Luckily, it's not to drugs of any sort, nor gambling, nor ... well, I can't think of what all else one might get addicted to. Perhaps I just haven't tried enough things in my nearly 70 years. However, I do seem to get ... well, fascinated, maybe? ... by different activities or hobbies. If I follow previous patterns, 12 years is about my limit. Then I get bored, restless, or something new just pops up into my life. Been there, done that, time for a different t-shirt.
If you've been following, for the last few years since retirement I've been involved in lapidary, the "And Stones" part of the Sterling And Stones club. But after a couple surgeries, I didn't have the stamina to sit at various saws and grinders long enough to keep it up at the level I previously could. I used to be able to put out anywhere between 2 and 4 finished cabs in a single session. Some of that depended on the hardness of the stones involved, but I'd gotten spoiled by my ability to produce. Returning to that facet of the hobby and finding out that not even two hours of work exhausted me was pretty good at putting the brakes on that. At the very least, it was discouraging.
Something like 50 pounds of rock are sitting around waiting for attention. When I really feel like grinding rocks, I try to stick with chrysocolla, rhodonite, or something else softer than agate or jasper. Of course by far the largest percentage of what I'm sitting on consists of agate and jasper. At least they don't decay.
This year our club started something new. Rather than having to take a couple full days and pay a fee to learn any kind of new skills, there are a lot of "easy" and lesser skills being taught in free workshops which generally take just a couple hours, materials included. It's a good deal for the club, since suddenly lots of us are experimenting with our new skills - or at least trying to perfect them to a level which can be referred to as a skill. In the process, we buy more supplies from the club, where the club makes money and still gives us a discount because they in turn buy in huge wholesale orders from very reliable sources.
Also to the club's benefit, as we combine our new skills in new ways with new ideas, a larger variety of items show up in the jewelry shop for sale, of which the club gains a modest commission, and attracts more new members and customers, and around and around. Each member's - or "artist's" - commissions are our own personal bonus, besides just the satisfactions that come from the creativity process.
One of those workshops late last fall was an introduction to chain making. Large, clunky, cheap materials, but a skill gained. Of course, some members will take some workshops and decide that some particular thing is not something they wish to pursue. I can solder and anneal metals, but neither skill holds much appeal, particularly since it will take a heck of a long time and a lot of mistakes to approach anything near the results I would want. Maybe next time I'm bored....
But as a complete surprise to me, chain making grabbed hold of my psyche and clung on for dear life. If you're on my X-mas present list, I have already made everybody a bracelet in the first pattern I learned that's more complicated than hooking rings together at right angles until you get the length needed. I loaded up on wires, tools, and ideas, and spent hours in front of the TV assembling away, much like a dedicated knitter might do. Not only did I do bracelets, I did necklaces (usually from stronger, larger links), and mostly for sale in the shop. I even got my confidence up to the point where I was willing to risk using sterling instead of merely silver plated or other copper-core wires. Of course, I'll wait till those sell before going more into sterling.
It came time to find new chaining patterns, so the woman who taught me the first one taught me another one a couple days ago, with the advantage it of having two variations, so I can do nearly the same thing to make two chains which look radically different. I just change the count when I get to a certain point in each pattern, an actual difference of using 4 links or 6. These also take a lot more time and wire. Oh, and concentration so you don't pick the wrong link to hook back to (this is a forward-backward-forward-backward process), and enough experience to look at wherever you are in the process to decide what your mistake was and correct it. I mean, you can cut your way out of it, and I have done that, but that's a waste of materials, and doesn't help for next time you arrive in the same place. You're working with a toothpick to separate and mark your place; that's how intricate this one is. See why I'm fascinated?
I made three bracelets in front of the TV last night. The woman who taught me wanted me to show her how I was doing so she could critique me and point out what I was doing wrong. Stubborn me, I just kept going, and figured out on my own just where to hook up the fastening rings and lobster claw so the pattern would stay together as it was supposed to (by taking out a pair of starting links), giving me completed bracelets in both patterns to bring in for jewelry store submission this morning.
Really, I would have shown her, but she wasn't there this morning when I was there. Too bad, since I had another reason besides showing how well I picked up the ideas. She works in sterling. Period. End of discussion. I play around. I think the color selection is about ten now, if you count the two different shades of what were supposed to be identical spools. (Nevermind, I just keep them separate.) Her final comment to me yesterday had been a scornful (teasingly, I hope) "You and your colors!" So one of my bracelets had been a combination of red, white, and "flag" blue. I used it in the pattern variation that looks like a bar, then a ball, then bar, ball, bar, ball, etc. I decided the bars would be white, and the balls alternating red or blue. I wanted to see her reaction.
Really, really, really wanted to see it!
I can't now. Not unless I make another one, which just may be today's project. But the one is gone. Sold.
We were in the selection or jurying process, which serves as a quality check on what goes into the store, with rejections coming back with comments and suggestions so we can do better next time, or fix and resubmit. Examples might be something sharp, scratched, too flimsy, needing polishing, or not having the mark designating something as "sterling" if it is. Design is not judged, being left up to the artist and potential customers.
A store customer wanted something that would work as a child's bracelet, and it sold before it even made it through jurying. Someone from the store knew it was in this morning and ready for evaluation, so brought the customer back to check it out. It was a bit big, but we showed her how it could be fastened to a different link than the end one, leaving a dangle, and be something that could be grown into, should the kid not lose it. Or something. She bought it on sight, and now has my name and number to custom order more, if she likes the other possibilities I can offer.
Such success could be heady, but I'm well aware I'm just starting to handle this pattern. Using the tri-color design actually taught me where the stray links are getting misplaced, just by having a separate color. So it wasn't just for grins and giggles, it turns out. That difficulty sorting through the loops may well be part of the reason it's nicknamed the idiot's chain. The solid design is known, at least in the club, as the full byzantine. And the real demonstration of skill in either pattern variation is being able to do it in links so tiny that the fully assembled 3-D product is about as thick a pull cord on a set of window blinds.
Maybe it's time for that annual eye exam for new glasses. And smaller toothpicks.
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Friday, February 23, 2018
Was It Really A Surprise?
No, not the unrelenting plethora of mass shootings. Not any more, anyway. Nor the non-response of our politicians, bought and paid for by the NRA. Not even all the excuses they find why it's not guns that kill people, it's mentally ill people, and we don't dare infringe on anybody's right even so to carry around at will enough armament to end the war in Syria. (If only!) It's not like the Brits are going to come back and recolonize this country like our founding fathers justly feared back when the Bill of Rights was written to support a standing militia.
What might actually be a surprise to some folks is the failure of that tired mantra that the way to stop a bad guy (note they never say "bad woman") with a gun is a good guy (they still never say "woman") with a gun. Arm everybody, and nobody gets hurt. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that?
Cops hate that idea. Shouldn't that give you the first clue? If they arrive at a free-for-all firestorm, nobody's wearing the hat or vest or something that says "but I'm the good guy here, shooting the bad... oops, well mostly bad, anyway ... guys." As far as the cops would be concerned, it would be a perfectly justified time to fall back on that oldie about shooting them all and sorting it out later.
So it's a school: arm the teachers? That means they have to go through not just gun safety and use training, they also have to go through desensitization training to enable them to take aim on your son or daughter with no reservations about killing them. Or no reservations about killing the kid next to them just because their aim is lousy under the stress of a shooting situation. So, they gotta learn to be the bad guy in order to be the good guy? Really? This is who we want in our classrooms when tempers rise and chaos rules, nevermind whether anybody else brought a gun to school? This is how we want to make it easier for that disturbed pissed-off kid to grab a loaded weapon without needing to have the forethought and motivation to bring their own gun from home, by having it right there in the room?
But even if we can pretend, under whatever twisted fear-driven "logic", that the good-guy-with-a-gun scenario is the way to go, it still depends on one thing, and as we just found out, even that can fail. Not all designated good guys with guns are actually willing, regardless of duty, regardless of occupation, regardless of honor, to go be that person!
It happens in war. It happens on the police force. With or without guns being involved, it happens in every situation in life. Some people just hang back and don't step up and try to help. I mean, if they did, wouldn't those we call heroes just be ordinary instead of extraordinary? So why on earth should it be a surprise that a hired school security officer hung back for 4 minutes while more and more kids got shot in Florida?
So what's your next dumb excuse?
What might actually be a surprise to some folks is the failure of that tired mantra that the way to stop a bad guy (note they never say "bad woman") with a gun is a good guy (they still never say "woman") with a gun. Arm everybody, and nobody gets hurt. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that?
Cops hate that idea. Shouldn't that give you the first clue? If they arrive at a free-for-all firestorm, nobody's wearing the hat or vest or something that says "but I'm the good guy here, shooting the bad... oops, well mostly bad, anyway ... guys." As far as the cops would be concerned, it would be a perfectly justified time to fall back on that oldie about shooting them all and sorting it out later.
So it's a school: arm the teachers? That means they have to go through not just gun safety and use training, they also have to go through desensitization training to enable them to take aim on your son or daughter with no reservations about killing them. Or no reservations about killing the kid next to them just because their aim is lousy under the stress of a shooting situation. So, they gotta learn to be the bad guy in order to be the good guy? Really? This is who we want in our classrooms when tempers rise and chaos rules, nevermind whether anybody else brought a gun to school? This is how we want to make it easier for that disturbed pissed-off kid to grab a loaded weapon without needing to have the forethought and motivation to bring their own gun from home, by having it right there in the room?
But even if we can pretend, under whatever twisted fear-driven "logic", that the good-guy-with-a-gun scenario is the way to go, it still depends on one thing, and as we just found out, even that can fail. Not all designated good guys with guns are actually willing, regardless of duty, regardless of occupation, regardless of honor, to go be that person!
It happens in war. It happens on the police force. With or without guns being involved, it happens in every situation in life. Some people just hang back and don't step up and try to help. I mean, if they did, wouldn't those we call heroes just be ordinary instead of extraordinary? So why on earth should it be a surprise that a hired school security officer hung back for 4 minutes while more and more kids got shot in Florida?
So what's your next dumb excuse?
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
What's To Admire
We've been watching the Olympics. A lot! There have been some great performances, and a whole lot that I'd have to say are "just" way greater than I could ever have hoped to manage. I'm not likely to even manage crossing the rink on skates without falling down, and have a similar skill level on any other event included. I can root for the best in whatever category from whichever country, though there is an extra something when it's one of "ours" that does especially well.
However, one performance stands out, way out, for me; in fact, so far that I doubt I will admire an athlete more by the end even though we're only a quarter of the way through competition. I'm referring to Chloe Kim, in her final run down the half pipe. She knew before starting that she had won the gold. As the last snowboarder, nothing could have changed that. It could have been what the announcers were touting as a "glory run". You know, where the athlete just takes an easy glide from top to bottom, no risks, no challenges, just a wave to the crowd as she descends. "Hey, congratulate me!"
But that wasn't Chloe. She chose, even at just 17, to put her very best effort into her final run instead. She could have fallen, gotten injured, had any number of negative things happen. Instead, she managed to top her already-gold performance. It didn't matter to the end result. Not unless you count grit, self-respect, honoring the sport, and giving all those who stayed watching, something really worth sticking around in the cold and wind for.
Way to go, Chloe Kim! This is what the Olympics should be all about!
However, one performance stands out, way out, for me; in fact, so far that I doubt I will admire an athlete more by the end even though we're only a quarter of the way through competition. I'm referring to Chloe Kim, in her final run down the half pipe. She knew before starting that she had won the gold. As the last snowboarder, nothing could have changed that. It could have been what the announcers were touting as a "glory run". You know, where the athlete just takes an easy glide from top to bottom, no risks, no challenges, just a wave to the crowd as she descends. "Hey, congratulate me!"
But that wasn't Chloe. She chose, even at just 17, to put her very best effort into her final run instead. She could have fallen, gotten injured, had any number of negative things happen. Instead, she managed to top her already-gold performance. It didn't matter to the end result. Not unless you count grit, self-respect, honoring the sport, and giving all those who stayed watching, something really worth sticking around in the cold and wind for.
Way to go, Chloe Kim! This is what the Olympics should be all about!
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Just Another Specialist
It started yesterday as a fairly routine visit with my Primary, going over my lab results. All in the OK range, except he's planning to dink around with increasing my thyroid meds levels. Yep, this from the guy who can't do enough simple math to figure out how to convert x-many-pills-per-week into this-many-pills-per-prescription. So that'll be fun.
Before I left, however, I had him check out this little lump. He decided, for reasons that make no sense to me, that the lump was in the skin, not under it, and I needed a referral to a dermatologist.
OK, whatever.
I'm used to getting a referral one day and an actual appointment a couple months later, so it was with great surprise that I got a call from my new doctor's staff before I was two miles down the road to set up an appointment for the following day, i.e., Friday. I can't get my cardiologist to respond that quickly. If there's a cardiac issue, it's a trip to the ER for attention. But I got over the shock, made the appointment, and showed up early for the usual half hour of new-patient paperwork.
The lump was completely insignificant, although she assured me that it could be removed if it bothered me. You know, vanity about the only (ahem) imperfection in my youthful skin. Or something. I opted to continue ignoring it now that I had an expert opinion that is was as harmless as I'd thought it was for the half year or so I'd been consciously ignoring it.
But since I was already there, there was this weird little patch of flaking skin on my lip.... She cheerfully checked it out, and decided a couple of sprays of liquid nitrogen were in order. It was something with potential to become somewhat less than harmless. Not yet, but a definite maybe.
Yes, it hurt. On a scale of 1 to 10, about a 1.2 or so. Somehow I managed to make it through. She'll look at it again when I return next month for a long overdue full body inspection for possible hinky spots. (That's a technical term, "hinky", doncha know.) They take photos too, for comparison later with whatever might have changed.
I'm sure they'll be tactful about cellulite levels, stretch marks, wrinkles, and all those other proofs of having lived for a few years and taken this old covering for granted. I mean, if they laugh at cellulite, why would anybody come back? Look at mammograms, for example. It's bad enough that they work as hard as they can to mash your boobs as flat as possible and make you stand still while they leave the room, take the film, check out it didn't blur, and then walk back in to reposition the equipment for another angle, then do the same to the other boob. If they laughed at what those boobs looked like, or indicated in any way how strongly they hoped in another 30 years that their own never ever looked like that, who on earth would ever come back for another mammogram? Cancer be damned!
So now, besides the dermatologist: a math-challenged primary physician who -I discovered online - lists his real area of practice not as internal medicine but gerontology, an allergist who can't find anything wrong other than evidence that everything is, a cardiologist whom I actually like and trust, a pulmonologist who can actually make a diagnosis but wants to take no action, an eye surgeon (optho..whatsit) who wants return visits long after everything has been fixed, a urologist who also wants return visits whether I get another kidney stone or not and who can wait for that visit until climate change affects hell with glaciation....
I could almost start to feel ... old.
Hey, at least I'm still young enough to list all of them under "Dr. _____" in my cell directory because I know I can't remember their names without that prod but may still need to make a call, and can still go straight to the "D"s to sort it all out. I won't own up to being old until I can no longer remember which name goes with which specialty and in which state.
But you know, my very favorite internist ever left that practice to go into gerontology, back in Minnesota. Maybe I could see her again now if I needed somebody back there.... What the heck was her name?
Before I left, however, I had him check out this little lump. He decided, for reasons that make no sense to me, that the lump was in the skin, not under it, and I needed a referral to a dermatologist.
OK, whatever.
I'm used to getting a referral one day and an actual appointment a couple months later, so it was with great surprise that I got a call from my new doctor's staff before I was two miles down the road to set up an appointment for the following day, i.e., Friday. I can't get my cardiologist to respond that quickly. If there's a cardiac issue, it's a trip to the ER for attention. But I got over the shock, made the appointment, and showed up early for the usual half hour of new-patient paperwork.
The lump was completely insignificant, although she assured me that it could be removed if it bothered me. You know, vanity about the only (ahem) imperfection in my youthful skin. Or something. I opted to continue ignoring it now that I had an expert opinion that is was as harmless as I'd thought it was for the half year or so I'd been consciously ignoring it.
But since I was already there, there was this weird little patch of flaking skin on my lip.... She cheerfully checked it out, and decided a couple of sprays of liquid nitrogen were in order. It was something with potential to become somewhat less than harmless. Not yet, but a definite maybe.
Yes, it hurt. On a scale of 1 to 10, about a 1.2 or so. Somehow I managed to make it through. She'll look at it again when I return next month for a long overdue full body inspection for possible hinky spots. (That's a technical term, "hinky", doncha know.) They take photos too, for comparison later with whatever might have changed.
I'm sure they'll be tactful about cellulite levels, stretch marks, wrinkles, and all those other proofs of having lived for a few years and taken this old covering for granted. I mean, if they laugh at cellulite, why would anybody come back? Look at mammograms, for example. It's bad enough that they work as hard as they can to mash your boobs as flat as possible and make you stand still while they leave the room, take the film, check out it didn't blur, and then walk back in to reposition the equipment for another angle, then do the same to the other boob. If they laughed at what those boobs looked like, or indicated in any way how strongly they hoped in another 30 years that their own never ever looked like that, who on earth would ever come back for another mammogram? Cancer be damned!
So now, besides the dermatologist: a math-challenged primary physician who -I discovered online - lists his real area of practice not as internal medicine but gerontology, an allergist who can't find anything wrong other than evidence that everything is, a cardiologist whom I actually like and trust, a pulmonologist who can actually make a diagnosis but wants to take no action, an eye surgeon (optho..whatsit) who wants return visits long after everything has been fixed, a urologist who also wants return visits whether I get another kidney stone or not and who can wait for that visit until climate change affects hell with glaciation....
I could almost start to feel ... old.
Hey, at least I'm still young enough to list all of them under "Dr. _____" in my cell directory because I know I can't remember their names without that prod but may still need to make a call, and can still go straight to the "D"s to sort it all out. I won't own up to being old until I can no longer remember which name goes with which specialty and in which state.
But you know, my very favorite internist ever left that practice to go into gerontology, back in Minnesota. Maybe I could see her again now if I needed somebody back there.... What the heck was her name?
Monday, February 5, 2018
What Can Go Wrong
Hey, we all know that Murphy had an "in" with the big Lawmaker of the universe. That's why he's the go-to-guy when the bad stuff happens. Somewhere Murphy's got a rule which explains all about it. Now, we may fool ourselves into thinking that everything out there is all good, but when we get carried away with that tomfoolery, Murphy turns around with a slap to our face as a reminder.
Take that day last week when I went shopping for a few groceries and a "white noise machine" - aka a HEPA filter fan - for my bedroom since the last one got the wobblies and I got afraid to keep it running. I went to the same store, Walmart, where I'd purchased the first fan and subsequent clean filters for it. Nowhere in that store, not in all the logical places I hunted plus several ridiculous ones, could I find a HEPA fan. Nor any fan, though we have several "any fans" at home so they weren't on my list anyway.
I left the store will all the desired groceries plus a cart full of annoyance. Not only do I need that fan for my allergies, there still being plenty of allergens in the house, but the white noise helps me sleep even through Steve deciding to do the dishes down the hall, or just wearing his hard-soled house slippers while down on our end of the hall where the bathrooms live. I'm feeling sleep deprived. And that didn't help my mood that day either.
Perhaps the mood was the root of my problem. We'd found a nice handicap parking spot, but so had somebody who'd parked next to us and left their motor scooter/cart parked right next to our car while I was in shopping. I could just envision the scratches along the car if I didn't back out exactly perfectly. Pedestrians are hard enough to avoid. I know, I could have moved their cart, but I just wasn't in the mood. After putting my groceries in the car, and, conscious of my good-citizen duty, pushing my cart over to the cart corral, I did manage to back out carefully enough.
The real problem didn't dawn on me until we started unloading the car. I knew my pocketbook wasn't in the front where I often keep it these days. Nor, however, was it in the back anywhere visible while we lifted out bags of groceries. Aware that a black pocketbook can easily hide against black upholstery, particularly around twilight, we hunted. And hunted. I went back in and checked every bag as it got emptied and food put away.
Nothing. Zip. Nada.
HELLLLPPP!!!!
Thinking back, I didn't recollect actually removing it from the cart, not thinking to look for it at the bottom of the cart as I pushed it back to the corral. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I immediately turned back around, hoping against all my common sense that nobody had stolen it from the cart. I pulled out my cell phone, since I keep that store's pharmacy number in my directory. After four transfers, I got somebody in customer service who could actually tell me whether it had been turned in. With each wait, I'm adding to the mental inventory of all that was in it. Steve and I had just been to the bank, so it carried the cash he contributes to the monthly bills for me to pay. Driver's license, medical insurance (with SS#), checks, 2 credit cards, pictures of my kids and granddaughter, AARP card, address book, the get-in-free to National Parks card which then cost $10 and now cost $80... and etc. My life was in that thing, and I had no idea how long it would take to straighten things around nor what I would live on in the meantime.
I finally got the person who knew something, and her first question was whether I had any ID. Well, yeah, of course, but guess where it was? So she decided to ask my name, which I gave her, and, major relief, it had been turned in. I informed her as to my ETA, and asked where in the store I should go to claim it. When I showed up, it had been locked up and there was a hunt for the person with the key. Again asked my name, they somehow looked at my plethora of IDs and decided I was supposed to be somebody named Rosa Maxson.
I got the pocketbook anyway. They didn't bother to recheck the order of my names nor compare my photo to me, but I wasn't going to quibble. Heck, I didn't even bother to check whether my cash was still in it until after I got home. I was so relieved to have the rest of my life back that I wouldn't have begrudged somebody helping themselves to a finder's fee. (Just don't tell them that! Because they didn't take one.)
I guess Murphy wasn't satisfied with my managing to navigate through that little mess. Today is the official Sales Tax deadline for the State of Minnesota. The reason it's relevant to me is that who-knows-how-many years ago I got a Sales Tax exemption for what I thought at the time was a wonderful business idea. It involved getting a bunch of inventory produced without paying tax on what was to be resold. By the way, that inventory is still cluttering up the den in the house in Minnesota. Yes, unsold. My tastes do not appear to be universal. Still, every year I have to report to the State how much I've either sold, to pay sales tax on, or how much I've, say, given away for marketing, thus incurring use tax fees.
Year after year those forms have been a solid line of zeros.
After receiving a couple of email reminders from Minnesota that the deadline was fast approaching, I decided to get it out of the way. This is where the perfect storm hit.
My tax exempt number, since moving to Arizona, is no longer on any paper form I am able to locate. There formerly was a remedy for that, however. I send an email to myself with relevant information on it, like that number, my latest incarnation of user name and password, and the periodically changing website where one can go to e-file taxes. Once received, it is archived, as well as recorded in my "sent" file.
I keep track of a lot of stuff that way. Even important information like an author's name I want to look up to see what else they wrote.
But a short time ago, my email company decided to pair up with Yahoo, much to my ongoing displeasure. Years worth of archived and "sent" files didn't make the transition. (Brother, some of your best pictures were lost :-( !) I still cannot access those websites with my medical records on them. And of course, every bit of information on paying (well, not paying) my annual sales tax is fubar.
Minnesota tries to make it easy for us. All we have to do is follow their link from the reminder email, log in, and there the form is. I figured I would be safe using the username and password I used for everything back in the day. Nope. But there was a link to get them to send you the correct information. That always works, right? Except the first time I entered it, their system wouldn't let me in because somehow in the previous snafu something had gotten left open and I had to go back in and close out of it.
Yeah, right. I have to get into it to get out of it so I can get into it? Ahhh, government!
I tried Saturday, figuring whatever it was had managed to close by itself over that amount of time. Apparently I was right, because that wasn't the error message I got. Back to me not giving them the proper login info. Now, I'm not one to be quite that easily discouraged anymore, thinking this time I could try various incarnations of what was possible. Sometimes that works, right? Or perhaps there was a different way in I hadn't noticed earlier?
Quit laughing!
OK, offices are back open Monday. Still time to file. So thought 3,287 other people, and I was put on hold behind every one of them. After a couple of hours, my phone was kept on the charger to stay alive and on speakerphone so it could drive both Steve and myself crazy with the repeat message and short awful segment of what some tone-deaf person thought qualified as innocuous music. I had at least come to the conclusion that they were not shutting their doors at the usual Minnesota government quitting time ... unless, of course, some evil twisted bureaucrat had decided to leave the entire system on hold till Tuesday morning. By now, however, my need for a hike down the hall outweighed any possible information I might lose by unplugging the charger, or any embarrassment either of us might suffer, should my call finally get answered, from a loud flushing noise drowning out the conversation.
I'm still kicking myself for not thinking to do that sooner. That of course is always when the phone gets answered!
From there, things went smoothly. I gave other personal information proving I knew who I was, because, you know, so many other people out there are standing in line to pay your sales tax bill. She provided me with confirmation of my username and a temporary password which I had to be sure to use before it expired in 15 minutes! She didn't explain the 15 minutes part, though, but somehow I made it in on time, granted myself a password I can remember, and filled out the form with zeros, then upon prompting, confirmed that yes, indeed, I did mean zeros.
Before shutting down, I emailed myself all the updated information. Maybe it'll still be there next year.
Take that day last week when I went shopping for a few groceries and a "white noise machine" - aka a HEPA filter fan - for my bedroom since the last one got the wobblies and I got afraid to keep it running. I went to the same store, Walmart, where I'd purchased the first fan and subsequent clean filters for it. Nowhere in that store, not in all the logical places I hunted plus several ridiculous ones, could I find a HEPA fan. Nor any fan, though we have several "any fans" at home so they weren't on my list anyway.
I left the store will all the desired groceries plus a cart full of annoyance. Not only do I need that fan for my allergies, there still being plenty of allergens in the house, but the white noise helps me sleep even through Steve deciding to do the dishes down the hall, or just wearing his hard-soled house slippers while down on our end of the hall where the bathrooms live. I'm feeling sleep deprived. And that didn't help my mood that day either.
Perhaps the mood was the root of my problem. We'd found a nice handicap parking spot, but so had somebody who'd parked next to us and left their motor scooter/cart parked right next to our car while I was in shopping. I could just envision the scratches along the car if I didn't back out exactly perfectly. Pedestrians are hard enough to avoid. I know, I could have moved their cart, but I just wasn't in the mood. After putting my groceries in the car, and, conscious of my good-citizen duty, pushing my cart over to the cart corral, I did manage to back out carefully enough.
The real problem didn't dawn on me until we started unloading the car. I knew my pocketbook wasn't in the front where I often keep it these days. Nor, however, was it in the back anywhere visible while we lifted out bags of groceries. Aware that a black pocketbook can easily hide against black upholstery, particularly around twilight, we hunted. And hunted. I went back in and checked every bag as it got emptied and food put away.
Nothing. Zip. Nada.
HELLLLPPP!!!!
Thinking back, I didn't recollect actually removing it from the cart, not thinking to look for it at the bottom of the cart as I pushed it back to the corral. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I immediately turned back around, hoping against all my common sense that nobody had stolen it from the cart. I pulled out my cell phone, since I keep that store's pharmacy number in my directory. After four transfers, I got somebody in customer service who could actually tell me whether it had been turned in. With each wait, I'm adding to the mental inventory of all that was in it. Steve and I had just been to the bank, so it carried the cash he contributes to the monthly bills for me to pay. Driver's license, medical insurance (with SS#), checks, 2 credit cards, pictures of my kids and granddaughter, AARP card, address book, the get-in-free to National Parks card which then cost $10 and now cost $80... and etc. My life was in that thing, and I had no idea how long it would take to straighten things around nor what I would live on in the meantime.
I finally got the person who knew something, and her first question was whether I had any ID. Well, yeah, of course, but guess where it was? So she decided to ask my name, which I gave her, and, major relief, it had been turned in. I informed her as to my ETA, and asked where in the store I should go to claim it. When I showed up, it had been locked up and there was a hunt for the person with the key. Again asked my name, they somehow looked at my plethora of IDs and decided I was supposed to be somebody named Rosa Maxson.
I got the pocketbook anyway. They didn't bother to recheck the order of my names nor compare my photo to me, but I wasn't going to quibble. Heck, I didn't even bother to check whether my cash was still in it until after I got home. I was so relieved to have the rest of my life back that I wouldn't have begrudged somebody helping themselves to a finder's fee. (Just don't tell them that! Because they didn't take one.)
I guess Murphy wasn't satisfied with my managing to navigate through that little mess. Today is the official Sales Tax deadline for the State of Minnesota. The reason it's relevant to me is that who-knows-how-many years ago I got a Sales Tax exemption for what I thought at the time was a wonderful business idea. It involved getting a bunch of inventory produced without paying tax on what was to be resold. By the way, that inventory is still cluttering up the den in the house in Minnesota. Yes, unsold. My tastes do not appear to be universal. Still, every year I have to report to the State how much I've either sold, to pay sales tax on, or how much I've, say, given away for marketing, thus incurring use tax fees.
Year after year those forms have been a solid line of zeros.
After receiving a couple of email reminders from Minnesota that the deadline was fast approaching, I decided to get it out of the way. This is where the perfect storm hit.
My tax exempt number, since moving to Arizona, is no longer on any paper form I am able to locate. There formerly was a remedy for that, however. I send an email to myself with relevant information on it, like that number, my latest incarnation of user name and password, and the periodically changing website where one can go to e-file taxes. Once received, it is archived, as well as recorded in my "sent" file.
I keep track of a lot of stuff that way. Even important information like an author's name I want to look up to see what else they wrote.
But a short time ago, my email company decided to pair up with Yahoo, much to my ongoing displeasure. Years worth of archived and "sent" files didn't make the transition. (Brother, some of your best pictures were lost :-( !) I still cannot access those websites with my medical records on them. And of course, every bit of information on paying (well, not paying) my annual sales tax is fubar.
Minnesota tries to make it easy for us. All we have to do is follow their link from the reminder email, log in, and there the form is. I figured I would be safe using the username and password I used for everything back in the day. Nope. But there was a link to get them to send you the correct information. That always works, right? Except the first time I entered it, their system wouldn't let me in because somehow in the previous snafu something had gotten left open and I had to go back in and close out of it.
Yeah, right. I have to get into it to get out of it so I can get into it? Ahhh, government!
I tried Saturday, figuring whatever it was had managed to close by itself over that amount of time. Apparently I was right, because that wasn't the error message I got. Back to me not giving them the proper login info. Now, I'm not one to be quite that easily discouraged anymore, thinking this time I could try various incarnations of what was possible. Sometimes that works, right? Or perhaps there was a different way in I hadn't noticed earlier?
Quit laughing!
OK, offices are back open Monday. Still time to file. So thought 3,287 other people, and I was put on hold behind every one of them. After a couple of hours, my phone was kept on the charger to stay alive and on speakerphone so it could drive both Steve and myself crazy with the repeat message and short awful segment of what some tone-deaf person thought qualified as innocuous music. I had at least come to the conclusion that they were not shutting their doors at the usual Minnesota government quitting time ... unless, of course, some evil twisted bureaucrat had decided to leave the entire system on hold till Tuesday morning. By now, however, my need for a hike down the hall outweighed any possible information I might lose by unplugging the charger, or any embarrassment either of us might suffer, should my call finally get answered, from a loud flushing noise drowning out the conversation.
I'm still kicking myself for not thinking to do that sooner. That of course is always when the phone gets answered!
From there, things went smoothly. I gave other personal information proving I knew who I was, because, you know, so many other people out there are standing in line to pay your sales tax bill. She provided me with confirmation of my username and a temporary password which I had to be sure to use before it expired in 15 minutes! She didn't explain the 15 minutes part, though, but somehow I made it in on time, granted myself a password I can remember, and filled out the form with zeros, then upon prompting, confirmed that yes, indeed, I did mean zeros.
Before shutting down, I emailed myself all the updated information. Maybe it'll still be there next year.
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