to kick myself every time I look at both packs.
I’m in the middle of an argument on Twitter with a bunch of people who are defending the girl who Gorilla Glued her hair and is now threatening to sue the Gorilla Glue company. I’m trying to argue that it was her own fault, and the company did nothing wrong. But the people I’ve been arguing with are saying, “So what? They’re big corporation with lots of money. Let her get some of it.”
“In any case. Because this is become such a viral thing and I think GG has been helpful in giving her at least some advice (ie rubbing alcohol) and not totally distancing themself from the situation and, most of all, because I think this isn’t even remotely GG’s fault not should it even be a little bit considered their problem or responsibility. I think they should offer to pay her ER bill and maybe pay for her to get her head shaved and a wig that she can wear for the next few months or a year.
I have no idea how much cash GG keeps on hand, but if they can easily write her a few thousand dollars worth of checks, it’ll probably do a lot in the way of goodwill.”
Where the f&ck’s my Jeopardy!, baaby?
Another episode of Jeopardy pre-empted by national news, even though (1) thanks to the miracle of digital television the local station has two channels, (2) when a live press conference on a major local story went overtime a few weeks back, they put Jeopardy on 7-2, and (3) this trial has been pre-scheduled so they could easily plan ahead.
It doesn’t help that instead of stimulating my brain by watching a contest with intelligent contestants, I’m wilting my brain watching an asinine Trump lawyer make an asinine argument that Trump can’t be impeached because he’s no longer president. The lawyer is fastidiously avoiding any acknowledgement or even mention of the clause that makes impeachment not moot: that the Senate can bar an impeached person from holding federal office in the future. Apparently putting a hand over your eyes and saying “I see no ships coming” doesn’t take either Lord Nelson or Clarence Darrow.
Speaking of USPS delays - I have been kinda stupid lately. I let myself run out of my acid reflux medicine because I simply forgot I was running out. Usually, this is an easy problem to solve but, instead of sending my prescription to the local pharmacy, the doctor’s office sent it to the mail order pharmacy. So I went ahead and got it filled there. Their shipping estimate said it would be here by the 5th. It is now the 10th. I have some concerns…
To add insult to injury, I went to the grocery store the other day with the intention to just buy some over the counter stuff to keep me from being an acid flame thrower while I wait for my prescription to get it. The store was completely sold out, both generic and name brand, of my medicine. I guess I’ll just keep trying to get by with my 6 Tums a day…
We have neat little water dispensers/filters in the break rooms where I work. One side dispenses fun slushy ice, and the other side dispenses chilled water. Both sides have bullseye patterns underneath the dispensers; this is particularly helpful in putting water into a narrow-necked bottle without making a mess.
Today I got in line for a refill behind the new lady, who proceeded to jam her water bottle into the dispenser’s nozzle so hard that the bottle crumpled. The thing is designed to dispense water into any vessel without coming into contact with anything that has touched lips, but she has to go out of her way to rub the filthy water bottle all over the dispenser. Now I’m expecting to walk in there one day and see someone dispensing ice or water directly into their mouth.
.
Where the f&ck’s my Jeopardy!, baaby? 
The thing is designed to dispense water into any vessel without coming into contact with anything that has touched lips, but she has to go out of her way to rub the filthy water bottle all over the dispenser. Now I’m expecting to walk in there one day and see someone dispensing ice or water directly into their mouth.