I’m Writing In My Head

Because, damn it, I can’t really find the time to sit and write here about all the things I want to write about.  Like how I slept through a loud commotion the other night while my family thought they were standing near a corpse.  Like how someone I know tried filing for their kid’s college financial aid at fafsa.com instead of fafsa.ed.gov and then stressed me out so bad because when I instinctively gave her the “look” like maybe you shouldn’t have gone there she went into such a panic attack I thought she might have a nervous breakdown.  Then there are the ridiculously funny comments some douchebags made on the sports talk radio station about how the Penguins should trade the young hockey god Sid Crosby because he could play better than Sid.  When the announcer asked what level hockey this guy played, he said he doesn’t play hockey but  Sid always gets injured when he plays him on his NHL video game.  OMG.  Like is this guy for real?  And there were many other stupid comments by other callers.  I just want to convince my readers that Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas really does have some very brilliant people.  Seriously.  There are organ transplant geniuses.  There are the techie brains at Carnegie Mellon.  And of course, moi.  Who was on Jeopardy.  Even though I didn’t win.

I really would not just like to tell you about this stuff.  I’d like to expound on it, and entertain you with it, and make you feel the thoughts I feel about it.  Especially about the almost corpse.  But I’m exhausted.  And I haven’t even started working 6 days a week yet, or 10 hour days.  I’m getting too old for this, folks.  Mama needs 2 rest, then she can rant.  But I gotta go now because sis needs her tax return done.  I got bills to pay.  I don’t know what I’m wearing tomorrow and I’m not even thinking about packing a lunch.  Screw it.  I’ll pry open my wallet and buy something.  Okay.  More later.

Busy Week For Me and Youngest Son

I’m going to take a minute to write while  have a chance.  It’s going to be a busy week, and I may not have much time later on.  My sister-in-law is having the family over for my nephew’s birthday on Tuesday night.  Can you imagine the audacity of having a kid during tax season when you have an accountant in the family?  Wednesday, we’re going to see our beloved Penguins play hockey.  The sad part is, I’m going in place of Youngest Son.  I love the Pens but no one is a bigger sports fan than Youngest Son.  And he can’t go.

Youngest Son came home for about 41 hours this weekend.  That’s about all he could spare in the past month or so.  He goes to a good school, and he made the right choice, but his advisor told him last year that this would likely be the “weed-out” year for a lot of students.  We weren’t worried about him being weeded-out, but even a B would send anal Youngest Son over the edge.  So he’s stressed.  And his teachers are piling on the work.  He still works a few hours a week in the biology lab there, and they’ve asked him to tutor for two hours Sunday nights.  And jock that he is was missing the athletics he so enjoyed in high school, so he’s joined the track team this year.  He has practice almost every day.

Almost the entire brief time he was home this weekend, Youngest Son could be found sitting at the kitchen island hooked up to his ipod reading about Mammalian Physiology.  Poor kid.  And when he wasn’t there, he was sound asleep on the loveseat.  He couldn’t even stay awake to watch the Penguins play on TV.

When Big Daddy bought the Pens tickets so that he could take Middle Son J to a game while J was home on leave along with the rest of the sons, we had no idea that Youngest Son would have some humongous test this week.  Nor did we know about the 20 page lab report due.  Worst of all, while the teachers there are very good, some of the ones he has this semester are a bit inhumane.  Get this:

Books are expensive.  It’s the one college expense I make my kids pay for on their own.  His one professor has decided that they are not going to use two of the expensive books he had made them purchase.  They have to now buy two other expensive books instead.  And he told them right after the return period ended at the school bookstore.  Believe me, Youngest Son is cheap!  If there had been a chance to return those books, he would have been there immediately.

Another professor actually had a huge test the DAY AFTER THE SUPER BOWL!  And this is freaking Steeler country.  Pittsburgh public schools had a 2-hour delay after the Super Bowl and this sick dude had a test for these poor kids.  How wrong is that?!

Luckily, Friday is his last day before spring break.  Hopefully, he’ll get a chance to relax a bit.  And maybe I’ll finally get to prod him a bit about this new girlfriend I read that he has on his Facebook profile.

The Boys Are Back In Town

Note to Everyone:  I am not writing this to complain.  I’m just saying.

This weekend, I have been transported to another life.  I’m back to living a life I’ve almost forgotten, even though it hasn’t been all that long ago.  They say your brain protects you that way, allowing you to forget painful or difficult times, such as childbirth.

In addition to starting back up to work this past week (I know, millions of people work every day), I suddenly have a houseful of people again.  In fact, for dinner last night, we had a total of 7.  This is not a bad thing.  In fact, it’s mostly a very good thing.  All my boys, and some of the accompanying girlfriends, were back in the nest.  It’s just different. In the past year, there were many weekends when it was just Big Daddy and me.  Grazing on leftovers.  Not needing to do laundry for days on end.  Nothing underfoot to trip over (except the occasional dog toy).

This morning, I was greeted with four loads of towels to launder.  Empty gallon cartons of my favorite green iced tea and milk were scattered amongst piles of dirty dishes in the kitchen.  I just ran the dishwasher after dinner last night, and so one of the first things I did this morning was unload the dishwasher.  And after I loaded the piles of dirty dishes into the emptied dishwasher, it was almost time to run it again!

Suddenly, whenever I need to use a bathroom, it’s occupied.  When I decide to take a laundry break and sit in “my” recliner chair, Youngest Son has claimed it.  Gathering up all the dirty laundry today has required me to do a walk-through of every room (not just the bathrooms and bedrooms where one would expect to find dirty clothes), and pluck dirty jeans from tables, doubled-up T-shirts off chairs, and balled up inside-out socks from the floor of every room.  Yes, I remember this life.  It’s all coming back to me.

And I’m not gonna lie.  It’s still nice to have them home.

A Driving Theme

Work has been great so far.  Some years, you can tell from the very first day that it is going to be a grueling tax season.  Even the very first (and normally easiest) returns come in with weird problems.  Not so much this year.  The days are flying; the coffe’s been hot.  Everyone and everything has been cooperating.  Except — rush hour butt-heads.

I almost forgot about that aspect of the working life.  It’s not like I don’t drive the rest of the year.  But most of the time I can choose when I want to be on the road.  And I’m rarely out of bed during morning rush hour.   I’m usually driving sunny middays, when life is pleasant and slow-paced.  No one is rushing to get anywhere and drivers are generally polite.  There is your occasional idiot, to be sure, but since there are far fewer folks on the road, the number of jerks decreases proportionally.

My first two mornings back to work, I encountered the “exit-ramp chicken.”  It seems that in our area, a lot of drivers missed the lesson on how to enter and exit a ramp.  They think you have to creep all the way to the end of the ramp, sit there, and wait for a personal invitation to get onto the highway.  If there is a car approaching within sight, even if you can see them a mile away, they will not attempt to enter onto the roadway.  Meanwhile, most of us learned that the ramp extends so that one who is trying to get on the highway may accelerate until the coast is clear enough to hop onto the road.  The highway does not need to be completely deserted to make your entrance.  But when butt-head chicken is just perched there at the end, not moving, the cars behind are forced to sit on the ramp and miss the opportunity to get on the highway or cut-off the fool just sitting there.  The first day, since traffic was far away, I started pulling onto the road, assuming that the cautious soul ahead of me saw the opportunity to hop on also.  Not so.  She wasn’t yet done lingering on the very edge of the ramp.  I slowed down to give her a chance to hop on in front of me.  She flips me the bird!

Then there are the people that are so preoccupied with talking on their cell phones that they forget to actually navigate.  Particularly aggravating is when you’re on one of those roads with the sensor that controls when the traffic light changes.  You want to get home and relax after a long day at work.  You see the light ahead just turned green and you will miss the marathon red light if everybody just keeps moving and doesn’t leave a gap which will send the signal for the light to turn red.  And then, the jerk two cars ahead is too busy gabbing on the phone to keep up with the cars in front.  He just sits there talking, or picking his nose, until he leaves a gap big enough to change the light…but he squeaks by right before it turns red.  And you get to sit through a 5 minute red light.

This video has been making its rounds into the e-mails of other road-weary accountants.  We need a little comic relief this time of year.  Ordinarily, I wouldn’t condone the sexist message.  Men are also horrible drivers.  In fact, if I never had to shift into reverse or parallel park, this female would be the most awesome driver on the road.  But these drivers are clearly women; and there’s no arguing that they clearly can’t drive.  Enjoy!

No Sunday Blues This Week!

Normally, when I have to go to work on Monday, I get the Sunday blues.  This is not because I dislike my job.  Actually, I quite like the job.  It’s just the crap that goes along with having a job that makes me blue.  Things like:  getting up early, having to wear something less comfortable than my sweats, and needing to end my weekend early and going to bed at a “normal” time so I’m not a total zombie at work.  Okay.  So I’m a tad lazy and set in my ways.

However, tomorrow is my first day back after 10 months off.  I’m excited to see everyone again.  I’m ready to dig in and keep our loyal clients from paying a penny more in taxes than they’re legally obligated to pay.  Our elected officials would only waste the money, anyways.

Last week when they asked if I’d be available to start back to work, I asked them if there have been any changes with the alarm system.  I told them I do not want to start off my first day back setting off the alarm.  I did this two years ago when I was holding down the fort while they were all at Disney World.  My brain was still on vacation that morning and I forgot the procedure, prompting calls from the alarm company and the state police.  Not a fun way to start the day.  They told me that there are no changes with the alarm system but that my office has been moved to the next office down the hall.  Our two preschoolers now occupy my old office.  I went to college 4 years for that office, and these little girls haven’t even gone to Kindergarten!  But they’re awfully cute, well-behaved, and most importantly, the boss’s lovely granddaughters.  My new office is slightly larger–about half a window width, and a tad closer to the kitchen (and the coffee).  The only downside is it’s a bit further from the reception area, so it will be harder for nosy mama to hear what’s going on when people stop in.

Best of all, Middle Son J is coming home tomorrow.  He’s on leave from the Army for about 3 weeks and we’re all excited to have him back home with us for a while.  Even if he does have 11 damn tattoos now.

So no Sunday blues this week.  Although I guarantee that 7:00 a.m. tomorrow will be a real bitch.

On Tough Love: The Octuplet Mama

Boo hoo.  Nadya Suleman was an only child and didn’t like it.  So she did what any self-indulgent only child would do.  She went on to fill the “need” she had by having scads of her own kids, no matter how this affected anyone else.

Am I saying that “only children” are destined to be selfish or over-indulged?  Of course not.  It’s all in how you raise them.  But something clearly went wrong somewhere in Ms. Suleman’s life.

The woman is well-spoken, but is clearly delusional.  She believes she can actually raise all of these children on her own, without government assistance.  First of all, even without the octuplets, she had six very young children and no real job.  Even if she had a job, she would have to make an astronomical amount of money to have to pay any Federal Income taxes.  In fact, if she holds any kind of job at all, with all of her dependents, she will receive money from the IRS every year as Earned Income Credit.  So taxpayers that are actually paying into the system will be providing for her fourteen children’s education, subsidized health care, food stamps, and daycare.  We are probably already paying for Ms. Suleman’s education.  How else can an unemployed woman with a houseful of kids afford to go to college?

The idiot doctor who ignored this woman’s apparent mental instability and implanted her with six more embryos (knowing full well she already had six tots and no husband to help) was clearly irresponsible.  But her parents–what the hell were they thinking?

In this age of entitlement, there are too many parents out there that believe being a good parent means indulging every whim of their offspring.  Perhaps Nadya’s parents felt bad that they didn’t provide a sibling for their little girl to play with.  She had to get this sense of entitlement from somewhere.  Nadya is certainly getting back at her parents for any sins they committed.

Not only is Ms. Suleman depending on the village to help raise her clan, but these parents of hers have given up their home, their money, their retirement years and their lives to Ms. Suleman’s population explosion.  They’ve allowed their daughter and her children to take up every inch of their small home and have actually had to file for bankruptcy.  We watched a Dateline report showing grandma and grandpa running themselves ragged feeding and dressing and driving the little ones to school.  Any parent would help out their child and their beautiful grandhildren, right?

Maybe.  After the first one, or two, or even three.  Maybe.  If unavoidable circumstances led to rough times.  But when a grown woman keeps forking over thousands of dollars to have babies she can’t afford to feed or provide housing for, mom and dad need to make her STOP.  By putting her out while there is still a chance she can provide for her kids.  By not allowing her to become so dependent upon them (and the public) so that now there is no way in hell she can ever provide for the physical or emotional needs of all these kids.  About 10 kids ago, it would have been rough for poor Nadya to make it on her own.  But at least it would have been possible.

I feel sorry for Nadya’s parents.  They look so tired.  And now they’re stuck with raising a houseful of children pretty much until they die.  The only other option would be to walk away from their beautiful grandchildren and allow them to be scattered amongst other relatives or the pathetic foster care system.  Despite her protests, there is no way Ms. Nadya can care for these kids without them.

I love having my adult kids live here with us.  But Oldest Son has started paying us rent.  We are not obligated to provide for him until we die.  And if he does something really stupid that he knows we don’t approve of, he knows he’ll be out paying a lot more rent to some stranger.  Which is why today he took out two bags worth of trash from his bedroom.  And why I don’t think I’ll be spending my golden years raising babies.

Problems With the IRS? God Help You

I got the call from my boss last week.  They would like me back at work starting Monday the 16th.  This is about what I expected.  I used to start back up right after the new year, but over the years we’ve learned that there’s really no need for me to be there that early.  The full-time staff can handle the early work load, and even the simplest tax returns don’t start trickling in until mid-February.  This works for me because it gives me time to get my personal tax returns filed.  There’s nothing worse than coming home from a full day of tax prep and then have to sit down at home and work on…more taxes.

I was all excited Saturday evening.  I had finished up our tax return, double-checked everything, and sent it on its merry way through cyberspace.  I was advised that since we were e-filing, I could expect my refund in as little as 8 days.  Cool!  About two hours later, my bubble burst when I was informed that the IRS had rejected our Federal return.  Because our Federal return was rejected, I got another e-mail saying our state return was also rejected.  OMG.  I had never been rejected before–at least not by the IRS.

The error message I received was that the EIN (Federal ID Number) on one of my forms did not match IRS records.  It was on the 1099R form that my employer had sent me on my dissolved 401(k) plan that I had rolled over into an IRA.  Since it was a direct rollover, and totally not taxable, it doesn’t affect my tax liability at all but the IRS still matches documents and likes to see everything included with your return.  Since I had entered the number exactly as it was printed on my 1099 form, I sent an e-mail to my boss asking if this was definitely the right number.  He replied this morning that it was indeed the correct number, and he had the IRS confirmation of it from 2001.  Hmmm.  Surprise, surprise.  Another IRS error.  It’s not the first time we’ve seen this.

Okay.  I could now print another copy of everything and send my returns via snail mail.  This would delay any refund I’m getting by about 3 weeks.  I also will have to make a trip to the Post Office to get the damn things weighed.  The main reason I like to e-file is because our returns are fairly complex (trust me, not because we’re rich–we just need to file a lot of different forms) and they end up looking like mini-pamphlets, barely fitting into a business size envelope.  Also, I paid an extra $10 for my tax program because for some reason, while TurboTax has no problem e-filing my state return every year, the less expensive TaxCut can not handle this function and makes me print and mail my state return.  Go figure.

Since this was not going to be the easy fix I was hoping for (say, like if my office had typed the wrong number and I could just go into my return and put in the correct number and resend), I figured I would call the IRS taxpayer help line and see if there was some way I could still e-file.  Of course I expected to be on hold for a while.  But I didn’t expect to have music blasting into my ear at a deafening level.  It was classical music, but I still had to hold the phone a good 2 feet away from my ear.  It made me want to cry.  I listened to the recording break in a good 20 times or more saying the representatives were helping others and please stay on the line.  After about 15 minutes, a real person got on, asked what my problem was, and said she would transfer me.

All ready to ask my question, I was interrupted by another recording that said due to the high volume of calls and the nature of my inquiry, I would have to call back another day.  Click.  I was just disconnected.  After wasting a good 20 minutes, they just hung up on me.  And I wasn’t even requiring them to think.  I was simply going to ask about some ideas I had to get around this stupid e-file snafu. WTF.

I know I’m taking a big chance here.  People don’t piss off the IRS or other government big shots (remember Joe the Plumber?) without invoking their wrath and possible IRS audits.  Being I’m not some politician with friends in high places, I should probably keep this all to myself.  But I can’t.  And so, as our ever-inefficient government steadily marches further toward communism, expect to see me in some gulag reserved for bloggers complaining about the IRS.  Maybe you can take up my cause.  Just do it anonymously.

Celebrations

Big Daddy was watching TV last night when all of a sudden he yelled to us to come in.  “We’re on the news,” he said, as Oldest Son and I ran in.  (This is one time DVR was really handy because we could rewind and see what we missed).

On screen was a portion of the event that we had attended earlier that day.  It was a return home celebration for my son and the other members of his reserve unit that had just returned from Iraq in November.  It was held in the big impressive old building which houses the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh.  Each returning soldier was recognized, we were shown some slides of their time in Iraq, and later treated to a light lunch.  There was also a group of soldiers sitting across the aisle from the new returnees that are scheduled to be deployed soon.  I couldn’t help but glance over at them and think about the year they and their families were in for.  Hopefully, these soldiers will be as adventurous as my son.  Although he had some trying moments over there and missed a lot of the comforts of home, I think for him it was easier than it was on us.

Our soldiers were escorted to the ceremony from their unit headquarters by the Patriot Guard Riders of Pennsylvania and members of the Pittsburgh police, who had also cordoned off some streets to provide free parking for our soldiers near the museum.  It’s so wonderful how supportive people are of our military, but it breaks my heart to think about the young soldiers that did not receive the hero’s welcome they deserved during the Vietnam era.  No matter what people think about the conflicts we’re involved in, where would our country be if everyone decided to run away instead of defending our way of life?

Yesterday could not have been a better day to hold this celebration.  After weeks of dreary cold weather and snow, the sun was shining and the temperature reached the mid-50′s.  The dirty snow was melting away and we could finally see some grass again.

As we drove through the streets of Oakland on our way home, young people were everywhere celebrating the beautiful day.  Oakland is College City.  It’s comprised mostly of University of Pittsburgh campus buildings and student housing.  We also passed Chatham University, and Carnegie Mellon University is nearby.   Groups of students were milling around.  Street vendors were selling their wares.  The youthful energy was invigorating.

I could almost remember how I felt when I first arrived at my college campus years ago.  The possibilities seemed endless.  Young studs strutting the street (Yikes, now they’re my sons’ ages) and young women jogging in shorts (I had my coat on) just let me relive for a moment how it felt when everything was still so new and uncharted.  Now, if only I could go back with all the wisdom and self-confidence that I’ve gained since I was one of them.

Winter Funk

The winter funk has settled in.  It usually hits sometime in late January or early February.  With the arctic weather we’ve been having this winter, I’m surprised it didn’t hit earlier.

My brother gets it worse than me.  He actually has that Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) where the lack of daylight seriously causes depression.  The year I turned 40, Big Daddy avoided living with the “winter funk” by planning the most wonderful all-inclusive vacation to sunny Cancun for the family.  My birthday is in December, so he planned it for mid-January.  The kids still talk about that vacation.

From visiting the blogosphere, it seems I’m not alone in this land of blah. The economy has everybody down.  It hasn’t helped that I had to starve myself for a day, and endured “alien probature” (Oldest Son’s term–and the reason he brought me home some California rolls to make me feel better).  Nor does it help that I’m forced to look at the pathetic pittance that is our portfolio because it’s necessary to do our taxes.  For the past six months, I have done everything I can to avoid looking at my stock accounts.  And now, I must confront the train wreck that our jack-ass politicians and their crooked CEO cronies engineered.

Things could be worse, however.  The alien probe found nothing amiss, and I have the sweetest most generous boys in the world.  I haven’t even finished filling in all of my deductions and already it looks like we’re getting a tax refund (I was actually a little worried this year).  I’ll be earning a paycheck again in a week or so and drinking quarts of coffee in my cozy little office.  And in my purse is a script for 6-months worth of Lexapro.  Mama loves her Lexapro.

There’s No Such Thing As a Free Lunch

Or breakfast either.  At least not for Mama.

During the World Series, Taco Bell had a promotion where if so-and-so hit a home run, everyone in the country would get a free taco.  Well, being the coupon-clipping, bargain-hunting mama that I am, I was very excited when so-and-so actually hit that home run.  I planned to pick up my taco on that lovely fall day.  It turned out to be the day I had a flat tire, and I didn’t get my free taco.

The other night, watching the Super Bowl, which by the way was amazing, we saw the Denny’s ad promising a free breakfast to everyone in the country.  Wow.  We all shouted, “We’re so gonna be there!”  What day is it?  “Tuesday?  TUESDAY?  NOOOOOO…” I screamed, as everyone in the room cackled and howled as we realized Tuesday is the one and only day in my entire life that I have to fast.

Well, actually, I can have a little clear broth.  Water and tea is fine, too.  Absolutely no luscious plate full of eggs and bacon.  I finally gave in to everybody’s nagging and had scheduled a diagnostic test for Wednesday and I have to spend the whole day before prepping for it.  I’m not even sick.  I’m just being a good little do-bee and doing what the doctor suggested.

My mom told me on the phone Monday that she wouldn’t be calling me on Tuesday because she knows I’ll be grouchy.  She knows how I get when I don’t eat.  So if you know what’s good for you, don’t tell me how much you enjoyed your Denny’s breakfast.  Lack of food AND missing out on a bargain may just send me over the edge.