Having retired early last night so that i would not over sleep today, i awakened on time in order to make an eleven o'clock with an accountant to get my taxes done. I have done my own taxes before but it never ends up well so i decided to just make an appointment with the local H & R place. Great.
I arrived and was promptly whisked away to Glenda's desk. Glenda is a woman in her late 50s/early 60s, about 5'4", and to be diplomatic, has not retained the petite figure of her youth. She sported her shoulder length silver hair in a mussed fashion a la an academic (which turns out she is) with requisite 'librarian' eyeglass frames.
She was disarmingly pleasant and outgoing and smiled and laughed at the slightest thing and was ready to get to work to get me a nice, big refund.
While waiting for her programs and screens to pull up we bantered effortlessly and after two hours she explained what i would get, when i would get it, etc. and that everything would be OK.
I looked at her and said "so where is the candy dish of xanax then?".
She nearly fell out of her chair laughing and I, with a straight face said "Glenda - get ahold of yourself. I am not kidding. I need a Xanax"....
Her eyes got as big as saucers and her laughter ceased and she stared at me not knowing what to make of this. Her reaction was priceless and i burst out laughing, which she in turn did as well.
In the course of things she wondered about my last years taxes and when I tried to explain that i did them myself and answered her questions as well as I could, she said "I had better have a look at those. Go home, get those files and bring them back.". I complied.
Upon my return i plunked down on Glenda's desk all of the files from last year she looked at me over her librarian eyeglass frames with a combination of "are you fucking kidding me? and ohhh - you poor thing."
and so another hour followed playing 80 questions and i told her to just forget about it but she would have none of it and assured me that she loved a challenge and would in fact re-do my prior year's taxes to much better effect. Fine. Have at it Glenda.
Last year's taxes indicated a rather busy period during which i played general contractor. She proceed to tell me about her Lake Michigan cottage and all of the work that she needs to have done and would i please consider taking on the projects she has there. So we discussed that at length and exchanged information.
Glenda was a delightful woman, great fun and if nothing else, she did a great job on my taxes for this year.
If she should be able to re-do my taxes from last year better than I did them and let me renovate her cottage, so much the better.
I told her "Glenda - if you can get more money out last year's taxes, I will take you to 'Til Midnight for a celebratory cocktail and I will buy.".
Her jaw dropped and she told me that was her FAVORITE place. I love it too so it's good that she would like to go there. We will see what Glenda comes up. lol.
Back at my place i caught up on e-mails, phone calls, etc. and realized that I had yet to take pics. of the looming ice burgs on the shores of Lake Michigan just six miles from my house. My friends in warmer climes and those that have not seen the 'big lake' would appreciate pics. so i donned a fur lined, suede coat and fur lined, ear flap hat (think of the movie 'FARGO') and popped out to the beach at sunset, camera in hand.
This is the same beach that in the summer months i swim, yacht, kayak and frolic. In January, there are ice burgs and this year, the big lake is frozen over as far as the eye can see. So, I snapped some pics and headed back into town. A couple of blocks from the beach there is a little market at which i stopped to pick up a pack of Marlboro Lights.
The only vehicle in the parking lot was a Chevy pick up truck with two enormous bags of something in the bed and the truck's bumper was nearly touching the ground.
When i entered the market the owner of the truck was clearly the only patron and chatting with hot cashier chick. I pleasantly asked truck owner what he had in his truck and said that it looked like a Chevy truck ad.
He happily replied that it was compost for his greenhouses. The hot clerk chick burst out "He's got a load of crap!". lol. Very observant thing, that one.
Among my varied interests are agriculture (both domestic and international) and this man - Al - explained to me animatedly what kind of compost he had. We had (what for me) was an informative discussion about compost.
As it turns out, Al owns the amazing farm stand by the lake with the most amazing fruits and vegetables one could hope for during summer months.
Last year there was a big sign up that said "Closed due to military deployment" and the stand was not open all season. It was a very sad thing for the locals since it is high recreaction and social interaction to go to Al's little fresh vegetable stand.
I didn't know last summer who Al was but when I saw the sign i prayed that whoever it was that was deployed would return safely.
So it is a happy thing that Al did make it back safely from the middle east and is well stocked with good compost to get the green houses going again for this coming summer season.
Al left and I chatted with the hot clerk chick.
On my way home I passed Al's farm stand and saw his truck there with the lights on.
I dorve past and thought 'huh. if he is going to be getting the greenhouses up and running soon and i love gardening, i wonder if he could use my help' - i thought that would be more fun than spending my days seeing how many hours out of a day i could be unconscious so i turned the car around and went back to Al's green house.
He had a huge chain wrapped to a pallet of compost on his truck bed and had the other end of the chain attached to a pile of old pallets.
I was "Al - whatchya doin'?...."
He explained that he was trying to get the 3 tons of compost off his truck. He figured if he chained the pallet of compost to the pile of old pallets , he could get one of the old pallets to slide off.
I told him that THIS i had to witness. lol
So he began to pull away and the entire pile of pallets the truck was chained to went right along with the truck. SO - we tried to figure out another way to get the compost off the truck. No satisfactory solution was arrived at. And so Al went on his way. But we exchanged cards and info. and will be in touch about me getting to help him out in his greenhouses.
So today I met an accountant, a farmer and i made it to the beach, so it was a pretty good day.
I arrived and was promptly whisked away to Glenda's desk. Glenda is a woman in her late 50s/early 60s, about 5'4", and to be diplomatic, has not retained the petite figure of her youth. She sported her shoulder length silver hair in a mussed fashion a la an academic (which turns out she is) with requisite 'librarian' eyeglass frames.
She was disarmingly pleasant and outgoing and smiled and laughed at the slightest thing and was ready to get to work to get me a nice, big refund.
While waiting for her programs and screens to pull up we bantered effortlessly and after two hours she explained what i would get, when i would get it, etc. and that everything would be OK.
I looked at her and said "so where is the candy dish of xanax then?".
She nearly fell out of her chair laughing and I, with a straight face said "Glenda - get ahold of yourself. I am not kidding. I need a Xanax"....
Her eyes got as big as saucers and her laughter ceased and she stared at me not knowing what to make of this. Her reaction was priceless and i burst out laughing, which she in turn did as well.
In the course of things she wondered about my last years taxes and when I tried to explain that i did them myself and answered her questions as well as I could, she said "I had better have a look at those. Go home, get those files and bring them back.". I complied.
Upon my return i plunked down on Glenda's desk all of the files from last year she looked at me over her librarian eyeglass frames with a combination of "are you fucking kidding me? and ohhh - you poor thing."
and so another hour followed playing 80 questions and i told her to just forget about it but she would have none of it and assured me that she loved a challenge and would in fact re-do my prior year's taxes to much better effect. Fine. Have at it Glenda.
Last year's taxes indicated a rather busy period during which i played general contractor. She proceed to tell me about her Lake Michigan cottage and all of the work that she needs to have done and would i please consider taking on the projects she has there. So we discussed that at length and exchanged information.
Glenda was a delightful woman, great fun and if nothing else, she did a great job on my taxes for this year.
If she should be able to re-do my taxes from last year better than I did them and let me renovate her cottage, so much the better.
I told her "Glenda - if you can get more money out last year's taxes, I will take you to 'Til Midnight for a celebratory cocktail and I will buy.".
Her jaw dropped and she told me that was her FAVORITE place. I love it too so it's good that she would like to go there. We will see what Glenda comes up. lol.
Back at my place i caught up on e-mails, phone calls, etc. and realized that I had yet to take pics. of the looming ice burgs on the shores of Lake Michigan just six miles from my house. My friends in warmer climes and those that have not seen the 'big lake' would appreciate pics. so i donned a fur lined, suede coat and fur lined, ear flap hat (think of the movie 'FARGO') and popped out to the beach at sunset, camera in hand.
This is the same beach that in the summer months i swim, yacht, kayak and frolic. In January, there are ice burgs and this year, the big lake is frozen over as far as the eye can see. So, I snapped some pics and headed back into town. A couple of blocks from the beach there is a little market at which i stopped to pick up a pack of Marlboro Lights.
The only vehicle in the parking lot was a Chevy pick up truck with two enormous bags of something in the bed and the truck's bumper was nearly touching the ground.
When i entered the market the owner of the truck was clearly the only patron and chatting with hot cashier chick. I pleasantly asked truck owner what he had in his truck and said that it looked like a Chevy truck ad.
He happily replied that it was compost for his greenhouses. The hot clerk chick burst out "He's got a load of crap!". lol. Very observant thing, that one.
Among my varied interests are agriculture (both domestic and international) and this man - Al - explained to me animatedly what kind of compost he had. We had (what for me) was an informative discussion about compost.
As it turns out, Al owns the amazing farm stand by the lake with the most amazing fruits and vegetables one could hope for during summer months.
Last year there was a big sign up that said "Closed due to military deployment" and the stand was not open all season. It was a very sad thing for the locals since it is high recreaction and social interaction to go to Al's little fresh vegetable stand.
I didn't know last summer who Al was but when I saw the sign i prayed that whoever it was that was deployed would return safely.
So it is a happy thing that Al did make it back safely from the middle east and is well stocked with good compost to get the green houses going again for this coming summer season.
Al left and I chatted with the hot clerk chick.
On my way home I passed Al's farm stand and saw his truck there with the lights on.
I dorve past and thought 'huh. if he is going to be getting the greenhouses up and running soon and i love gardening, i wonder if he could use my help' - i thought that would be more fun than spending my days seeing how many hours out of a day i could be unconscious so i turned the car around and went back to Al's green house.
He had a huge chain wrapped to a pallet of compost on his truck bed and had the other end of the chain attached to a pile of old pallets.
I was "Al - whatchya doin'?...."
He explained that he was trying to get the 3 tons of compost off his truck. He figured if he chained the pallet of compost to the pile of old pallets , he could get one of the old pallets to slide off.
I told him that THIS i had to witness. lol
So he began to pull away and the entire pile of pallets the truck was chained to went right along with the truck. SO - we tried to figure out another way to get the compost off the truck. No satisfactory solution was arrived at. And so Al went on his way. But we exchanged cards and info. and will be in touch about me getting to help him out in his greenhouses.
So today I met an accountant, a farmer and i made it to the beach, so it was a pretty good day.
