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This week is "Winter Break" for schools in our town so Nancy has the week off. She had gone over to Connecticut with her mother on Monday and Tuesday... Wednesday is so long ago that I don't remember it (*grin*) -- oh yeah, I remember, started work a little after six, then worked out on exercise bike, worked, went to chiropractor, worked some more, gave blood, worked some more, and then shut my work computer down just a few minutes past five.
I scheduled yesterday and today as days off from work.
Yesterday was planned as Finish the Income Tax Day. And we got it all done
in a reasonable amount of time. It helps to have gathered all of the requisite
paperwork together... and to be using computer software (TurboTax in our
case) instead of doing manually (piles of paper, calculator, tax manuals,
lots of coffee, lots of aspirin). Of course it is still very annoying that
the whole thing is so complex when it does not have to be. Those crooked
scum in Congress keep passing more and more loopholes and complications,
always proclaiming that they are doing it for good and noble purposes,
when all it is doing is increasing the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy
needed to oversee and collect taxes, wasting millions upon millions of
hours of taxpayer time, and creating a huge industry of tax lawyers and
tax accountants and tax advisors, and (of course) a huge lobbying industry
(to hire Congress Creeps after they finally retire from the public teat)
and to supply bribes to them while they are still in office. Democrat or
Republican, it doesn't matter, the overwhelming majority are both crooked
and incompetent. (And whenever anyone stands up and tries to convince me
that all the evil is in the other party and that their party is the one
that stands for truth and justice, etc., etc.... then I know the speaker
is just another politician... and we all know how to tell when a politician
is lying, right? Yes... When his lips are moving.)
Please note that I feel the same way about both parties and both houses
of Congress in years when I get a refund as well as years in which I have
to pay a balance due.
Our original plan for today had been to go to Boston and spend the day
at the Museum of Fine Art -- and then we saw the weather forecast for today
and changed our minds. (Maybe we'll travel up there on Sunday.) So, not
having plans to go out, I set my alarm clock for around 7:30 but figured
I would probably wake up before that (since I usually get up about quarter
to six)... but about 6:15 Tiger came in meowing about feeling neglected
and abandoned and very hungry. So I got up and fed the poor hungry kitty.
Snow was falling -- the above photograph was taken a little before 6:30
a.m.
After his breakfast, Tiger settled down to stare out at our back deck. I'm not sure what he found so fascinating as I did not see any birds or squirrels out there (and especially not any other cats -- even though he is an indoor cat, Tiger is quite territorial about his back yard).
Eventually I went back to bed for a little while. When I got up a little
past nine, more snow had fallen and yet more was still coming down.
Finally, around three o'clock, the steady snow seemed to have passed and
there was just an intermittent fine mist of rain in the air. Nancy and
I grabbed shovels and went out to clear away the snow. It took us about
45 minutes to clear the driveway and the sidewalk and the walkway from
the driveway to the front porch. The driveway is about fifty feet long
and wide enough for two car. The sidewalk is a big task as well... our
property is 147 feet wide... and I generally go another twenty feet or
so to clear over to our neighbor's driveway. (I tend not to shovel to our
other neighbor's driveway... that would be another eighty feet or ninety
feet... and he is younger than me.)
| Thanks to everyone who sent in an e-mail vote for Michelle. Unfortunately,
she did not make it to Round Two. (Well, at least that means I won't be
entreating you to vote in Round Two... and then Round Three...) Thanks
again. |
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