Update

I am moved almost to tears. The CPA dude just called me back with a figure. Guys, it's January, and he's a CPA. Everyone and they're brother is calling on him this time of year, and he took the time to go through his records one week at a time and find out what I needed to know in order to file my taxes. He did it immediately, right after I spoke with him. I've never had an experience quite like that before. I only hope that I can remember, in the course of the daily grind of my job, how good it felt to be taken seriously, for someone out there to have treated my problem as if it were his problem. I hope I can remember to do that when dealing with my clients, because it will make a person's day.

I thanked him. I tried to do it emphatically. But it was lame, and I feel now that I should've explained to him how much it meant to me for him to do so simple a thing as to answer my question. Thank you, Mr. CPA Man. The love of God shone through you today.

Paying the Piper

Good luck at the dentist today, Kris! May you be blessed with grace, endurance, and strong drugs.

It's tax time. And for me, that means that there is a particular cubby hole of my past that I would very much like to forget about entirely which now must be revisited, one last time.

Remember that job I quit earlier this year? Well I didn't quit soon enough, because I actually made over $600 in revenue from said job in 2004. That means that I need a 1099. Now, the guy I worked for is an unbelievable idiot, and I am confident that it has not, until my phone call this morning, even occured to him that he would need to file a 1099 for me. In fact, and I'm not kidding, he does not know what a 1099 is. So, knowing I was completely wasting time and breath asking him about things that are beneath him, things like taxes, I asked him who was handling the filing. My former boss would call the CPA and get back with me tomorrow. Okay? Okay. Whatever. I'm calling the CPA.

So I did. Know what? He's not "handling" the taxes at all. He's filing something completely different. But the form he's filing has two 9's in the title, so it must be the same thing, right? No, Former Boss, you're a moron. The CPA (a really nice guy who was trying his darnedest to be helpful) was more or less apprised of the financial situation of my former place of employ, and he wasn't at all sure that my wages from last year could even be reconstructed. Apparently, they've been having some trouble with misuse of funds and poor tracking of cash flow. Gosh, I wonder who could be responsible for that.

Today was his IRS deadline to have my 1099 in the mail. So I guess I'll take the gloves off and see if that gets me anywhere. That's one bridge I don't mind burning.

The Extent of Winter

Now leaving Winter
Come back soon!

You might have to click on the picture to see the icicles clearly. This past weekend provided us Gadsdenites with the first and, I daresay, last visually documentable evidence that winter was ever here.

Oh sure, there was no lack of below freezing temperatures. Just refer to my power bill post. But alas for snow. It never came. I guess I'll save my tears until the end of March. Snow likes to vacation here in the early spring every decade or so.

There was a magical quality to the freeze this weekend. As I drove around yesterday morning running errands, the temperature was ever so slightly easing up. So every now and then, a sheet of icicles that had been clinging to an overhanging tree would let go and shatter on the pavement. It sounded like glass and looked like fairy dust.

World, Chris says hello.

Intermediate?

That is not the appropriate descriptive term for a yoga class that includes contortions wherein neither foot makes contact with the ground.

It was fun.

Eye of the Tiger

I can feel myself approaching a crossroads. For the first time in my life, I think it might be possible for me to become addicted to exercise.

Like most people, I've tried on and off to engage in regular exercise with varying degrees of success. Nothing stuck it for the long haul. And really, it's too early to tell, but I looooooove the Y. I could eat it. And not feel guilty. Get it? Nevermind.

My parents gave Chris and me two months' membership for Christmas. Gyms always made me feel icky, but for some reason I thought the Y-vibe would be different. Less superficial, less self-conscious and vain. I don't know if that's true or if I've just grown as a person since the last time I went to a gym, but my assessment seems to have been correct.

Kris obviously likes the step classes. I'll have to try those. Mom and I went to the yoga class Monday night and it was awesome. I felt stretchy. Then last night I went to the gym and worked my arms. They hurt today. I want to go back. I'm already lamenting not having time to go today.

Also? I take vitamins. Every day. Have been since I got married. But really, it's a lot easier to remember to take your multi-vite when there's a certain, ahem, Pill that you have to remember to take daily. Or. Else. Just put the vites next to the Pills and voila! I can still count that as a "yay me" though, because I ran out of vitamins the other day and actually remembered to buy more before missing a dose. I got sponsitility.

can't . . . bruheathe . . .

You'll have to excuse me. I haven't completed the transition from non-verbal to verbal just yet. I'm currently in limbo, caught in the Violent Spitting Curses stage, from which I am trying to refrain, seeing as this is a public forum. Also, the cordless phone in my office is calling to me, telling me that it would look AWESOME at the foot of the opposite wall in at least twenty pieces.

There's nobody to be mad at. Nobody. Well, I could be mad at the power company, but I get a feeling that won't help me. They won't help me.

Last month, I almost swallowed my tongue when I got my power bill. $134.82. Yeah, I'm sure that's not much for most people. My parents' bill is four times that on a good day. But they have a big house. I have a small duplex and a matching paycheck. Chris's paycheck is even smaller and basically keeps him in gasoline and cigarettes. I eked out the payment, but something had to be done. So Chris and I shook it off and went to Lowe's to invest in some ceramic space heaters. $64.84, and worth every penny if they could just keep the damn thermostat from falling.

And that's not all we did. Our thermostat had been set to a conservative 65 in December. Post-bill, we lived the pioneer life and cranked that bitch down to 60. With the space heaters turned on, the heater never kicked in. Of course, it wasn't safe to leave the space heaters on while we were away, but c'mon, the thermostat was set to 60, and it was daytime, and maybe there's not a lot of insulation in the house, but there's not a gaping hole in the wall either. This is Alabama. We haven't seen a decent snow in twelve years. It just doesn't get that cold.

So I've been kind of excited to get the bill and see how well our investment paid off. I was supremely confident that I'd be back into two-digit figures, because this was a mild month compared to the couple of weeks of bitter cold we had last month. Today, I got the bill.

$160.25

I can't look at it. It makes me want to vomit. Do they think I'm a drug dealer? I'm the only one on my block that's not. You overcharged the wrong ho! I make an honest living, get it? All my income is on the books! What you see is what you m*$&#$-f(*&%^ get! You can't squeeze water from a rock, you electricity-hording f*&%s!

I guess I will be mad at the power company. Seems to have gone in that direction anyway.

Of hobnobbing and excellent wine

Saturday night was my first ever swanky sit-down dinner (as opposed to the less formal buffet style). It wasn't really swanky. The dress was business casual. But there was a four-course meal served on real china, so I consider that as swanky a gathering as I'm ever likely to participate in. It was the annual meeting of the Chamber of Commerce.

Trying to get ready was a slight debacle (who doesn't have a shirt that matches black pants? me.). Thanks, Laura, by the way, for having a decent wardrobe and a key to my house. But when I got there, it was kinda fun. I felt like I was infiltrating an underground society. And the wine, she was awesome. Kendall Jackson Reserve, my favorite. Oh but then there was talking, and PowerPoint, and that made my ass hurt. There was a lot of back-patting and mutual admiration, and that made my eyes roll. But it was an intriguing social experiment, and I got to try on that sanguine alter-ego I've been working on.

Woodlayson's Word of the Week

defenestration: n. the act of throwing a person or object from a window
defenestrate: v. to throw a person or object from a window

Now, boys and girls, I want you to take the rest of the week to learn your new word. If you already knew this word, I want you to find a dictionary and look up a word you do not know. Look for ways to use your word in sentences all week long.

It occurs to me to wonder if defenestration is a peculiarly common act, since it merits its own word. Is there a word for throwing or being thrown from a moving vehicle? Does it count as defenestration if one is thrown from a roof? Perhaps a glassed-in porch or veranda? Would trying to throw someone through a window which one failed to notice was made of plexiglas be considered attempted defenestration? Is the breaking of glass a necessary element? If not, could not any opening in the side of a wall qualify as a proper means to satisfy the requirements of the term? Could one be defenestrated from a fire exit? Things to ponder.

My first rant

One's first blogrant has got to be special. It needs to have dramatic elements, like love and hate and betrayal and violence and illicit drug use.

My first rant will be about my DVR.

Dear DVR,

I love you, because you record my shows. I hate you because you think you're better than me. Why do you call me names? Why do you decide what I will and will not watch? This is not about Point Pleasant, you know. It's a stupid show. I don't need you to tell me that. This is about my freedom in this relationship. I know we've gotten close over the time we've been together, but this is still and employer/employee relationship, and you're not treating me with the respect I deserve. Whatever you think of me personally, I can watch whatever I damn well want to watch and you're here to facilitate that. Period. And what, pray tell, could you possibly have against Good Eats? Because if you don't like Alton, we have a much more serious problem.

I want you to think about this while I cool off, and we'll talk about it when I get home.

Love,
Liz

I think it was Dr. Pickle who came up with the groundbreaking theraputic technique of writing letters to the inanimate objects in your life. Thank you, doctor, I really do feel better.

So anyway, I was drugged. Well, self-medicated. But that didn't have anything to do with it, okay? Just because ONE Tylenol PM can knock me on my ass doesn't mean that I can't operate heavy machinery, such as my DVR. The little red light was ON, people. I saw it piercing through the haze of struggling eyelids, reassuring me that everything was going to be okay. But it wasn't okay. My trusted companion was lying to me. This morning I looked for my show and it's just. Not. There.

I knew something was up last night when I set the show to record, like I've done a million times before, and as always, my DVR said, "Okay, sure thing!" Then the time came that the show came on, and I sat down to watch it. About two minutes into the peculiarly long establishing scene, I realized that the Little Red Light of Peace wasn't on. Okay, no big deal. I haven't missed much. I'll just press the record button.

DVR: "By pressing record, you're asking me to disregard the timer you set."
Me: "Well, that makes two of us."

Record.

Little Red Light.

Peace.

Oblivion.

I fell asleep. I was trying to avoid one of those head-cracking knife-behind-the-eye headaches I get sometimes. Usually, the only way to do that is to sleep through it via artificial means. Fortunately, my drug tolerance is so incredibly low that usually all I have to do is take a couple of Tylenol PMs. They don't do a damn thing for the headache of course. But they do the job of a brick to the back of the head, without the messy concussion. I had decided that the escalation of my headache to migraine status was still a 50/50 possibility, and it was early, so I just took one Tylenol PM. Turns out that was enough. Ask Chris. He practically had to carry me to bed when he got home, and I couldn't form a coherent word to save my life.

Off topic. Long story short, I trusted that bitch. I went to sleep because I knew the second half of my show was safely nestled in the archives of the wunderkind technology in my living room. This morning, my show, along with two of Chris's eps of Good Eats, were nowhere to be found. All I have to say is, Little Miss Smarty Pants DVR better cough them up, or she has about seven hours to live.

So, that is my story of love, hate, betrayal, violence and illicit drug use. So, the drugs weren't illicit. They should be. You should see what they do to me. And there was no violence, yet. But there is violence in my heart.

Ringing in the New Year

Better late than never.

My good friend LBC compiled a list (with a little help from her friends) of year-end review questions for all our blogger friends. I was not, then, a blogger. Now, I am.

I freaked out the most [last] year when: I had to work for the Devil. Or, when I quit working for the Devil, if you need an isolated incident. I worked for He Who Shall Not Be Named for 50,000 years. Actually, it was probably closer to five months. I didn't know he was the Devil, which is probably the only reason I still have my soul (although it has been widely debated that my soul is currently residing with an underground boxing champion in Laos).

Best TV show I discovered [last] year: Law & Order SVU. I didn't watch very much TV last year. When I did, it was Law & Order, or some incarnation* thereof. I actually like the original better, but I didn't discover it this year, so it gets booted on a technicality. Runners up were Good Eats with Alton Brown (why is he so funny?) and the nun show, which I actually only saw once when Jaimie called me from next door and told me to turn it on. I told you I didn't watch much TV.

Favorite book I read [last] year: was not Laura's favorite book. I don't want to talk about it.
Runner-up was the Sandman series. Again, for the first time.

Favorite movie: Kill Bill Vol. 2

Biggest cinematic letdown: Guys, my hopes just don't get that high anymore. Ooh, ooh, I know, Cabin Fever! Are your expectations low? No, no, lower. Lower than that. C'mon, you can do better than that. Fine, just watch it and fall the rest of the way.

The earth spun backwards: When I interviewed for, and very nearly got, a job that required hosting a weekly radio show.

The earth righted itself on its axis: When previous occupant of said job came back on hands and knees. I was this close.

Things I am most pleased to have done [last] year: getting married; moving into the Commu...er, Dreamplex (hee, remember when it was the Shitplex?); quitting my job

The thing that changed most about me [last] year: See above. If you just want one, I'll go with my marital status. It just now really hit me what a landmark year it's been. But I'm still surrounded by the same close group of friends, family, fleegans, and chloroplasts. Not much has really changed.

Why 2004 should burn in hell: For what it did to the Cakeholes' bank account, CZ's morale, the Magoos' patience, FA's whereabouts, and Jaimie's gall bladder. Shame on you, 2004. Shame.

Bodily organ I'd rather have removed than live through [last] year again: Y'know, I had some great times in 2004, and for me personally, all things considered, it was a good year. Still wouldn't do it again. I'll say kidneys.

Regrets: Being too busy for The Created; having red wine in my hand in the wrong place, at the wrong time, around the wrong boisterous child, at my wedding (certain family members considered it the merciful vengeance of God, I'm sure).

*But not Criminal Intent. Never that!