Sigh of relief

I so thought I was screwed. It's a good thing I was so generous to so many charities this last year or I would have been. As it is, I came close to breaking even on the taxes, but at least I don't owe any money.

Yup, just figured out the taxes. It always makes me crazy to realize in cold figures how much of my money the government gets, but at least I don't have to pay in more on top of that. It's a pitiful refund, but it's a refund. I probably won't file the taxes right away. I just had to work them out though because I had totally forgotten about an extra $4000.00+ from a oil & gas lease on my property. Forgotten until I saw that 1099 in the mail. Momentary mini-panic.

I need more deductions. Maybe I really should consider buying another house. Too bad I can't get a tax break for stimulating the economy. I really do quite a good job at that. And now that I know I don't owe the government more money than I've already paid them for last year, I'm in the mood to do more economy stimulating. Must be time for some serious on-line shopping, ne.

My poor cats were just getting brave enough to hang around outside again, and the black terror showed up again this morning. He chased them into the house before I realized he was there. He hasn't been around for a couple of weeks, so I wasn't thinking about him. This is him --->

He comes over the fence behind the house, and usually I keep an eye out for him and call my cats in if I spot him coming. He's got quite an attitude and will even face off against me until I get the water hose going. I wish he'd give up my back yard as part of his territory, but even so, when I don't see him for awhile I hope nothing has happened to him. Guess, I'll have to continue being the watchful, protective cat owner as long as he's around. He looks extremely much like my black cat, Addy, except he's about half again as tall and leaner. The first time I met him was at night and I actually thought he was Addy until I realized she was already in the house. Little Demon. Or really, he's a big demon for a cat.

My favorite grocery store has closed. Well, rather than my favorite, it's more that it's the most convenient grocery store for me. I always stopped there because it's on my way home. It's not like it's closing is a huge hardship for me because there are two more grocery stores about the same distance from me as that one was. That one was just directly on my way home. So things are a little more inconvenient for me. The weird thing, in looking at it though, is that I wasn't upset or shocked or even surprised. It was just another business closing it's doors. And that thought upsets me a little .... that closing businesses have become common and everyday events. And since the trip to Galveston, I think I've been more aware the people factor. It's not just another business closing it's doors, it's another group of people struggling to rebuild their lives. And about a week ago America had the most ever job losses on one day due to big company lay-offs. 75,000 jobs, they said. That's 75,000 people, and their families struggling to re-build. I can't get a grasp on those numbers. Galveston of course was because of Hurricane Ike, but I'm sure current economics is one of the factors making recovery down there so difficult. The lab down there let 60% of their staff go. And 140+ faculty were let go from the university. Hospital labs and universities starts to hit a little close to home.

I don't know if there's anyone who knows how to stop the current economic mess, or even if it's possible to turn it around. I do know that I'm incredibly grateful to have my job.

Oops. Got deep again. I don't know how that happens.

I have 12 doves in my back yard and on my back fence, along with 4 cardinals (red birds, we call them in east Texas). They're scrounging under my bare peach tree. I don't know what they find to eat out there. I don't have a bird feeder, although a do have a little birdbath. A birdfeeder when I have cats just seems a bit much, but I still have lots of birds that hang around the place. *laughing* Okay, since my cats have been too scared to spend time outside, the population of birds that hang around has taken an upswing. My cats have never caught a bird, but I suppose just their presence would keep the birds away.

Intaxication

This is a word that was invented in a Mensa contest to create new words by changing one letter in an existing word. The definition for 'intaxication' is what sticks with me. It's the euphoria you feel from receiving a tax refund ... which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

This particular word is in my head right now because I'll probably do my taxes this weekend, and the big 1040 Forms & Instructions book came in the mail and is laying here staring at me. I almost always do my taxes as soon as I get my w-2s, so that means usually the first weekend in February. Really, I should pay someone to do them, but it's a hold-over from the days when I could still file the EZ form. I just want to do them myself. And it's not like my life and finances are so complicated that it takes a rocket scientist (or a CPA) to figure them out. I basically have one source of income. I have very few deductions beyond the basics. It just seems crazy not to do them myself.

I do get a little worried that I'll do something wrong and be audited. It's not like the IRS accepts ignorance as an excuse. Maa. I'm not sure I make enough money for them to be worried about auditing me. And although I usually get a little something back as a refund, it's not a lot. At least I don't usually owe them, although that has happened. Another reason to figure taxes out early, even if I don't file right away. Gives me time to get used to the idea if I have to pay. So if I owe the government, I file on April 15th, and if they owe me, I file on February 2nd.

I want to go shopping. I always want to go shopping when I think about owing money. Spending money is my idea of 'euphoria'. I'm really glad that I have a job that supports me AND all my bad habits. Maybe this coming weekend I'll go check into places about re-doing the floor and kitchen in my house. Hmmmmmmm. Or not. We'll see what kind of mood I'm in on Saturday.

I finally got around to all the responses to thank you notes that I wanted to write. That's another habit that really dates me. Not very many people still hand-write notes and letters except the generation before me and some of the people in my generation. No. That's not true, come to think of it. Two of the thank you notes I was answering were from my nephews and their wives, and they're the generation behind me. I suppose a Thank You note is still fairly personal, and like it or not, there's nothing 'personal' about an email.

Nope, not saying that electronic communication is bad. I couldn't do a large part of my job without it, and instant contact with people is wonderful. I'm just saying it tends to be over-used, and people forget or ignore how important personal contact between people is. Sometimes a face-to-face is irreplaceable. It's easy to be mean, or harsh, or bad-mouth someone over the phone or in an email. When you're standing there looking them in the eye though, you remember that they're a real person with their own problems and needs and agenda. It's much easier to understand a person you're sitting next to or across the table from then to understand an email ghost. Ever given a teleconference? One where you are sitting in an empty room with a phone and talking while people in other locations are following your slides? It's hard!! In an actual conference you rely on the audience response, clues you don't even realize you're picking up. People are nodding off, pick up the pace. They didn't like that comment, tone it down. You even use feedback from the audience to pace the talk. None of that is there in a teleconference setting. Especially a pre-recorded one where you don't even get audience questions at the end. Email communication is like a teleconference. You have no visual or sound clues, so you have to interpret the sender's intent from what they type. And sometimes you interpret wrong. That's why I'm trying to break my own bad habit of dashing off an email for every little thing. It's hard because that's often the best way to insure that a busy person hears from you rather than playing phone tag all day. Still I'm trying to catch up to more of my colleagues in person, or at least call and speak with them instead of emailing. I'm not crazy though. or at least not in this way. I will email if I can't catch someone easily.

How'd I get on this topic? Random thoughts just flowing I guess.

We had an ice storm here yesterday. I actually stayed home which is unusual for me. Usually I struggle my way into work, and I always get there (yes! Subaru!), but given the traffic accidents happening around me on the way it usually takes me a looooong time. Yesterday I think I heard there were 500+ accidents in the metroplex, ranging from the common fender-benders and cars in the ditches all the way up to a couple of fatalities. I kept checking the news but my two main routes between home and work didn't clear up until nearly noon. By then it wasn't worth going. Not when I can remote in to the network and do a bunch of work from home. There's simply no way to manuever and no margin for error when there's a coating of ice on every surface. So today at work I was totally clueless as to what day it was. It felt like Monday since I wasn't at work yesterday. Luckily for me, tomorrow is Friday.

Lines

Don't you just love waiting in lines? Me too. I just spent 45 minutes in a trash line. Pretty long wait to throw something away, don't you think. *laughing* Let me explain.

The city where I live does a periodic 'get rid of your old electronics' on a Saturday morning, and you can dump old computers, TVs, DVDs, etc, etc, etc. They hold it in a big parking lot. It opened this morning at 9:00. I got there at 9:13 and there were already more than 50 cars in line. Sugoi deshou. I waited because it took some effort to lift that old TV into my car, and I wasn't going to lift it out again! I pulled out of that parking lot at 10:00 and there were still more than 50 cars waiting in 4 lines behind me. We Americans dispose of a LOT of old electronics ... which isn't really surprising given that most electronic devices are obsolete about the time you walk out of the store with them. I know that for a fact since nobody in my city still carries batteries for my cell phone. I have to order them on-line, and the phone is only a couple of years old. Everyone wants to upgrade me ... usually to a flimsy, disposable phone that isn't as good as the one I have. And .... here I'm showing my old-fashioned, out-of-touch-ness ... my phone doesn't have a touch screen and a billion features. It's a two-year-old flip phone. *sigh* *laughing* What's the point of trying to keep up with the newest electronics when it's obsolete when you buy it? I like my phone, with the features it has, so I suppose I'll upgrade when no-one in the world carries batteries for it.

*smiling* Isn't the internet wonderful? I have the whole world to search for what I need. I wonder if it's a contradiction to be denigrating fast-moving electronic developments and adoring the internet in one breath.

Citibank made a tactical error. Well, yes, this one's relatively mild compared to most of the ones they've made with me lately. They actually sent me a survey asking how I felt about their service. At the end of it, they asked if I'd like a Manager level person to call me since I was quite obviously not happy with their service. I said 'yes' so I'll be interested to see what they say when they call. If they call.

Let's see, I started this blog about lines. The other line I stood in this morning was at the Post Office. What was notable about that line was the lack of it. I have never been in that Post Office shorter than 20 minutes due to the line, and the average wait I've experienced there is over 30 minutes. This morning, I was the third person in line!! That's just amazing. I mailed my first international package, and I'll probably mail all of them on Saturday mornings. Maybe that's just a better time. I usually go after 4:00 in the afternoon on weekdays. Or I could have gotten lucky this morning. Anyway I had my first experience filling out a customs declaration. I'm going to have to start using larger boxes to ship stuff in. By the time we got the declaration and the mailing info pasted to the outside of the box, it was completely covered. Hopefully it won't take forever to get there.

I had to stop for gas on the way home (45 minutes idling in a slowly creeping line), and it's COLD outside. Or anyway 35 degrees with strong wind feels frigid after our last two days in the 80s. I dragged my poor aloe vera back into my garage. They're looking a little the worse for wear. Luckily it's nearly impossible to kill them. None of them bloomed this year. Usually I have one bloom during the winter. Yeah, it's weird. I didn't know they bloomed either until the first year one did it. I think I have a picture. Yup. See one stalk grows up and

then a 'blossom' of sorts blooms on the end. At first I thought something was growing in the pot along with the aloe vera. I have nine pots of these

plants, which is why I say you can't kill them. Usually plants stand no chance at all that I'll manage to keep them alive. All my plants came from a single plant my sister gave me when I moved into this house.

Tomorrow I'm going to a going away get-together for one of my colleagues. Another potluck, but I'm not breaking any cardinal rules for this one. I'll just take a veggie tray and dip. Even I can cut up veggies. This colleague has taken a job at Texas Children's in Houston. I hope we keep in touch. Her office is three steps down the hall from mine and I'll miss her.

I guess that's all for today.

Monday Tuesday

I have managed to figure out that it's Tuesday, although with my day off it's felt like Monday all day. I can't spell Tuesday. Somewhere along the way I lost the ability to spell it. Just one day I couldn't spell it, so now every time I type it, I have to go back and correct the spelling. I know it's wrong when I see it, but I can't remember which way it goes until after I've typed it. Teusday. Nope, looks wrong. Tuesday. Yeah. But I type it wrong every time I use it and have to correct it. Weird.

Anyway, it hasn't been a bad day for a Mondat Tuesaday LOL Okay I'm just leaving that "Mondat Tuesaday". Geez!

I did clean out closets yesterday so the day wasn't totally spent on frivolous pursuits.

Today I got a new, non-citibank credit card in the mail (don't even get me started on the IDIOTS at citibank), so I'm set to spend money again. Plus I got a package of eyedrops that I was giving up hope of getting for one of my cats. It had been so long I just figured the order was lost or they weren't going to send it. My cats! I don't have pictures of the chunky children up yet. The stuck-up solid black child is Addy and the pumpkin masquerading as a cat is Zoe. Yes, I know I'm a horrible parent for letting her get this fat, but when I'm gone on trips for 2 - 4 days, dry food stays down all the time and she just eats!

They're 13 and 11 years old, respectively, so they're middle aged cats and not very active. Lately they don't even go into the yard much due to a black demon cat who has claimed my back yard as part of his territory. He terrorizes the girls.

Where was I before I got side-tracked on the cats ..... oh, yeah, ready to spend money again. Not like I ever actually stopped, just more slowed down while screwing around with citibank.

Besides the credit card and eyedrops I also got new music in the mail today, so I have to count the day as a good one despite having multiple meetings. And in the background of everything of course was Obama's inauguration. Not only history being made, but for the first time in quite a while, I have a sense of hope for this country. Despite the economy, I really am looking ahead with the belief that things can change. Given an even chance, I think Obama will be a GREAT President. He certainly has an immense load on his shoulders .... not just the obvious. Above and beyond the economic crisis and the ongoing middle east wars, he carries with him the hope of a nation, and the belief that we can change our lives with our own hands. What a tremendous weight of responsibility he's carrying! And he's making it look nearly effortless so far. Of course he'll make mistakes. He's as human as the rest of us. I hope we, all Americans, give him the chance to be the kind of President I believe he can be. One we can be proud of and be inspired by.

Wow, that got deep. It's kind of how I feel about Obama, though. I sincerely wish him and his family the best.

Posters up!

Did it! I got all my posters up. Yes, and I could have done it without taking anything down, but I ended up doing some rearranging. One old calendar came down. Not bad for getting four more largish posters up. *grinning* These 2 rooms of my house look more like an anime store than a person's house. The pictures are so gorgeous, though.

I also burned 53 CDs of anime files. Okay, maybe I've been putting that off a little too long. I needed to clear some space on the computer though, so I was forced to break down and burn some stuff. These damn mkv and HD files are sooooo big. I'm gonna have to find a better way to save them then burn them to CDs. I almost could not get two Michiko files to each CD. Maybe I should stop burning everything, and only burn stuff I delete from my computer and my external hard drives. I guess I could just stop being paranoid and feeling like I need to keep at least two copies of everything. *starry eyed* Think how much extra storage space I'd have without all the CDs of burned anime. *tries to imagine throwing anything out* Yeah. Right. I'm waaaaaaay too much of a packrat. It would be easier to buy another house to store my anime stuff.

Isn't my grand-niece cute? I just had to put some pictures of her up. I'm also struggling with ET about whether to post some pictures of a certain person .... who is sure to send her extremely violent alter-ego after me if I do. The thing is, see .... she and her alter-ego are some distance from me currently. Enough to give me something of a sense of security. And by the time she's not far away, she'll probably have forgotten .... unless I post the picture like where I posted Julia's instead of in the post itself. ET soooooo wants to do this. I have some nice pics from the Utah trip. LOL Technically, there's already a picture of her from the Utah trip on my site. I think it's pretty safe to say that no one will recognize her from part of her hand under a baby lizard, though.

Back to my list.

Another weekend!! Yay! And this is a 3-day-er so I'm in a pretty good mood. Add to that the fact that I went shopping this morning to reward myself for making it through a long week .... without strangling anyone even though they really deserve it. <--- That would be strangling anyone at work, not people while I was out shopping.

Shopping. *happy sigh* I love to shop. Hmmmm. Well, truth is, I love to spend money, and I love to get presents. Nothing raises my spirits like supporting our faltering economy. Probably I should get a medal for my efforts this morning. I didn't feel like I was going overboard, but I spent a sizable chunk-o-money. Totemo tanoshii.

Instead of typing this I really should be answering thank you notes from relatives. Probably I'll get to them this weekend.

My week was not too bad. I flew to Galveston (what's left of it) and gave a talk at the Galveston National Laboratory, went to lunch and then flew back. Made for a long day, but at least I wasn't gone overnight. I'll have enough of those trips coming up this year. Tuesday morning I lectured to the residents, who are irritating me. This group seems to have something of an 'entitlement' attitude that irritates me. They expect me to spoon-feed them test answers, rather than teaching them basic knowledge. It feels like I'm running into this expectation more and more as I go along. I wonder how much of that is the fact that we teach to tests in grade schools and high schools so they come to expect it. I don't like it. I can see why it's done. If your funding depends on the number of students who pass the standardized test, you make sure they pass it. Even for me at the college level, it's tempting. If our residents are doing worse than average on the standardized tests, don't try teaching them better, teach them the answers to the tests. I understand it, but I still don't like it.

Maa. I make it a habit not to spend time away from work fretting about work, so that's all the talk about work. The rest of the week was pretty much meetings and putting out small fires anyway.

It looks like it's going to be in the 60s here today. That's good because I don't like the 20s and 30s. It's been cold here this week. Cold for me. Real cold would be those poor frozen folk in the north right now. One reason I like living here is the relatively few times a year when it freezes. You'd never know now that I was born in Milwaukee. I hate the cold. I do visit relatives in Colorado around Christmas, but visiting the frozen north and living there are entirely different. My yard is dormant, so no mowing, etc necessary, although I should get out and cut back my rose bush. There's probably a list of stuff I'm planning to do this weekend. Shopping was first and that's accomplished. I also want to clean out closets and give my bathrooms a good cleaning, answer thank you notes, do some minor yard work, hang some posters, then the usual weekend cleaning routine of laundry, etc. *laughing* We'll see how much of the rest of it I get to, because despite my good intentions, I also have 12 books I'm currently reading (yes, at the same time), 16 anime series I'm currrently following and 3 computer games I'm currently working on. Guess what tends to fall to the bottom of the list of 'things-to-do'.

I should also get the oil and fliter changed in my car. I'll add that to the list.

I wonder if Monday is a PO holiday too. Probably. I'll have to go by there and get a package on Tuesday.

Tsukareta!

I am so glad it's Friday! Although given the fact that I have to go up there tomorrow ..... Still. I'll be going to the School rather than the Hospital, and it's only for half a day. I can hang. I'm just glad the week is up. I had TWO meetings today with just me and my bosses. Definitely payback for my usually outstanding karma. The second one went better than I expected ... which means I didn't start screaming at them to stop micro-managing me. I have a bad case of dual-desires. The desire for them to butt-out of business that is my concern and not theirs ... or at least let me do my job without putting so many barriers in my way. And the second desire is for them to stop leaving me out of decisions that ARE my business. Sounds like I have a crappy job, doesn't it. Actually .... not! I love my job and on most days I really enjoy the people I work with. Just not today.



Probably it was me. I was in one of those bitchy, everyone-is-irritating-me moods. And that's directly related to two talks I have to give on Monday and Tuesday. Not that I mind giving talks. I wouldn't love to teach so much if I didn't like an audience. I'm just tired right now and the thought of a short weekend, followed by a day trip to Galveston and back and then an early morning lecture makes me more tired. I imagine I'll be up for it all after some sleep.

Masaka!!!

I'm baking. I am actually breaking my number one cardinal rule (which goes something like: kitchens are for getting a drink and nuking semi-edible foodstuffs). I have spent my entire evening in the kitchen, making a mess, making baked goods. No one will believe it.

We're having a potluck at work tomorrow. Cardinal rule number two has to do with always bringing drinks, bread, or paper cups, napkins and plates to work-related potlocks, so that's two cardinal rules I'll be breaking. Tomorrow's potluck is a sendoff for a colleague starting med school, though, and I couldn't quite go the paper plate route since she's a good friend. So my house smells like baking and my kitchen is totally trashed.

I have made peanutbutter marbled brownies from a scratch recipe and (just in case said recipe is beyond my admittedly limited cooking capabilites), carrot cake cupcakes from a box mix with cream cheese frosting. Hopefully the poor girl won't have more desserts at her potluck than real food. If she does, we'll all just sugar-rush all afternoon. The pbm brownies actually look good. I'll wait 'til tomorrow to see how they taste because I'm almost sick from licking dregs out of various bowls and off mixing implements.

I had to shop this afternoon on my way home. For one thing, I only keep nukable foodstuffs in my house, plus cheese, coke, chips, etc. You know. The staples. I definitely don't have milk and eggs in my house regularly, and baking goods are definitely not in my cupboard. Well, they're there, but they haven't been touched in the last decade so I really don't want to use them. Plus I don't own (well didn't before this afternoon) a 13X9 baking dish or a cupcake baking pan. And I discovered that wire cooling racks would have been nice too. Still, considering that I'll use them about once every 10 years or so, I suppose I'm managing to survive without the cooling racks this evening. And who knows. If I own a 13X9 baking dish maybe I'll be motivated to contribute to other potlucks with more than drinks or monetary contributions. Or not.

Okay, I'm back. All the various things are out of the oven and cooling. Kitchen no longer resembles a war zone or disaster area. I have a surprising number of mixing bowls, measuring cups and spoons and other cooking-related implements for someone who avoids kitchens like the plague. Anyway, once things are cool I'll frost cupcakes and cut brownies into squares and I'm set for tomorrow. It wasn't so bad, although spending a whole evening baking is probably not going to be something I do very often. Once a decade would be about right, I think.

Yes, of course I took a picture. Proof! I said no one would believe me.

Hmmmm. I think I'll get up in the morning early enough to frost and cut things. Time to move along.