Oh, not this tough little kale survivor here, photographed in the Landfill back yard yesterday morning by Mouse. Today was Tax Day here at the Landfill. I hate Tax Day. I think that the 2013 Tax Season (three years ago) was the worst. I still experience PTSD from that particular Tax Season. An inordinate amount of Pinging and quite a lot of draaaaagging. Good riddance.

I do not help with the taxes any more. That is a long [boring!] story and it is not because I am not capable. It took absolutely all of the patience I have to hang around here at the Landfill during Tax Day, which, fortunately, was not as fraught with angst as it has often been in past years. Still it was hard, especially with driving rain all day.

I tried to occupy myself with Other Things but that backfired. I’ve been sorting and organizing my parents’ papers (for about the fourth time). I was okay with the estate-related stuff except for a certain amount of stupid crapola that made things unnecessarily complicated. But I am databasing everything so it is easier to find things when I need to refer to them for a sanity check or whatever. And yes, I have needed a few sanity checks during the years since my mother died.

Today I got into some of the personal stuff. Hand-written letters and things. Today it was mostly letters between The Commander and her sister Charlotte and most of them were about Charlotte’s struggles to care for my [beloved] step-grandmother Bolette as she descended into dementia. I hadn’t actually read these letters before, just stashed them, and this stuff was really hard for me for some reason. There was one particularly interesting one involving a typical topic when you are dealing with someone with dementia as most of us of a certain age know all too well (it was about poop and don’t ask). In a way it was pretty hilarious and I could almost hear my beautiful vibrant aunt Charlotte telling it over cocktails at the moomincabin or wherever and me and my mother laughing about it. Laughter is a handy tool to have when you are struggling with difficult people and/or situations. But then the whole thing made me feel a bit depressed. I thought, TMI! Do I really want to know this? In the end, I stuffed all of those letters back into an envelope to deal with some other day. They don’t take up that much space and I don’t really need to sort/fling them NOW…

Anyway, I MADE myself stay calm today, at least outwardly. Finally about mid-afternoon, the taxes were “done” (except for the part where they get mailed to the accountant and he does his thing). The GG said something like, “Didn’t you make copies of the taxes at your work last year?” I did not. I don’t even know where there is a blasted copier at my work. Hmm… Now that I am thinking about it, I think HE made copies of them at HIS work. But this passive-aggressively phrased question [wink] made me get up and say, “Would you like me to go over to Staples and copy them?” Well, yes. I needed some more steps today anyway.

And so I did. I schlepped over to Staples in the pouring rain. I think making copies of our tax documents at Staples was probably more stressful than doing the taxes this year. Out of paper. No paper in sight. Can’t get the attention of an employee. New paper. Inscrutable dialog box on screen. Re-a-start. Loooooooong re-a-start. We won’t even talk about the young woman who came in to use the advertised “We’ll print from your emailed document” service and found that NO ONE working there that day knew how to use that service or that one of the reasons that I couldn’t get any help getting my dysfunctional copy musheen to work was largely due to all of them helping her and ignoring other customers (meeeeee). Jeebus.

I’m thinking that it would’ve been much more efficient for me to use my iPhone to photograph all of the documents I made copies of today. I normally think of that kind of thing so I’m not sure why I agreed to walk over to Staples in the rain to deal with their crappy musheens. I guess I felt guilty for not helping with the taxes and needed to atone for it? Silver lining(s) to this rather ill-fated trip are that I got some more steps in and I got a couple [more] things at the Plum Market [on my second trip there] on the way home.

I won’t ask but I hope your taxes are done (done done done) or at least in the dern hopper, like ours are. The rain is still going around here but our Mouse is here to dump some compost and keep my laundry facilities in business (and play cat yard with the GG). A chicken is on the grill and portabella ravioli and salad are in the hopper.

Love y’all, KW

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