New Years Eve

 It was appalling, risky, and, unfortunately, necessary. I had to go to our local grocery store's pharmacy on New Year's Eve. It couldn't be delayed until the crowds thinned, because the pharmacy closed earlier than usual, and wasn't open at all tomorrow. This pharmacy serves both Steve's and Rich's needs, and has no drive thru like mine does. They needed their stuff NOW.

The line just for the pharmacy was about 10 people long when we joined it. Do not be fooled into thinking it extended 60 feet, however. The first three spaces back are marked on the floor for 6' distancing. After that, well, people picked anything between 2 and 4 feet. I had Rich with me, and we gave a 7 foot berth to those in front, as if perhaps that might make up for their carelessness. 

It didn't make up for the fellow right behind us, very pleasant and chatty indeed, which wouldn't have been an issue except in addition to all the chatting, he stood close and didn't wear a mask. When I asked him to please step back, he offered to show us his card from his doctor exempting him from wearing a mask. The virus doesn't care. When I said I still needed to protect myself and repeated - gently - my request that he step back, he displayed insult, but stepped back and shut up.

While waiting in line, we passed all the shoppers leaving the checkout counters with their purchased groceries.  One particularly sparkly mask caught my eye. So did the nose sticking out up above it.  I was reminded of something Steve showed me from Facebook the other day, repeated here and with apologies to whoever was being quoted: "Whenever I see how people wear their masks, I understand why condoms don't always work."

After securing our meds, I picked up a trio of frozen dinners, enough to tide me over with what I already have until sometime next week when the crowds should be sparser and - hopefully - saner. (Yeah, sure.) OK, then, sparser, anyway. The lines to check out groceries were even worse than for the pharmacy. Yes, the floor is marked. That works for the first one in line, but the crowd took a sharp turn from there, spreading down the main aisle for way too long, and again, folks were lined up as close to the next in line as they could, particularly those who, like me, carried just a basket or armful of items. or maybe just milk, and weren't pushing a cart to help space them. I did my best to keep back, but the guy "behind" me in line decided that right next to me where he could carry on a conversation was his spot in line. I tried to ignore him as politely as I could, but was  delighted when my turn came to check myself out.

Now that I'm home, my pharmacy called, and my meds are ready. I'm off again, but this time I get a drive-thru! Before I go, though, did I mention the nut in the parking lot, about half as far from the doors as our car was parked, complaining at the top of his voice, that because the parking lot was so full he had to walk so far from the door that he sh*t all over himself? All over himself? Goodness, what a challenge!

Glad I was upwind.

Direct TV: Getting You Coming And Going

It seems it's impossible to get rid of Direct TV when you get rid of Direct TV.  

I first called them a couple weeks ago, in order to find out whether we still had our 2-year contractual obligation with them, or it had expired. Dish had a better offer, and has worked with us in the past. Once finding out that, indeed, we had no more contractual obligations with Direct TV, I called Dish and asked for their installer to start us with them.

As soon as Dish was set up and working, I cancelled Direct. Or at least I hoped I had. All their phone contacts were at least one language away from English, and some of the accents are hard to decipher. Even when you can, communication is still an issue. Including truth.

Making the cancellation order was a battle, due in part to the above and in part to a voicemail system which insists you have their specific wording for their machine. How do I know their jargon? Once finally connecting to a human, she insisted I give them a reason why the disconnect, along with other questions leading directly to a blatant effort to persuade me to change  my mind. I refused to answer beyond our choosing a different company, and I think she got a bit huffy. Perhaps not, just pushy. There is obviously a script to follow. Hard to read minds. Before that call ended I asked how did we send their equipment back to them? 

Well, that was an answer for another person, higher up the chain. After repeating much of the previous call with this new person, including their push for us to remain, I was finally told that we would be sent out an email telling us what to do.

No email came. But a bill did, for next month. The overlap was so close and the mail so slow I decided to ignore the bill, but kept it, just in case.

I called back, inquiring again just how did we send their equipment back? After dodging their opportunity to give us a sales pitch - after all, the Dish system was already up and running - I was told by somebody I mistakenly assumed was being helpful and cutting through all the crap that I just needed to take it all to Fedex, along with my account number and Fedex would box it up and ship it back. Period.

Really? Just that simple? So why did the other person have no idea what to tell me? At least now that last (faux?) bill would be of some use, since there would be need of that magic account number.

Christmas came and went, the weekend and a couple more days passed, and I decided it was errands time again, perfect for sending that stuff back. But had she said "Fedex" or "UPS"? I decided to call them, Fedex first, rather than just haul the stuff to either/both places. Here's where it really got interesting. Fedex informed me my information was in error. Yes, they did work for Direct TV, but I would need it boxed and have a tracking number in order for them to do anything with it. Not the account number? Nope, tracking.

Back to calling Direct TV, now a week and a half after the call to disconnect. By now I didn't trust that the bill could be ignored, or that they had even processed the disconnect. No dawdling, as the funds are directly withdrawn from my bank tomorrow. Meaning midnight tonight. Plus the bank is in an earlier time zone. Chop chop.

Before when calling Direct TV, their voicemail system recognized my phone number, inquired whether this number was connected with the account I was calling about, and did I want my billing balance? It still had problems following my needs from that point, but it was a start. Not this time. (Was this a sign I'd been taken out of the system?) 

The first issue was just as their voicemail system was starting their inquiry, I happened to belch. (Hey, on the Steve scale, merely a 2. A 5 is tops. Really hard to do. So, no biggie.) The voicemail system tried unsuccessfully to translate that into a request. Failing to do so, it repeated what it had just asked. But not recognizing my phone number, the options given for what I might want were different from previous calls. They came in lists of 5 items, plus a "something else" option at the end. After three of those sets of options, I was finally directed to another ESL human. 

Hmmm, could I verify my billing address? You bet. How about my account number? Yep, I had that too. Was there perhaps another phone number with the account? Absolutely, and I gave it to her. Then the why-did-I-cancel routine along with the attempt of a can-we-change-your-mind bit. Once I set my boundaries for the call, she paused about 5 seconds before becoming useful. Pouting? I found reason to ask, in retrospect. Then yes, after taking another full minute to go over our account records, she verified we did indeed cancel on the day I'd specified to her. Yes, that bill really did have to be paid, as it covered the time previous to the cancellation, and carried forward to January 16th. Apparently my cancellation call missed their date by 5 days.

Passive aggressive seems to be in their playbook. She suggested I could call my bank and have them refuse payment on the bill. But I got smart about it, tempting as nonpayment was, and asked her the ramifications of doing that. Well, we'd be turned over to a collection agency and reported to the credit bureaus.

Nasty! Now I wished I remembered her name. Of course, I'm never sure whether they give real first names or not. I've heard stories about phone banks. But the calls are supposed to be recorded, so perhaps somebody who cares will listen. I gotta wonder, though, will she be corrected or congratulated?

I did also finally get the information from her on how to return the equipment. She'd gotten me annoyed enough by not supplying it, that I admit I had offered to toss it in the garbage if they really didn't want to tell me how to ship it back, though I also suggested we could agree that would be counterproductive. No point in being on the hook to these guys for a cent more than absolutely necessary. She finally informed me that within 3 to 5 days after the 16th, when our business was finally finished according to them, they would ship me out a box for their equipment to be returned in via Fedex.

I'm pretty sure the dog won't be peeing on it while it sits on the living room floor in the meantime. She's been pretty good so far. 

I wonder if there's a charge for that.

But I'll be waiting for their box. I truly do not wish to have to call them back a 5th time. They might not be happy about it either.

Year End Haiku

I follow Rude Pundit on Blogspot. He's not for everybody. If I choose to read Steve a particularly salient point he makes, it often means I censor vulgarities in the process. It's why he's Rude. But there are a couple traditions he's established around this time of year. One is showing pictures of creche setups which he finds bizarre, often creepy, like bears, or Veggie Tales. 

His second tradition, this one for the new year, is to first write haikus about what happened in the ending year, then publishing submissions - of his choice - from those submitted by his followers. For the last three years, I've sent in a few. It's been an interesting exercise for somebody who demonstrates with every posting that brevity is not my forte. I thought I'd share what I sent this year:

We back off six feet

Giving a wave, not a hug

This year must end soon!

 

*   *   *

The Donald has stuck

To all of us.Will he not

Ever wash away?

 

*   *    *

Choose which misery:

Stay home in my bubble, or

Put the bra back on?

Something For The Fisherman

I plead guilty. I have conspired. Nothing illegal, just a bit of fun, and only after the fact.

I received a call from my sister-in-law Alta, the one married to  Steve's brother Max, living in Salt Lake City. As you may have guessed, it concerns a present being sent to him in the mail, along with others in a box. First it was to let us know it was sent, along with her reminder that it would be late. (As if we had to be reminded.)

She told me what all was in the box: some of her traditional orange fudge (think "Dreamsickle"), cookies we agree are at least as good as Girl Scout Thin Mints and available year around, a gift card for me, and something just for Steve. Ashley picked it out.

Ashley is the youngest of his/our nieces, now in junior high. I first met the whole family years ago on the Great RV Road Trip aka Disaster, posted previously in this blog over a couple weeks in July 2010. Their family was one of the best parts of that trip, and relatively disaster-free. Both families, including one of my sons, Paul, and Steve's daughter Maria, camped in Alpine, Wyoming. It was a place nearly sacred to the brothers, having many memories of fishing there when young with their father. This time more of us were along. From the campground, one takes a dirt road along the Greys River up the mountain into national forest land. You can pull over in suitable areas to fish, though the game wardens are frequent visitors and really appreciate proper licenses. Steve and Max fished, and Max's kids kinda fished a bit between bouts of being kids. 

More great new memories were built for those of us who went. (I took only my camera, no license required.) Ashley was about 5 (?) then, the youngest, and claiming the larger portion of her father's attention. Of the few people-pictures I took, ones of those two are among the best. Anyway, Ashley knew how important fishing is to her uncle.

When Alta told me what the present was, I agreed it was perfect for Steve. I suspect Alta wasn't quite sure, given its uniqueness and the particular sense of humor required for appreciation, but I did my best to reassure her he'd love it. And I promised not to tell him what it was.

However, I did promise to keep Steve from opening it until I was ready to video it being opened so they could have his reaction when he saw it. I had to at least let him know what the new rules for opening that particular present were, and Steve agreed.

It came today, three boxes and an envelope. Nothing labeled as coming from Ashley, so I filmed each opening, as it turned out, because that present was the last opened. Of course. As paper came off in hunks and revealed more of what it was, smiles turned to laughter, turned to him repeating, "Oh, that's precious!"

What was this gift that caused all this reaction? It's a toilet fishing kit.

No,  you don't fish in the toilet, you fish while on the toilet. Presumably for those lengthy stays. Presumably also for those who live in quarters where a second commode is available. It comes with a water-blue colored mat to cover the floor, fitting around the base of the toilet, a bowl for water and "fish", and a tiny pole rigged with line and a hook. All plastic so nobody gets hooked in any tender places. You know, like eyes. If somebody falls off the stool while fishing/laughing, it's their own fault and their own mess to clean up. And that's final!

Alta had tracked the package and known it arrived today, so called after supper. By then I'd had enough time to find out I have absolutely no clue how to send the video from my computer up to them. We may settle for a visit late this spring on our way north, and me bringing my laptop inside to view full screen on it there. Or my learning a new skill in the meantime.

Alta cautioned me that she really didn't want/need a video of it in use in order to be sure it was appreciated!

Hmmm, that hadn't occurred to me....

Another Christmas

I bet your holiday didn't start the same way mine did. Of course every day really starts with sequential bathroom stops: first mine, then the dog's. Other than a couple brief commands to the dog, I usually don't say anything on the way to getting those done, even with noting that Steve was already up and in the living room, witnessing lights on in the living room as I breezed through the kitchen to the door.

My first words as I came back in were. "Merry Christmas! It's raining!" followed shortly with "But just a sprinkle, not enough to keep her from going out." Because that's been such a problem. Well, not in frequency, as it's only rained once before since we got her, but she refused to go out for hours that day. This time she popped out, and in half a minute back in again, just enough time to be sure she used it well. The rain was actually a gentle sprinkle, just enough to say it had, and then gone again. Still, good news.

It was a quiet day. I kept busy with yard work, a combination - over short periods scattered through the day - of raking rocks and cutting up pruned branches to be hauled away in the garbage. Other than that, mostly I was working with our new Hopper 3. For those unacquainted, this means we switched from Direct TV to Dish Network. We switch periodically, depending on prices and contracts, and both satellite dishes remain on our roof. Each switch is a learning curve, as fingers have habits not necessarily helpful on a different remote, and occasionally things change. 

Setting timers on programs we wish to keep watching on a regular basis is a particular challenge right now since it has to be done off the "guide" which shows the upcoming schedule for everything for the next 9 or 10 days, but very little is being shown of regular shows, at usual times if at all, and not even always with the same titles. I was smart enough to write down all our timers from Direct before the switch, and I'm checking them off as we finally locate something to set a timer on, but there's still a lot to go.Then there were the new shows we found to set timers on as well, so the number of set timers is just as long as the old, with more to go. I do like the set-up on Dish where we can designate which shows go into which person's folder, when it's something the other doesn't care to watch. Steve's folder will be filling up with "Chopped" and "Lone Star Law" while mine will accumulate "Stephanie Miller" and some choices off PBS for example. Shows we both like will be watched together when we can find mutual time for it.

There are still glitches. In trying to solve one, getting the voice command function to work without telling us we are not subscribed to a channel that everybody knows perfectly we are subscribed to, the tech support guy disconnected ("unpaired") one of our two remotes. Steve got it back, but now mine won't control volume. So I still have to know what he did with his the last time he used it.

Decorations were unique this year. We do not do outside lights, though we enjoy others' displays. However, I do love the wreath on the front door, all multicolored large sleigh bells. And no, it doesn't make noise when we use the door, just when it gets put up and taken down. Still... sleigh bells.

There is no tree this year. Last year we decided the 7 foot artificial one, while in great shape, took up too much of our space. So we found a local small charity who took it and many of our old decorations, including way more strings of lights than even it could hold, to pass on to others somewhere who could appreciate them. Some of the decorations we'd already boxed up and sent north to our family members who do trees for the kids, leaving us just a few. But those were the most important few, like the wreath, and strings of Steve's MUST HAVE decoration for every year, bubbler lights. Don't get me wrong, I love them as well. In fact, it was a great happy surprise to him when we combined decorations years ago to find that I also had my own bubbler lights. But with the pandemic, this year we'd just not gotten around to finding that new little replacement tree to put them on. How to hang them?

Rich came up with the solution, after much thought and several tries of different combinations of things to find what worked. First he located a long garland of what I can only call "fake tree", the kind of thing you wrap around the trunk of a fake tree so you can pretend it's not just a pole with holes in it to plug the color-coordinated-by-size branches into. Then he located some suction type industrial strength grippers to cling to the glass face of one of our display cabinets and hold the garland  in the shape of one trunk with three branches. More or less, anyway. Wires were used to keep the bubblers upright, since gravity wanted them all to point down and who cares when you can't even see the bubbles? So now each "branch" has a cluster of bubblers, and the glass acts like a mirror, so 6 or seven lights appears to be a lot more. Add in the fact that the back of the cabinet is an actual mirror, and our "tree" really brightens up the house. Oh, did I mention that Rich found a floor switch so we don't have to bend way over and search for prongs and fit them in outlets to turn them on/off, but just step on a little knob? Barefoot even. There was a bunch of fuss and bother when each plan leading up to the final solution was found wanting, but who remembers that now?

It's Boxing Day (hey, I finally found out what that actually means, boxing things up to give to others) and we are still waiting for Christmas dinner. It's not turkey this year and I'm not the cook. Rich is. If you've read "Bad Habit" you know what part of the problem is: he worked so long and hard that he collapsed into sleep just minutes before he was to start the cooking. And neither Steve nor I could step in to do the grilling. Nor wake him.

Over a month ago, we'd talked about having a gas grill for some outdoor cooking. Say, maybe by Christmas, eh? We'd gotten a teeny charcoal type months earlier, the kind that sits off the ground about 5 inches, and had used it twice. Not ideal. Rich looked through the local "free" ads and found one to bring home, and this time it was a gas grill, nice cover, two wheels, a couple of shelves to hold stuff, and needing a propane tank. So he checked more ads, locating a used, nearly empty tank for a fraction of what bying an empty would cost. He hooked it to the grill and it had just enough propane in it to be sure it worked safely. We then took it as a swap on a filled tank, paying only for the propane, the way the new tanks work these days. (For you younger folks, we didn't recycle tanks back when, so they started manufacturing new grills with new hookups so only the new recycleable tanks would fit. No more filling the old tanks. You could, for a time, turn in the old ones for new as an even swap. Use it or lose it.) So far, so good on our "new" grill.

Thing is, the new tank didn't get hooked up before Rich zonked out, and we don't know how to use the grill in Rich's absense. That lesson will come, but not yesterday. We'd taken all the frozen hamburger patties in the house out to thaw. Rich could start on those while he himself got familiar with how the grill cooked. Hot spots? Cool ones? Does it cook slow or fast? This way, if anything burned, it was just hamburger. Christmas dinner was to be steaks! Actually, fillet mignons! It all had to go back in the fridge overnight.

.     .     .   .

Post Grilling:

Yummmmm. Yummmmmmmmmm. YUMMMMMMMMM! Of course there were a couple more snags. We don't have a grill utensil set, for one, so there was some scrounging for something usable, for now, as a fork and a spatula. Proper utensils will be on somebody's shoppping list, but not immediately.

There was also the need for a proper gasket for the gas line. The first time Rich turned it on with the full tak of propane, he heard a hissing in the joint in the gas line. Stopping immediately, he jury-rigged a new rubber gasket for the joint, though reminded us it would work for now but needed to be replaced soon with the right kind of rubber for a permanent fix. This seems to be the only thing wrong with the grill, but if it came to us free for want of a gasket, well, hooray.

Rich whipped up some packaged mashed potatos to go with the steaks, adding butter and garlic. Once on the plate, soaking up the steak drippings, couldn't have been better. As for other side dishes, who had room? All the hamburgers got packaged up for the fridge or freezer, depending on whose they were and their plans for them: eat promptly? Or freeze and pull out to nuke one at a time later? You still get that great smoky grilled flavor.

So now, you think the holiday is over? Hardly. We still have two packages arriving in the mail that we know about. One has been mailed. The second is waiting on something needing to go inside arriving in the mail to the person sending it to us. We might still be celebrating for our anniversary!

Bad Habit

 Rich has developed a bad habit. No, not that one. Not that one either. What? Wait! Moms don't get to know everything about their grown sons!

What I'm talking about is that he's developed the habit of pushing himself until he drops. Quite literally, he drops asleep after days of pushing himself as hard as he can tolerate while only taking brief naps, and then drops wherever he is, whatever is left undone or whatever his surroundings.

At first, it was just leaving the lights on. I'd remind him to turn them off, and once he woke, he'd go around and deal with them. A bit late, but he at least recognized the need to do so.

Then I'd start finding him asleep near his bed but not on it, or occasionally he'd gotten part of his body on the bed. He'd sleep sitting up fairly often, sometimes on the floor. Some times he'd sleep leaned over the workbench while sitting up on a stool. A couple days ago he was working outside on the patio in one of the wicker chairs, winding up spending the night out there. It dipped into the upper 30s that night. When he came in, I suggested he treat himself to a nice hot shower, but he fell back asleep on the toilet instead. Once he woke again, he was warm and skipped the shower. 

Lucky for us there's a second bathroom in the house.

Yesterday was the topper. So far, anyway. I found him as I was working on taking the dog out to the back yard, her bathroom. He'd been on his knees, rummaging in a box on the floor for who-knows-what, and fallen asleep in that position with his head down inside the box. The dog refused to go over his legs, which were blocking her path, despite my calling and coaxing. I gave up, hoping her bladder was up to the challenge.

But then a thought: I came back out with my camera and took a shot of him this way. Someday I may show it to him. Having his head hang down over the edge of the box doesn't seem to have hurt him any, as proven by his waking a few hours later in order to go sleep on the toilet again. And the dog got outside in plenty of time, so there's that.

My friend tells me he's turning into a cat. She has one and he sleeps in many of the same positions including head hanging ones. When Rich starts licking his paws, I'll go for that explanation.

A Little Christmas Magic

There was a time in my life when Christmas was about the magic. There was Santa, and modest presents, the kind where when you went to Sunday School and they handed out little brown sacks with an orange inside, possibly a bit of candy, a pencil, or a tiny toy, then topped off with peanuts, it was a magic event. Somebody gave me something! Wow! Mom raised us on her post-depression budget, all our lives for that matter, and a tiny gift counted!

Christmas magic was about the stories, the magic star, the angels, all the lights, and hiking home over snow so cold up in northern Minnesota that it went crisp! crisp! crisp! for every step. If we were lucky enough, there would be a few snowfalls with higher temperatures so it would stick together for snowmen, snowballs, forts, and still let us go sledding without courting frostbite. Now that right there was some magic! Of course, we didn't know yet that snow pants and puffy mittens and three extra layers and face scarves weren't fashionable. All of it simply allowed us to continue through winters.

As I grew older, the magic of Christmas was about the music. Being a Methodist meant that when in church, we SANG! Not wimpy mumbles chasing a tune, but we actually made music. And I was always in the choir, one blessed in my teenage years with a great director, Jewell Shannon, our minister's wife,  who challenged us and taught us with music we didn't always realize was supposed to be difficult. There were always concerts in church and school, back then making no pretense of being anything other than Christian, and so many carols over so many years meant that I knew multiple verses instead of the one most people can barely remember the words to, and could even sing descants to some with what passed for a soprano voice. That church choir director took a tenor part and raised it an octave for us sopranos. She even gave me a solo one year, something called a "Mexican Christmas Carol", which I've only heard once since, and lost the words to decades ago. The music is just fine. thank you, still there just by thinking of it. There is a repeated line of "then rejoice and sing, all ye children tonight." Every time I look for it, something else claims to be it but isn't. Even Google, with it's 30,000,000 answers to everything, can't find it, neither by title or those few lyrics.

The children's magic of Christmas switched from mine to being for my kids, as long as they would let me try to make it for them. Even that faded, much too quickly for me. My most magical memory of that time was when Steph was either two or three. I had found a good kids' book on the Nutcracker story, and followed that up with taking her to the ballet in Minneapolis. It could have ended there, but we always went down to the farm in Fairmont to spend time with my husband's family. There happened to be a thunderstorm that afternoon, leaving everything coated in ice. After dark, the farm's yard lights turned everything they reached into a fairyland straight from the design sets of The Nutcracker. Well, better, but who could duplicate this?  Leaving her baby brother with the family, we two bundled up and went out to enjoy the magic of it. By then we had the addition of a heavy fog, muting sounds and making all unreal. Their driveway out to the highway sloped just enough for a fun toboggan ride for a little kid, and I pulled her most of the rest of the way out to the highway. A car passed every two or three minutes, adding a whole new layer of otherness to the night. I hope the memory stayed with her, but it stays with me still, just as magical as then. I still try to catch some airing of The Nutcracker nearly every year, hoping some of that magic can be savored again. As for Steph, a second in-house performance a few years later when I took her along with both her brothers, Paul just over a month old, was more than enough, and she begged off from being "dragged along" any more. It occurs to me to wonder sometimes if the performances just can't live up to some winter magic.

 I no longer believed in the Christmas story as anything other than a much embellished fable, used by The Church to recruit members by appropriating everybody else's rituals into the mix to make it seem like changing their old ways wasn't actually a big loss because they still....fill in the blanks. It became about power and greed and so many other things they mixed in that The Church lost its credibility with me. It has accumulated a long history of having so many things needing forgiveness, and I'm not the one to give it to them.

The magic went away.

Decades of life happened, and after a while the music went away. When it came back, it was other people's music to create and perform, mine to listen to. I didn't really sing for so long I recently decided I couldn't anymore. Carry a tune? Uh-uh. Sour notes, wavering, croaking, and the note I was reaching for would evaporate before its end in a puff of air. So I quit trying. I couldn't stand to hear what I was making.

KBAQ (pronounced K Bach) is playing carols on the air these last couple weeks. Lots of them. Steve asked me to drive him to the grocery store late last night, late to avoid others, and me driving because I still have decent night vision. I waited in the car and listened to the music. It was cold so the car was running intermittently to keep me warm. It was almost like singing in the shower, private and lots of white noise to disguise whatever I was doing. So I joined in, halting at first, but I still know the carols, many through several verses.

I was surprised at how easy it was to sing along. Yes, there were a few breaks and sour notes, but then something changed. My voice was back, so long as I didn't try to pass judgment on its quality, just join in. I sometimes switched octaves since my range is shot, but that's easy with music heard every year of one's life. At least, when one was used to singing them most of those years. Eventually I popped up into the high ranges and started hitting every note. I haven't hit some of them for decades. I wasn't pushing it, just blending in, amazed at the ability so easily (?) returned after so many years. Eventually I let it go, knowing those muscles would be complaining soundly for days if I didn't ease off. It was about the same time that particular segment of carols quit. The announcer came on and informed me I'd just been singing along with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!

Maybe the real magic of Christmas is in the music. Maybe that's all the magic the world needs, any time, any reason. Maybe all the world will get.

Disappointments

Last night wasn't a great time. First, the conjunction was a bit overrated. I drove to a spot where I could look southwest over a large spot of land with no development and thus no lights. I'd spotted the "Christmas Star" immediately, of course, even from my own driveway, but was hoping to get a better viewing with a darker sky. As I left the house, it was the only thing in the sky visible aside from planes, so that had to be IT.

Once parked, out came the camera. It was the first time I shot in the "night"setting, and had no idea what to expect. Fully zoomed out, what was initially one or two stars to the naked eye, alternating for no discernible reason other than having old eyes, the camera couldn't quite decide either, also alternating between one and two  objects on the view screen. At first, there were two, but focusing made it one. Another shot, and same. Third try somehow made it into two points of light. I haven't uploaded it to my computer yet, but I doubt that it will match my impression from the screen of a white object on the left and yellow darker one on the right and above. Yeah, I saw it/them, but the combination wasn't any more spectacular than Venus at close approach. But hey, just a camera after all. TV news later that night showed both planets plus several moons, shot through a telescope.

The next disappointment was in the stress of our switch-over to Dish from Direct. As usual, we got a better offer after our contract with Direct had expired. Repeated mailings tried to get us to switch, repeating their same offer of a cash bonus and a better price with a 2 year guarantee. Direct had given us only1 year of better price, then zoom! Nearly double! We were finally persuaded, after some careful reading of the details.

The installation itself went smoothly... at first. Everything was explained exactly as expected, the good price would last both years of the contract, plus we're to get a hefty bonus in the form of a pre-paid Master card. Spend within 6 months or bye-bye. Not a problem! That would cover about a month's worth of food. Or something else.

Just at the end of his installation, when we were setting timers to make sure we could navigate the process, we were informed that we had only two tuners in this Hopper, aka DVR. This translates into we can record/watch - in any combination - just two programs at a time. Immediate quandary. Most weekdays we are recording three programs at least once a day, and we can't go back and watch an old one while even two are recording if the tuner has only two tuners. Nobody had said there was going to be that limitation.

Hey, there's a solution! According to our installer, we can upgrade to either a Hopper with 3 tuners, or one with 16 along with other unspecified bells and whistles. For free, as far as the new hopper itself is concerned, but some kind of monthly price increase. We should wait for an hour or so, so our account information has a chance to get entered into the system, but we should call and express our displeasure and they would work with us to keep us happy. Well, past experience with Dish has shown us that the work-with-us part is true. And the installer would be happy to bring the upgraded box back tomorrow, even leaving the box this one came in so it would be there for the return.

So we spent some time working on the timers we'd need for the next 20-some hours, getting somewhat familiar with the controls, ran errands, ate, and ran another errand. I finally had time to call Dish and complain about our inadequate Hopper. And guess what? Surprise of all surprises, our installer was fibbing just a little. Yes, they were willing to work with us, but no, the upgraded Hopper would not be free, and no, he would not be out again tomorrow (now today.) The first opening was Christmas Eve afternoon, any upgraded hopper would raise the monthly bill by $5, the three-tuner one would cost $5 to install because it was such a little upgrade, and the 16-tuner one would be $150. Ulp! I agreed to the $5 monthly, and they came down to half the cost of the big tuner. 

The good news is there's very little to miss out on this week, with holiday specials replacing regular programming all over the place. And yes, we'll be home on the 24th. With this pandemic, there's no place else to go anyway.

After returning from my excursion to shoot the conjunction, it was time to watch our first recorded show, the 6 PM CBS news. A graphic of the show was right there in the list of recorded programs, so we clicked on it and ... grey screen. No sound. We exited and went back to it... except now there was no "it" there. And now the TV was telling us we were tuned to #110. 

#110 what? 

We got out of that and tried something else, and now we were on Test 129. What the.......?

Time for the second call in one day to Dish. Their automated machine kicked in and tried to insist  I was calling about our appointment on the 24th, needing to change it.  I'm thinking somebody programmed it it recognize swearing, because it prompted a brief apology message before giving a more open ended question to discover what I really wanted. It was a pretty short wait for the next customer service guy, unlike my first call.

We're hooked up to the internet via the TV with this system, so he asked permission to access it that way from where he was, in order to see what was going on with our system, and I agreed. I tried to explain that we were recording two shows at the time that we didn't want to mess with, and had only two tuners. He finally got that point the third time I reiterated it, after his final solution was to have us shut down and reboot or reinstall or whatever they wanted to do. I could see what he was seeing and where he was moving around to on our screen. The missing program showed up there, but he couldn't find it to give it back to us. (Several years ago Dish had a spot on their menu for doing that if you accidentally fumbled your way into an unwanted deletion. Came in handy fairly often.) We finally agreed to call them back when we were not recording anything to mess up, for the shutdown/whatever.

Eventually we were able to access shows either while they were recording or after, so not sure what's happening, or whether we'll follow through with that shut-down. Gonna spend some quality time winding down first, though. Even the dog was avoiding me for a while.

There was one more incident, but it happened last week. I'm just finding out how much happened now as I work during the day's nicer temperatures to repair it. We had the yard crew out to trim dead stuff from the pine tree so it would only try to support what's left alive, hoping the rest of the tree would survive with more TLC, aka water. While they were out, there was the usual "blowing of the yard" with one of those backpack blowers to finish off the job, including hauling away a pile of branches and other dead stuff I'd been pruning and accumulating. Most times it's all we hire them for. Tree trimming is rare. Previously they've done a fantastic job.

I decided not to complain while they did what I though was over-pruning on the pine. I'd been hoping much less needed to go. In fact I'd asked that only the completely dead stuff be trimmed out.

A lot of green landed on the ground, much of it right on top of my newly planted baby agaves along the fence line. A couple of the chicken wire cages were crunched, one completely removed from protecting the plant. Of course, rabbits had a treat that night. I'm hoping new leaves will come up from the center. The fact it rained nearly an inch that night should help. The two crunched cages were pulled straighter and repositioned, one staked down. Since those agaves were planted because nobody else wanted them, and that was the last likely spot to do so in, I wasn't too annoyed.

But our crew leader brought her brother along to be "useful." His idea of useful was not in blowing the pine straw off the yard, but to rake it. Thing is, the straw, along with shed leaves and miscellaneous detritus, needed to get out of decorative rock beds along the borders of the yard. His use of the rake was so enthusiastic that I've been raking rocks from the middle of the yard back into their beds. Worse, the levels are way lower than before, as many were taken out along with the straw. I can handle working through an area about 10' by 15' in a day, and ibuprofin is definitely needed by bedtime. I've done two day's worth and am still seeing a depressing amount of bare ground in my former rock beds, even after the rocks are returned.

At least there is enough open earth in the center - a good thing, from the doggy perspective - that Heather Too is again willing to get outside and do what needs to be done outside. It's been a struggle. The raking has also loosened the ground enough that doves and quail are coming in to get bits of sand for their crops. 

You're welcome, guys. Well, except for the pigeons.

A Little Argument

Rich and I were at WalMart this afternoon. He was helping me swap out our empty propane tank for a full one. The menu for Christmas is steaks. Of course the parking lot was jammed full so I had to park way out from the store while he ran into the store, paid for the swap, ran back to the car for the empty, and then called me to come pick him and the tank up once the attendant outside had done the exchange.

To pick him up, I came through the parking lot up to the lane in front of the store, where the plan was to turn left and proceed to where Rich was. That lane was jammed too, with all kinds of pedestrians crossing between me and Rich, backing cars up. This included those ahead of me trying to get out of the lane I was in and accessing the main lane. So I had plenty of time to observe while I waited.

While I was approaching my turn, an elderly gentleman (benefit of the doubt) who'd nearly fully crossed in front of me, then spotting some other elderly gentleman he appeared to know, crossed back again to hold a conversation with him, just enough out of my half of the lane so I could approach my turn safely for all of us. It was about 75 out, so windows were down. The men were loud enough to catch some of the conversation.

I could tell it was a disagreement about the Presidency and who really won the election, though I wasn't close enough for long enough, and able to pull part of my attention from traffic long enough to figure out who was on which side. But I clearly heard what one considered the clinching of the argument. "Well, so why then is he sending out all those printed" (emphasis his) "invitations to the inauguration?"

I'm not sure who was taking which side, but an internet search couldn't pull up anything about tRump sending out printed invitations to a faux inauguration so I'm thinking the questioner was working to convince the other  that yes, Biden did indeed win.

Yeah, it's still necessary.

Gotta wonder for how long? And how future generations are going to judge?

Ah, The Christmas Letter....

It starts out as follows: 

"Hello All,

Ah, the infamous Christmas letter, that tradition where you brag about all the wonderful things you and your entire family have accomplished, the wonderful places you’ve visited, and how proud and grateful you are about all of it.

Wait! You remember that this is 2020, right? Adjusting……"

If you're on our X-mas card list, you'll have the rest of it to read for yourself. I won't put you through that twice. It's wrapped around this year's card, another "Heather Special". And like the letter, it has a unique 2020 theme to it. All my cards are unique in having my pictures on them, often themes unrelated to the holiday, but this one goes above and beyond a bit. Covid, eh? Yet hopefully, festive as well.

As long as you haven't moved since last year without letting us know the new address, yours is on its way. It was an accomplishment, and not just because there were 55 going out this year. Oddly, the part which is usually the hardest, getting the photo card right, was the easiest this year. I've gone to Walgreens, Target, and WalMart in previous years, each time fighting with their machines every step of the way. Always a store employee was required to step in. The photos wouldn't go into the right space. They wouldn't get cropped right or positioned correctly within their frame. The messaging wouldn't go right, no font size changing, the switch between capital and lower case a carefully guarded proprietary secret, and lest you learned any of those secrets and managed to remember then from the previous year, the software changed in the last 12 months. Add many years where the scooter wouldn't approach the machine, or the stool etched holes in your hip bones while you squirmed in frustration, making patience even less possible.

Add in covid avoidance, and this year the cards were ordered online. Piece of cake! Found the one collage card with the right number of picture slots in the right shapes for the pictures - mostly horizontal, not vertical - as well as a greeting that said exactly what I wanted, still leaving three lines for personalization, the ability to change font type, size, and location within its space. I had picked those exact pictures with that exact message in mind, and finally got a way to do it simply and quickly. I must admit it was the third company I tried, but WalMart had it.

They must have heard my complaints from previous years, right?

OK, finish the order, go to pay, and find out they will be delivered the ... 17th? That late? But it was done, and turned out they arrived Monday the 14th. By then the accompanying letter was written, - with only 1 typo: can you find it? - so it was time to hit the printer. But hey, you remember that the library was full of everything we had to clear out of the kitchen while it was getting a little refurbishing? It was carefully stacked up on the floor in there, in drawers or totes, precisely in the way between the printer, quite low on paper at the moment, and the shelf holding more paper. 

Good thing I had shelves built in, securely attached, for me to hold on to while leaning way-y-y-y-y-y over to the shelf so I didn't actually fall onto I-don't-want-to-know-exactly-what-but-it-wouldn't-have-felt-good!

The printed letters got folded in thirds, the card inserted, and stuffed into the enve.... Oops. Nope. Too wide. Those envelopes which come with the 4"x8" cards do not accommodate 8 1/2" wide paper. The scissors, of course, are in one of those drawers in the library, so similar gymnastics are in order. Glad nobody was there to grade me on grace and style. I haven't been accused of either of those for, well, decades. Finally, once half the margins were trimmed off on both sides, envelopes were stuffed, addressed, stamped, and checked off the list. (There I go, lists again! Goes a long ways towards making up for aging brain.)

There were way too many to fit the clip at the door where we put the occasional outgoing letter, and it was in time to make the evening pick-up from the big boxes at the post office, so... Road Trip! OK, so not that far, really, but that's about as close to a road trip as it gets these days. I arrived at top rush hour at the post office, which turned out to be much more complicated than expected. Let's see if I can describe it.

Fortunately there is a stoplight at the corner of Bell Road and 98th Ave. Turn left off Bell and... stop. Sit. There is a line ahead of you, just one line serving two locations. The first one is left into the parking lot for those going into the post office. The lot is full. Its drive is a loop, and you can't return into the loop if you've managed to go around without finding a spot. You can exit back onto Bell from the loop, right turn only, once traffic clears enough for those three cars ahead of you to go first. Or you can exit onto 98th. A right turn gets you to Bell at the light, also usually a wait. So exiting traffic backs up. It's even worse when the car exiting onto 98th wishes to make a left because they have to fight through the jammed up line of people waiting to get into the post office. It becomes a vicious feedback loop. They can't give a space because you're the car blocking the exit to make more space so they can move so you can leave....

Then there are the people like me who are in line to go a little further for the left turn into the short curved drive past three humongous boxes for dropping off letters, one box for metered, two for stamped. We are stuck in the first line until we can get past their turn because nobody wants to block all the other neighborhood traffic. You have one wide lane each direction on 98th, half of it for through (or wannabe) traffic, the other half of the lane for those navigating the post office. Once in the curve, there is a wait for those in front of you to dump their mail by the handfuls into the proper slots from their drivers' windows. Luckily for me, the boxes hadn't filed up yet, so my three handfuls went in and disappeared. 

Now I could go fight my way back to the light. Not everyone was polite enough to leave a full space to eke through, or have no earthly idea just how far out their back ends hang over the curb and into the lane while they wait for an opening they knew was going to open right up just when they got there... and didn't. Luckily for me, KBAQ 89.5 FM plays great classical music through the process, and they are thoughtful enough to have just finished their fundraising pleas so all we get is music.

Should all go well from here, your letters/cards should arrive. Sometime. Maybe still this year. But honest, they are in the mail. It's not like the check I just sent up to Minnesota for deposit in my credit union, mailed on the third, arriving the 15th, so with no check there should be nothing to slow them down. Right?

The Holiday Gifts Process

Start thinking and planning ahead of time. This means anything from 8 months to one day.

Since most of what gets sent out is made rather than bought, acquire materials and skills. This means anything from years to a week. The few items which are bought instead of made are seasonal and sell out in the store within a week of arriving, so timing is luck, especially when you are working to avoid stores as much as possible. Plan to be lucky.

Once the concepts are decided on, begin collecting materials, tools, wrapping paper, tags, pens (yes, plural!) addresses, mailing supplies (other than what is only in the post office) in one central location. Otherwise known as the house. Or narrowed down, mostly the living room. Mostly. There is that one thing which is being stored in the bedroom, up and out of the reach of dog hair.

Begin construction. Correct mistakes, restart. Make sure to empty wastebaskets regularly.

Once you believe you have finished, compare items to gift list, and construct more items to fill in the gaps. Repeat as necessary.

Wrap and tag items. Note both must be done for each item before going on to the next. Seriously, failure to do so can result in the waste of wrapping paper, tape and tags when you discover one person's gift is both in your hand and already wrapped and on the table at the same time, requiring the unwrapping of the second and rewrapping with the correct gift tag once the correct recipient has been determined. This entire process must be concluded the night before the annual trip to the post office, since during a pandemic a single trip is the ideal number.

Review wrapped items, adding extra tape where needed, particularly where those sticky tags bought 4 years ago (hey, sale, folks)  have diminished in their capacity to cling to the appropriate packages.

Purge gift tags, throwing out those which no longer accept the ink of any pen in the house. I bet you thought I was going to say those which no longer stick, but we just solved that one, didn't we?

Arrange to send as many packages as possible to central locations, picking the one person in a locale who is the central social hub for most of the others and who will connect with them within a reasonable time to distribute the gifts. 

Make sure that a suitable box is available for the above plan. It helps to make most of your shipped gifts small.

Check addresses to see who has moved since last year. If they  don't respond, and there is no third party who can verify their address, decide whether you really want to send their package this year. Make allowances for possible Covid victims who may take an extra two months to get back to you - if they can. You may decide that they are just rude, in which case, reevaluate your desire to send a package at all.

For items which are combined in a box, and where your plan is to get said box(es) at the post office, bring along good packing tape, scissors, addresses for each box, pen, and extra packing materials to fill in the empty spaces. Ordinarily this means asking the person in the household who knows where the totes of bubblewrap are currently stored, but if he is sleeping, your generous supply of crumpled plastic grocery bags from all those shopping trips where you forgot to bring your own sturdy bags from home will be a good substitute, and can still be recycled after the box is opened at its destination.

Where more than one P.O. box is to be packed with several gifts, sort ahead of time into bags for each destination. Don't forget to check what box sizes they have available first so you know what is feasible as well as how much packing material to bring. Each of those bags of sorted gifts can go into a large Hefty Bag, along with another bag of padded envelopes to be sent to individual recipients, plus a bag of packing tape, scotch tape if some of your wrapping exceeds your optimism in its ability to pop apart in all the handling, scissors, address information on sheet of paper (you did remember those pens?) which can be slipped in the box after writing on the outside before final taping. Make sure to bring your credit cards along with your list of needed stamps, including those two international stamps you'll need this year.

Uh, you did make and bring a list, didn't you? For everything? Further, you have actually reviewed it, right? Honest?

All these items can be placed into a large Hefty bag. Several advantages are provided by this. All of it is together with only one hand needed to move it into/out of car, into post office, up on counter that you are going to hog all to your self while you are preparing your boxes, and everything can go back inside to be securely dragged behind you across the floor while you proceed slowly through the line, rather than having to wear out your arms carrying everything. You don't risk dropping anything or leaving it behind, it holds whatever supplies you wish to take back home, and should it be raining (RAIN! In Arizona! Today!!!! Yahoo!) all is protected. Plus it arrives home intact, ready for the next load of garbage going out.

Time allotted for the post office should be about an hour. This includes boxing, and sliding your haul through the well-marked six-foot-intervals line, actually the quicker of the two tasks. Yes, it takes a while, but much care is taken in arranging items in those boxes. Understand that the plan to arrive early while it is still raining briskly does not in fact deter all those others with similar errands on their minds, leaving you with fewer competitors for virus-free air. Nice thought, but....

Trust the masks, Heather, trust the masks.

Upon arriving home, sit down and email all the package/padded envelope recipients a quick heads-up with their tracking numbers included. This is both a courtesy and a warning to keep an eye out the day it is expected.

The not-quite-empty Hefty bag can be dumped in the first spot convenient until whenever it is needed, or its contents are, or you are possessed with a sudden attack of neat-freak-ism. Just warn everybody it is not ready to go out to the garbage yet. That good packing tape is expensive!

Then just relax. You're done until the cards you ordered online, in order to avoid another hour in a store, arrive from Portland and you have to start addressing them. You're good to sit until the dog needs to go out again. It's raining. She'll wait - she's an Arizona dog and rain is scary.

Dear BBB....

Dear Better Business Bureau,

First, your website where I wished to give a (bad) performance review of a company is one of the worst websites I've had to contend with in ages. You'd think you really don't welcome reviews, and you didn't even know it was going to be bad before you forced me to come to a screeching halt in your totally FUBAR site.

But I have a BLOG! So here it is.

The company I wish to complain about is called Barlow Co, in Tolleson, AZ. Home Depot hires/ subcontracts with them for installation projects. They deliver appliances. They also are supposed to remove the old one, install the new one, and haul the old one away. Well, they delivered the new one.  That part went well, until you consider that a  major part was incorrect, or so I was told, which I had to pay the actual installer $25.00 for its replacement, and another part was missing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As soon as the new dishwasher was set next to the stove in the kitchen, the employee started giving us excuses as to why it was impossible to install it in our kitchen.  They were coming so rapid-fire that I suspected he was anxious to join his buddies in the bar or something. First, the hose was supposedly too short. According to him, the hose came out of the front of the machine, had to travel to its back, then along the wall over a foot! Gasp! into the sink area where it was to be hooked up. This was a complete lie, as the person who finally did the installation, days and many many phone calls later, informed us. The standard length would have been perfect, a straight run from the sink to the back of the machine. It would have even been long enough had it connected in the front! However, by this time it had been returned to Best buy, supposedly in exchange for their 2nd contractor to arrive to  do the install with one of the "correct" length. Home Depot doesn't carry them. Nor did the installer, because the standard ones are included with the dishwasher, but he rummaged in his truck and found a much longer one... for $25.

Then the original contractor claimed that our counter was too low and this new machine absolutely wouldn't fit. Another lie. We had asked before ordering whether dishwashers were all the same standard size or did we have to measure at home to be sure? The answer from the store was they were standard. With the new machine sitting up on sturdy styrofoam blocks, with more inside along the top, we could see the whole package was taller than the space under the counters, but surely the machine itself was small enough? Upon installation, it fit perfectly.

Then there was the "problem" of a trim strip across the front of the old machine at floor level, put in when laminate flooring was installed, which was immediately solved with a light tug and a handy seam right where it needed to be for removal during, say, putting a new dishwasher in. If it had been damaged, well, there's more wood trim in the house that matches. Big deal.

Then there was the idiocy about not even taking the old one out, as contracted for. If we had to get a later install, at least we could get the old one out, right? This is where his lies really got creative. The old machine would have been fastened to the counter above it (lie) and when the crew came in to remove the counter, it was their job to remove the old dishwasher (lie and highly improbable: not in their skill set.) Further, the new one couldn't be put in until after the new counter was in place, or those guys would damage the dishwasher and the warranty on the dishwasher would be voided. (Lie and total hogwash.)

There was another part which needed - actually needed this time - to be replaced, as it never arrived with the dishwasher, something to hook up the electrical supply properly. Lucky for us, our new installer had a spare, donated because a recent customer had gotten two with his order and handed the extra over to this installer, who simply passed it along to us.

Need I say we were disappointed, confused, pissed off, and given the totally unnecessary burden of trying to coordinate with Home Depot to get the job done, try to figure out whether it would fit, try to locate a new longer hose never needed for extra cost, and working to get a usable path around the new machine in our little galley  kitchen?  We were even angrier when the real installer from a second company informed us not only how bogus all those claims were, but informed us that most of his business comes from this company regularly reneging on its installation comitments, though this was somewhat tempered by the speed and competence with which he fulfilled the removal and installation of the new dishwasher. Perhaps we lucked out in getting the competent installer, but that should have been the first option.

I'm not sure why Home Depot continues to subcontract with Barlow Co., but they will be hearing from me as well. This is no way to do business. 

For the record, the second company, the one we praise highly, was XPO. I'd put in a good word for them on your site, but....

In The House Right Now...

Things are a bit weird right now, or perhaps a bit more "normal" - for us. Depends on your point of view, I suppose.  What we currently have here is one new phone and two dishwashers which can't be used. For that matter, most of the kitchen can't either.

Phone first. After establishing that the cell tower had been fixed so signal strength was back to the usual number of bars, and the new SIM card updating the innards of my old flip phone, and still finding communication nearly impossible either incoming or outgoing, I finally resigned myself to getting a new phone. 

The old one was a champion, and it's still here, in the box the new one came in. It's minus its SIM card, now transferred into the new phone and down to it's alternate size, aka minuscule. The new one - I know this will be a shock to all of you - is another flip phone. When I called ahead to verify the store had them in stock, the employee sighed as if carrying them was a great burden upon his shoulders. But they had them, stored out of sight in the back room lest anybody spy them and realize they could get a new phone for hundreds less than anything else on display.

The "fun" part is learning a new phone system. Everything is different on this phone except the green and red buttons, and I'm still navigating my way around, fighting the instruction manual all the way. Still haven't found the camera yet, though it's only a 2 megapixel one so no big loss if I don't get there for a few months. I'm happily spoiled by my little digital camera anyway, 16 mp and 22x zoom... or do I have that backwards? 

Anyway, the initial part of transferring my contacts to the new one was already different from when I put the new SIM card into the old phone. With the SIM card replacement, I was on the (different) phone with tech support, she asked did I want them transferred, and then tapped a key or seven, told me to shut the phone off for a few seconds, and when I turned it on again there they were! This time, each contact came in as a separate text to accept or no, so the guy who sold me the phone dealt individually with around 200 contacts. It was actually fewer because once I got home and fought my way into the list, many were missing - like all the Brundys for some weird reason. Others were too. Fortunately, I had months ago typed all my contacts onto my computer in a list, just like I keep a running list of everybody's addresses for, say, X-mas (Oh-oh, memo to self....) or a complete file of club minutes. His process took so long I availed myself of one of the two chairs in the store during the wait, from which vantage point I had time to be amazed at how many customers actually showed up in person to pay their phone bills with cash. On my way out, finally, I gave him an enthusiastic thank-you for all his time and trouble.

On to the dishwasher situation. We'd gotten the advance notice of when it was to be delivered yesterday, so the kitchen had been cleared out of nearly everything. And cleaned! All is stored in the library in totes, aka inaccessible. Theoretically it all can be found, and the microwave and toaster are even plugged in. However the chaos must be overcome to locate anything, so one must first decide whether it's worth the effort or not. When I put a cup of water in the microwave for morning coffee, nothing happened. So what I drank was faucet-hot this morning. With peanut butter raisin bread. Adequate.

The dishwasher did get delivered. Period. We paid for them to remove the old one, install the new one, and haul the old one away. The new one sits on the kitchen floor inside it's styrofoam carton. The old one hasn't been touched. The delivery crew left with a bucket of excuses. Why?

It started with the length of the hose to drain the machine. After discussion in the store, their employee decided that the standard 6-foot hose would be adequate. There was no suggestion we could upgrade to a longer hose, just whether the standard hose would work. Nope, the  crew said we needed an 8 foot one. To start with, it hooks up to the front of the machine, not the back near the plumbing. OK, we can go back to the store and swap. Possibly for more cost, of course. We'll see, since that's not the only issue. 

They refused upon request to even remove the old machine before the counters got replaced. At the store it was set up to have the dishwasher in - limiting any possible counter damage to the old counter rather than the new one - before putting in the new counter tops. Nope, not their job, this guy claimed. The counter crew would have to remove the counters before the machine could go in (but not the old one out??? even if we didn't care about that counter?) and get everything fastened in place after they removed the machine. Then the dishwasher crew would return (we'd get a phone number so we could call and make an new appointment for them to come back - which number they neglected to offer) to put the new machine in.

Except....

They cautioned us to have the counter crew to raise the height of the new counter because the new machine was taller than the old one!!!!!! Say what? Before buying the new machine we were assured that the things came in standard sizes. Where one comes out, another fits in. So WTF? And how much higher? How much more work/cost? And how can they even tell, with the new machine all bundled up and inaccessible to measure? They said something about the counter people wrecking the new machine in installing the new countertop, so the dishwasher warranty would be invalidated.

Again, WTF? Whose fault is all this? The store, giving bad information? The crew refusing to work? The counter measuring guy? Us for not realizing somewhere there was going to be a problem?

Of course, I called the store as soon as the crew left. The call-back was prompt, and the guy I reached took down all my issues and promised to get back to me in ten minutes with some answers. Just before the call ended, he paused a second, presumably checking the order, and cautiously verified that we lived in Sun City. You know, like on the order. I confirmed we did, adding we were in the first addition, built in 1961. Another pause, then he suggested that back then things were a little... different? Unique? As in, possibly, some kind on not-completely-standard sized dishwasher had been put in. Well, somebody cut the counter to do the install, so it was some time post construction, thus not the original crew, but who had that information? And how could we tell what was what, and what do we do now?

That was yesterday around 3:30. I figured 10 minutes was optimistic, but I'm still waiting, not even receiving a call informing me there were issues still to be resolved but here's the progress report.... So the kitchen waits, clean but mostly unusable, emptied out and ready. Waiting. Still waiting. If the dishwasher sits around much longer it'll likely become just another surface on which to start stacking things needing a place to be put, and then we'll have to dig to find the hose to be swapped, and....

Steve is thinking McDonalds for lunch. I'm thinking, depending on what we hear and how soon, the microwave can get hauled right back into the kitchen for use until we have to have the counters cleared for real. Toaster too. I still have my clean spoon by my chair, so I don't have to figure out where in the library the silverware is.

Steve had family news last night. His oldest son Lance, with his wife Lisa, two of her kids, one with spouse and baby, plus Lisa's parents, all got together for Thanksgiving. All now test positive for Covid. It seems one member of the family - nevermind who, but not the baby - went out to a bar just before the holiday for a lonnnnng night out, an unfortunately regular habit. There was a surprise brought to the Thanksgiving table for sharing. We're hoping for the best, but there are some health and age issues in those 4 generations. 

Keeps our dishwasher/counter/phone issues in perspective. I keep thinking there ought to be a better way to do that.

Why It Happened

I remember the argument that started it quite well. I've told an abbreviated version of it several times over the years, using it as the main reason that I hate to cook. Yeah, me the 4-Her who made bread 6 loaves at a time, learned to cook, can, bake and a whole bunch of those necessary skills like sewing a woman needed in order to care for a husband and family. I won ribbons at the fair for that bread, one of my two 4-H trips to the State Fair. But that argument spoiled all that. These days I'm happy enough with popping a frozen dinner in the microwave most of the time, or getting take-out or even opening a can of soup. 

I mostly didn't let myself remember the other consequence of that argument. There just wasn't a need to remember, and some need not to.

We'd been married for over a year at that point, living in a duplex in South St. Paul, me working for Ma Bell since I'd let Paul talk me out of continuing college after only completing two years, despite having earned a full tuition scholarship for four. There was a whole lot I didn't know about the world at that time, about myself, marriage, what made good or bad relationships, or alcoholism. Those things had never come up in family conversations. I was great at what was taught in school, clueless about much of life. Turns out, it mattered.

My role at the time was to both work and keep the house. Paul made more money, and that was always his mark of who was important in the family. Everything in the home had to center around his needs. It didn't matter whether I got enough sleep, so long as he did and was fresh to go to his job in the morning. This also meant he needed to have supper ready when he got home. Of course I had to be the one to make it. I didn't realize there was a problem until that argument. I didn't know I had options either. By then, I didn't even know I had much worth, because the school stuff I was good at wasn't part of my life any more, and I was being schooled regularly on how useless I was in everything else.

I'm one of those people who discovers some particular food I like, and that is an incentive to repeat making it somewhat often. I was always discovering new foods back then, having gotten away from my Mom's somewhat limited repertoire. Since starting college I'd been introduced to steaks that weren't fried grey and tough, mushrooms that didn't come in a soup can, lobster, shrimp, Cornish game hens, and more. If Paul liked something, it was even more incentive to prepare it frequently - or so I thought. That particular night I made a dish from a new recipe that we'd enjoyed the week before. It was some kind of chicken casserole with rice, tomato based and with Italian seasoning. More I can't tell you because I never made it again, even threw away the recipe. Paul started in on me about as soon as he looked in the pan to see what it was. I was supposed to know that he wanted something different, without any clue from him as to what that might be. Liking it once didn't mean he wanted it again.

He continued through dinner. It was too late to cook something different, after all. He kept going while I was doing dishes. So I excused myself to go use the bathroom. It was sanctuary, and more.

I had a history of migraines since puberty. I would later find out they pretty much vanished with my first pregnancy - the wonders of hormones! (I would also learn that my nearsightedness followed the same schedule.) But at this point I'd been seeing my doctor trying to find something better than aspirin for the headaches. I dimly remember something useless called fiorinal. Darvon also did nothing. The next offering, what was in that bathroom that evening, was valium. I don't recall it did much for the headaches either, but I knew it relaxed me. So I went in and took two, then returned to the kitchen. Paul wasn't going to quit listing all my faults, so after another few minutes, I excused myself and went and took a couple more. I figured if I couldn't get away from him, and he wasn't going to go away and/or shut up, I could at least care less. Somehow I needed to find a way to get it all to stop, and if he wouldn't leave, I would. Within about half an hour I had taken 7 of them, and the effects were starting to show.

He actually noticed! I think perhaps I stopped answering his demands that I agree with him about how awful I was. Next thing I remember was being in the hospital being barraged with questions about what I'd taken and how much, and feeling a tube going into my nose to pump my stomach. (I knew what that was because when I was five I discovered how yummy children's aspirin was with its orange flavoring, and the bottle was left on top of the dresser where I could reach it.)

For the next two days I did a lot of sleeping in the hospital. They sent a counselor in thinking I'd tried suicide. It wasn't a suicide attempt, though I didn't get the feeling anybody there could make the distinction. I only planned to remove myself temporarily from the situation. They sent a nun in to talk to me and I recall just rolling over and ignoring her, rude as that was. Her talking to me wasn't going to help the problem. One conversation I clearly recall was one of the nurses explaining to me that I had actually taken a dangerous dose of valium. I only wanted to sleep, and while I knew it was a muscle relaxer, she had to remind me that the heart was one of those muscles. Oops!

Somehow, somewhere, Paul got enough of the message that he quit haranguing me for a while. We had agreed that when I told him I needed him to head outside for a walk until he cooled down, that he would actually leave for a bit. I had to remind him of that, but he left and whatever the subject had been that time around, it was dropped when he returned.

We never told anybody what had happened, though I worried about what might be in those hospital records for years. We left the area, started a family, moved a couple more times, and eventually divorced. The hospital quit being a hospital a few years after my stay, and I quit wondering if it would ever catch up with me and just how. Eventually I stopped even wondering that, and now might not even think about it except every dozen years or so.

But I still recall how that argument started.

Deeper Dive 2: Rich's + My Results

It's a learning curve, alright? First, I had to make a phone call to CRI in order to be able to pull up Rich's results. I couldn't figure out how to access his, ordered at the same time, though mine were simple. Turned out all I had to do was erase a bunch of stuff at the end of the URL for my results and go back and replace the number 1 (for my kit) with a number 2, and his popped up. I quickly bookmarked that spot so we could access that quickly again.

Part of the reason this took so long was my phone wasn't reliably working. After a lengthy call to T-Mobile - using Rich's cell - and after they checked the satellite, offered several times to let me verify myself by them texting a 6-digit number to a phone which wasn't working, in their hopes of my repeating it back to them, then passing me up to someone more knowledgeable who also didn't get the  part where my phone wouldn't receive texts, finally settling on email verification, it was discovered that 1: my sim card was ancient so they sent me a new one FREE!!! and 2: the local tower was undergoing some work for the last few days - coincidentally the same days my phone wasn't working. For some reason the first "helper" couldn't access that information. We got my phone back in order the next day. 

Whew!

The other part was figuring out - CRI, not me - that kit 2 was just a URL cut/paste away.

Rich's results were a tad different than mine, and ultimately just the same. First, there is no Native (North) American in his father's line. So it's verified that's another of Paul Sr's wild stories. However, there are a whole lot of ancestors who popped their DNA in the family lines over the centuries. Sure, we're both 90%+ European, whether it's Northern, Northwestern, British Isles, Iberian or Tuscany Italian. In the timeline, Rich popped up with a few new ones, Sri Lankan Tamil, Vietnamese and Bengali. However, I finally explored further in the advanced results and found out that we both have ever-so-slightly different percentages - more like tenth-of-a percentages, in nearly all the same origins. They just show up in different generations back, or not at all in the timelines. For some reason, they could only trace Rich back 35 generations, as opposed to my 75. Not sure how important that is, as nothing popped up in my timeline that far back which wasn't already there much more recently.

Here they are, by categories, each category in order of highest contribution, each piece within also ranked highest to lowest, my percentages first: 

90.3 / 90.4% European - Northern, Northwestern, British Isles, Iberian, Tuscany Italian

4.3 / 4.5% AdMixed American:  Peruvian, Columbian, Puerto Rican, Mexican

3.8 / 3.4% South Asian: Sri Lankan Tamil, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati Indian

Now the tiniest of differences show up: 

1.3 / 1.3% East Asian: Japanese, Southern Han Chinese, Chinese Dai, Kinh Vietnamese, with Rich adding Northern Han Chinese

0.3 / 0.3% African: Esan in Nigeria for both, African American added for me. (Hey, does the one drop rule still count with those crazy white supremicists? And have they tried this level of genetic testing? Whooo-eee, the surprises they could have in store! Maybe we'll all finally get around to defining ourselves as members of the human race, eh?)

 I still haven't decided whether the differences between Richard and myself or the similarities surprise me more.

The last new exploration was maternal and paternal haplo, those lines passing from mothers to daughters or fathers to sons. I had them test Richard's sample, knowing it would also provide my haplo results, along with giving the kids better understanding of theirs. (Hey brother Steve, get your test done to get the Maxson male line. CRI is advertising a Black Friday sale, hint hint.) The maternal mitochondrial line (H1) goes back to Kenya, group MT-eve. From there it traveled to Sudan, becoming L3, then Armenia becoming N, then Iran becoming R, then Saudi Arabia becoming RO, then South Turkey becoming HV, then the Near East (northern India) becoming H, finally ending up in Spain, becoming H1.

Rich's paternal haplo - coming through the Rosa line - started with an Adam (Y-Adam) in Cameroon. No major surprise, but the males traveled much more than the females did. From there, they went to Chad (A), Niger (A1), Lybia (A1b), Malawi (BT), Ethiopia/Sudan (CT), Iraq (CF), India (F), Pakistan (K), SE Asia (K2), Southern China (NO),  East China (P and P1), Kazakhstan (R), Iran (R1), and finally Turkey (R1b).

Looking these over, neither line crosses the other, i.e., nobody has the same region of origin anywhere along their lines. We all met in Minnesota.

I wish there were some indication of when these travels happened, especially the jump from Turkey to here. Are all the ancestors with the modern origins from further spreading up into Europe? And how did the AdMixed American ancestors pop into the equations without leaving haplo traces? Did the earliest Italian ancestors arrive in the Roman Legions and tomcat around as the powerful do? Does the AdMix American come from Conquistadors intermingling and returning to Europe with offspring? Any of that Chinese follow Genghis Khan across to Europe? There was raping in all that pillaging, folks. Perhaps something more consensual as well.

I still need that time machine, folks!

The Deeper Dive: CRI Genetics

I did the Ancestry.com thing a while back. Got the anticipated results for myself, bit of a letdown on the part of my kids, aka their father fibbed again, eh? Anyway, after hearing how far back these new guys went in DNA tracking, I decided to take advantage of one of their sales.

The results floored me. 

They report origins by which generations back they show up in your heritage. The first several generations pretty much abide by the family lore. European all, either western or northern, but primarily from the British Isles. In school I recited my heritage as Irish-English-Scottish (OK I said "Scotch") -Welsh-French-German-Danish-Swedish. Really fast, as though commas didn't exist. I had wondered as I got older and learned a bit more history whether the tales of the Scottish side's wandering after fighting with William Wallace and facing the consequences by fleeing and changing the family name meant that there actually was some Irish in the family tree because they stopped there for a while, or whether the Scots clustered together, inhabiting Ireland without inter-marrying.

It's real Irish.

Really, that stuff wasn't a real surprise. The REAL shocks started in the 4th generation. I'm part Fin. OK, I can see where the Danes and Swedes co-mingled throughout the greater area during Viking raids, but only 4 generations back and nobody knew? That isn't all, however, for that generation. Try Southern Han Chinese, as recently as 1870 - 1930. Seriously? Those traits sure are hidden in my blond hair, blue eyes appearance. When something this oddball pops up, I have to wonder who knew what, who said what, who kept the secrets. I mean, there's a long history of bigotry and white pride in those older generations. Pretty cool addition, though.

Fifth generation: the expected plus now add Peruvian! Somewhere around 1845-1905.

Sixth generation adds Iberian and Tuscany Italian.

Seventh generation, more of what we've already seen.

Eighth gives nothing new.

Ninth throws another curve: Gujarti Indian.

By ten, there's so much Iberian popping up I start to wonder if that came along in the part we've always referred to as the French ancestry. Maybe the Italian as well? We need a time machine here, folks!

Eleven  is the generation with the next big surprise: Japanese! Never saw that one  coming. Nor the Punjabi.

Twelve shows the fun's not over. Let's add Colombian, shall we? Mind you, these are cited with such a place on such a chromosome, and are listed as 99% accuracy. We get a little more Peruvian there, lest we are tempted to forget it's there, Gujarati Indian as well.

The next surprise waits until 17 generations back: Puerto Rican. 18 adds another ancestor from there, and 19 goes back to more Southern Han Chinese. We're still doing the British and Northern/Northwestern European all through here, so at least some of my ancestors seemed to have stayed put, still located back 75 generations ago.

Punjabi pops up as far as 22 generations ago, Tuscani Italian 23, Peruvian 35, and Puerto Rican 51.

Here I used think it was interesting that I could trace ancestors from 8 different locales. Now I'm wishing I could track a whole lot of the unexpectedly interesting world travelers from as far back as 95 - 155 AD!

Next, once I can access it, I'll examine Rich's results, get their father's contributions. We know there's a lot of Norwegian in there, but he often told of a French ancestor who "took himself a wife" up in Canada from one of the First Nations people. There was an old family bible which kept track of generations, including a name change from Rouseau to Rosa. One entry of interest documented a wedding without listing a name, as phrased above, with the rationale that no heathens would ever have their names put in the bible!!! There was even an old photo-equivalent on the wall showing a large family where the presumed wife/mother was dark skinned. So I want to see if this new test can settle the questions debated among remaining family members.

"New Math"?

I was feeling lazy. Normally I do sums in my head, or maybe pencil and paper if it's complicated.  I could have walked to the hardware drawer in the kitchen and gotten out the little calculator. But, lazy. Mentally and physically. So I just hit Google and entered the three numbers with a + between each and followed by =. I got the answer instantly.

Google also told me it was the first of 22,200,00 answers! When I grew up, there was only one correct math answer. Was that because it was back before "new math"? Or is this just an indication for why half the country works from "alternate facts" these days?

For the record, I was adding the different amounts for our modest remodel of the kitchen. Steve wants a dishwasher so badly he's been saving up enough to pay for it. Since that's the case, the countertops are getting replaced as well. The old broken dishwasher was installed after the 1961 house construction, which we know because there is a lumpy seam in the counter over it with a slightly different color from there to the wall. We've lived with it. After all, it still works, and there's still a bunch of ugly in this house. If we could have afforded prettier.... Well, we're basically just grateful to have a house, paid for. It would have kept the rain off our heads if there were such a thing down here. Google didn't offer my budget 22,200,000 housing options, after all.

Queen Of Chaos

Warning! If you meet her.... She calls herself Sara. In her late 30's, early 40's, she wears scraggly bleached blond hair, drives a red SUV circa 2005, and is accompanied by a little blond yap-dog, called "Baby Girl". Her "line" is showing up after a garage sale which hasn't cleaned everything out, saying she goes to swap meets and is looking to partner with somebody who has the merchandise for her to help sell. They'll split the proceeds 60-40, not bothering to mention whose share is the 60. Turns out neither is, because, after coaxing you into continuing your garage sale a few more days, she'll disappear with an incomplete ledger of sales and most of the proceeds from what is recorded in there. As well as whatever she can steal while she's in your house looking for what else can "go out to sell".

Let's back it up a week or so. The first weekend in November, Rich coordinated with the neighbor across the street to hold simultaneous garage sales. Both did fairly well. Problem is, Rich still had two more sales worth of merchandise. I had an unusable carport, patio, and could barely navigate a path through the lanai to take the dog out to the back yard. Which was - is - also a mess, by the way. I'm still waiting to turn the yard crew we hire loose in it to deal with a dying - or damaged - pine tree as well as clean up all the pruned branches from my last few weeks out there, and blow out all the accumulated leaf litter from the last year.

So when Sara turned up, talking partnership and connections and locations, Rich saw a solution to those problems. Besides, it's the only income around right now, and he/we insisted on mask wearing by prospective customers. Nearly all complied. 

The first day Sara showed up, Rich walked a mask down to her car for her. She rarely wore it. That was my first strike against her.

The second was her yap dog. Sara needed to use the bathroom, so Rich asked could she come in. Reluctantly, I said yes. Our pandemic rule has been nobody comes in the house. The whole 25 minutes or so she was in there the dog yowled as though it was being tortured. Imagine trying to watch TV or read to that background! The third strike came shortly afterwards, when I went to use it. She's one of those people who a: lines the toilet seat with toilet paper, and b: walks away without bothering to remove said paper from either the seat or floor. GAG! She was requested through Rich to find an alternative. For the dog too, whose entry into the house disturbed Heather Too so much she refused going through the lanai to outdoors with predictable results to have to be cleaned up from the rug. Mine to take care of again, of course.

I tried to simply avoid Sara. I could stay inside and in the back yard, she and Rich "owned" the carport and front yard. It was going to be for one day, Wednesday, for a sale, then Thursday would be packing up and taking things away for a Friday swap meet. Of course, she was totally scatterbrained and disorganized enough that he dubbed her Queen of Chaos. If only that were all of it! Resulting events make me think it might just be a ruse to encourage you to dismiss her.

I got talked into allowing the sale for another day, with Thursday evening being when the remainders were to be hauled off for the two of them to take to Friday's swap meet. Late afternoon, Sara loaded up her car for the "first" trip. We haven't seen her since.

Irritation started eroding trust, so Rich began the hunt for her ledger of sales and cache of proceeds from it. First the ledger listed less than Richard made in a single sale. Even of the puny recorded income, most of it had vanished with Sara. Then the real problems started piling up. The most valuable items which hadn't sold had vanished, carefully picked out and squirreled away during those times when Rich was occupied or in another location, or tucked in with other things she was loading into her car "for Friday's swap meet.". 

She'd come in and raided the lanai of his more valuable items as well. He'd come in and seen her going through his things, not sale things, and told her to quit or take off. Later going through the piles he'd seen her handling, he discovered many of his personal things missing as well. In a later conversation, I asked him who had paid for the supper that had been cooked outside the patio in the little Weber grill. He had, adding that she had offered to buy supper the next night "after her food stamps had come through.

Yes, I know it's not called food stamps now, but I forget the jargon. Anyway, her allotment was supposed to come through the next day, and she offered to pick up the tab for that next night's supper. Of course, it "didn't come through" on time. As soon as he told me that, I called "Bullshit." It comes in credit on a plastic card, renewed automatically each month on that date so long as the recipient qualifies. It's as regular as social security. At this point in our conversation Rich admitted it was then where he should have started questioning what was going on.

Steve and I privately questioned later whether he has some kind of invisible sign on his forehead which says "Mark." He tries to be useful and helpful, and usually is. We think a certain kind of person reads that and takes advantage.

Friday turned into a day of packing up stuff to get hauled off to a thrift shop close by that sends its proceeds to support education. First, however, customers were still showing up, and Rich made enough to likely cover the actual cash Sara made away with. Not that he could replace all the stolen items of course, but his mood lightened somewhat. By Saturday things were lined up in rows inside boxes and crates for loading in the car. I had promised him I would happily drive him for however many loads it took to get rid of the stuff. Our last load arrived 10 minutes after they closed for the day, so tomorrow we'll head out in the morning and dump off a load  packed to the roof of the car. 

There will still be clothing to sort through, into categories of toss, donate, and how-did-Rich's-clothes-get-mixed-in-here? Some of the shelving and whatnots Rich used to organize and display sale items well be coming back into the house to help store Rich's possessions in the tiny space he's cramped into.

I'm hoping he'll be taking our strongly worded request to find himself some other way of supporting himself, hard as that is these days. Some of the stuff he brought here for sale was accompanied - or should I say occupied? - by bugs of the blood loving kind. Heather Too is getting her flea control to kill off any of those that find her tasty. We're not sure whether it's totally fair to blame the bed bug infestation on him, but he deserves full credit for some very stubborn lice. Those have gotten so bad out in his area that he's taken to shaving every hair he can find off his head and body so the nits have no place to cling to.

(I need to sneak up and take a picture!)

He does have one comforting thought about Sara. He thinks he witnessed her absently scratching herself in a very familiar way just before she took off. Likely she picked up something from going through stuff that wasn't ready for sale in her hurry to scarf up anything she could lay her hands on and stuff in a pocket. He hadn't gotten around to telling her what the hazards of such unanticipated misbehavior could be.

Tee. Hee. Hee.

Proud "Boys"?

 Seems like an oxymoron to me. I mean, if they are really proud, wouldn't they call themselves the Proud Men? Chronologically, most of them look like they have hit the age where males are called men. I sincerely doubt they recognize how juvenile they are acting, threatening tantrums if they don't get it all their way. And only they are supposed to be the ones getting... whatever.

Hey, you think if they grew up and became men to be proud of, they'd get whatever it is they think they deserve to have handed to them?

Perhaps their spelling is a bit off, and they are telling us they are proud of their toys, all that body armor and those long semiautomatic weapons substituting for what they don't have. 

They seem to be screaming, "See me!" Women don't appear to, see them that is.  This is a guy's club, so a lack of women can be ignored while they get together, suggesting it is their choice that only males are around.

Then again, perhaps they are showing that ironic streak of honesty. These people are just boys, however large their bodies. Just boys. 

Dangerous ones, however.

Replying To The IRS

Backstory:

About 3 weeks ago I got a letter from the IRS. They were requesting another copy of the information supporting my income on my Schedule C. Translation is my income from club sales of my jewelry from last year. Last year was a good one, just a hair over the mandatory reporting $600. Reading between their lines, they misplaced my 1099. I know I sent it to them because all my tax info goes into a single envelope and I only had state and personal copies left. I did fill in the bare minimum of lines on the Schedule C, my name, etc., amount earned, no deductions because 1: it was too much bother, and 2: I didn't need them because I didn't need to pay any taxes. In fact, the income is so low I didn't even need to file. However, this was back when "everybody" was saying on the news that those of who are retired needed to file because they wouldn't be able to find us for our $1200 stimulus checks. Considering who our president was at the time, it didn't seem too far-fetched that they couldn't figure out how to follow our SS automatic deposit checks and send the stimulus checks the same way.

Call me a cynic.

The reply:

First they wanted some information, nevermind most of it was already on the other side of the same sheet of paper. My name, SS#, just redundant silliness. I guess they are too busy to flip the page? OK, I filled them in. Number of pages I was faxing? Zero. They are reading this from the mail and can't figure that out? Phone number? check. Hours they could call me on it? That needed some commentary: "Anytime I'm near my phone, since women's pants pockets don't hold the things." Hey, that's as precise as I can get. I didn't bother mentioning that if I'm in the club or similar buildings, the phone is cut off the grid. Not smart phones, apparently. Just mine. They can leave voicemail. Or send another letter. (Good luck with that.)

They left a little space on the bottom of the paper, so I added a little bit more.

"I'm sorry you lost my original copy of the 1099. Perhaps if you quit refusing to let us use staples or paper clips, it might quit happening. I apologize that this (State) copy is less legible than the original, but if you still can't read this one, perhaps you can go to the original that our club sent you. They do still do that, don't they, so you can be sure we taxpayers aren't lying?"

I had tried to make a xerox copy of the state version, but the copier mostly left the blanks just that: blank. Cost me a quarter to find that out. And as for the originals sent directly to the IRS, it works for banks and everyone else, so I'm just assuming if they were really interested, they'd have access. Then I went on....

"I did not fill in all the blanks on my Schedule C because 1: it was too much work and 2: I didn't need to. My income was so small I didn't need to pay taxes, and wouldn't even have filed except "they" were all over the news telling us we needed to because otherwise you couldn't find us for the $1200 stimulus checks. I wanted to believe that you were smarter than that, but I'm beginning to wonder what else you can lose track of." Then I signed it.

It did wind up being more than fit in the bottom margin, so I had to write in an arrow to where I finished higher up along the right margin.  Do you think they can find that?

Am I wrong to hope they have a sense of humor? Oh well, I still don't owe any taxes.