Author: Peg

Time to renew my library card – so – I headed out to the library with camera in hand. Figured I would look for signs of spring. Signs of spring were hard to find. 

Feeling a little guilty about not joining the other grannies in DC tomorrow for the March For Our Lives. Out of town grannies and kids are staying here today. Our Asylum bus is delivering folks downtown and will pick them up – complete with a box lunch to enjoy on the way home. 

But, I decided to wimp out. If I change my mind, I can get there using public transit/feet. But, I am just feeling a little too old. And, I really don’t stand well any more. That is a pretty lame excuse. Props to the sisters who will be on the bus and in the street.

Dinner conversion tonight – My dinner companions wanted John Denver music played in the Alzheimer’s and/or Nursing Units when we get there. If they are playing John Denver – then I ain’t going! Or I’ll take my Bose cans and keep following The Dead. With a little Parrot Head music for Friday afternoons. 

Deacquisitioned today: 9 bras, 1 jacket, 1 sweater, 1 shirt, funky candle holder.

At 1604 yesterday my Lightroom catalog seems to have had a major upset. 

Think I have it back in order. Not that it really much matters anymore. No, it matters. I would hate to lose my photo library. (The VW image was one that was in the messed up part.)

But, I am having a harder and harder time getting stuff to “matter” these days. Maybe I am an old rock and time has worn my sharp edges down. 

But, the Lightroom catalog was the least of my worries. My portfolio is noticeably lighter this evening. Thank you trade-warmongering Orange Lord. And, the dangerous John Bolton is back in the house.

Maybe stuff doesn’t matter so much because I realize how totally out of my control everything is. Laissez les bons temps rouler

Deacquisitioned today: nothing. 

Some days are just like this.

Yesterday was my first day back at work and my 2nd yoga class. And it was cold and rainy. And I got wet and cold.

Ended the day on my backside doing my best dead bug imitation-after several glasses of wine. (Let the record show, I can still walk in those shoes.)

And today is a snow day. 

Deacquisitioned today: Wooden Snake.
Deacquisitioned yesterday: Nothing. 

I played slack key guitar for background music during the morning open house session and Grateful Dead for the afternoon session. I wonder if anyone ever played The Dead for an open house here?

And, I made a bunch of puffy origami bunnies. 

Back to work tomorrow – weather permitting?

Deacquisitioned today: 11 tops. (Tee Shirts, blouses, sweater etc)

The sun was out today. It wind wasn’t blowing too bad. Life is better.

Tomorrow Ray’s magnificent rosemary plant will be moved to my box. Replacing my rosemary plant that didn’t make it through the winter. I don’t know if it will survive – but it will have a chance which is more than it will have in the compost heap. That is where our plants go when we are gone. Come to think of it we go to the compost heap too! 

While I was out inspecting rosemary plants, I spied a couple of signs of spring.

Tomorrow the Old Bat Cave will be on the Asylum open house tour. I brushed the OBC up a bit today. And worked on origami bunnies. The older I get the more impatient I get with the hard models. Maybe I should make an effort to do a “hard” model every week and keep doing it until it is no longer hard. 

Trying to deacquisition something every day: The Gilbert and Sullivan Song Book – which I picked up from some trashroom to use as origami paper. Well, it made crappy origami paper. Deacquisitioned today.

And one that wasn’t from The Asylum.

On Saturday – I collect the mail from my in-house mailbox. The first 3 amused me. As did the slick insert from some cruise line in this morning’s paper.

The was sort of the high light of the day. It is cold and gray again, if it wasn’t for my good friends here – I would be seriously considered just bailing on this joint and moving to an asylum in Honolulu. I really hate gray and cold.

But then – there are my friends…

Big event today was hanging Rosie the Honu on the wall

And, moving Gingerbread the Giraffe all around trying to find the best place for her.

She ended up back where she started. 

 

This year I might try to refine my skills at photographing old people. Since I are one. And since we have lots of them here at The Asylum.

I was in bed this morning, noticing the sun rise. Wondering what to do today. The sun was coming in my windows. However, Shamu the Phone said – right on the lock screen – that it would snow at 8:30AM. I don’t believe Shamu. I go down for breakfast – it was 8:20 – and then it snowed… 

I enjoyed my breakfast. Came back upstairs. I did all the paper work for a new passport. Most likely my last passport. I hope I need a new one when I am 84 – but, I am not counting on it. 

While I was at it, I tweaked a misbehaving MacBook for a friend.

The snow stopped so I bussed it to the post office – mailed off the stuff to the tax guy. It was just too cold to bus/walk to the tax office. And mail was cheaper than Uber. Also mailed the passport stuff off. 

Came back home, took some pictures at a little Asylum party for new residents. Had dinner – Petit Filet with Bordelaise Sauce. And, here I am. All ready to cosy down in the Old Bat Cave – which I have to spruce up this weekend for it’s big day on the Open House Tour on Monday. Oh and there is St Paddy’s day – $3 Guinness – tomorrow. And B-Day dinner with the Asylum Sisters on Sunday. (not my B-Day – that was last week)

Got the taxes all ready to take to the tax guy. And, I didn’t do my taxes before sending them to the guy. Doing your taxes before you give them to the guy is sort of like cleaning your apartment before the maid comes. And, I do that too.

The weather on Lizard Island was wrong for snorkeling. But, I did get one OK hour session in on the first afternoon I was there. And, that was a lesson. If you only have 3 days and the weather is less than ideal – do it anyhow – because the weather might be even less ideal later. And, conditions did get worse. But, snorkeling was so great. Even a bad day was fantastic. Heaps of fish, wonderful hard and soft corals, blue starfish, giant clams that you could make close up… And, sharks. Nice little whitetip reef shark creatures. What’s not to love? I would go back in a heartbeat.  

Sunrise this morning was about the high point of the day. (well, until a nice dinner with friends – Arctic char and winter squash).

I organized and tried to do the taxes. My taxes have gotten too complex for turbo tax. This is a totally top 2% problem. I shouldn’t complain. As, I am going to finish organizing the taxes. Admit that I can no longer do my own taxes without devoting 2 weeks to “foreign taxes, OIDs, premiums etc” and just trust “the tax guy”. This is not my stuff but rather Carlton’s stuff that is causing this grief. Well, and the tax code. These issues are all on the income side. So, thank you Carlton. I am enjoying the income. And, I will give a pile of it to “the tax guy” to sort out.  Carlton – you will remember that I ended up in “Hotel Arlington” AKA Virginia Hospital Center for a week about 13 years ago. That was caused by your taxes.

That is what I did today.

It was cold and windy outside. I tried to go for a walk outside. I failed. But, honestly, I didn’t try that hard. 

Made it into the office for a couple of hours this morning. Then off to yoga. Bussed back home. Sat around in wonderment at the goings on at The Lodge of the Orange Over Lord until time for dinner. (Swordfish with lobster sauce and sweet potato. And wine.)

A woman at dinner said that she intended to stay alive until The Orange Lord was out of office. We’ll see… Another woman told me about her around the world cruise scheduled for next January. She said I could do it too – when I get “old”. She is 80. 

Will attempt to finish organizing the taxes tomorrow. Then look into the general fitness of my investment portfolio. And consider going back to work next week.  Or not. 

 

Alexa cheerfully reported a rainy-snowy day was on tap. But, instead we go stuck in a “snow hole”. Nevermind, it was still bleak, cold and taxing…

Taxing, because I was doing my taxes. Or rather getting my taxes ready for “my guy” to do. One of the 1099 forms I got said I was dead for half the year. Not sure which half. Not sure it matters. But, I’d rather get it fixed than have my guy who works by the hour get it fixed. I was on hold until Shamu the Phone’s battery died trying to get it fixed. 

Also, I noted a major drop in one of my income categories. Either something is wrong or something else is wrong. Research is required. I suspect it is due to the general decay of Carlton’s fixed income yield structure. And, there isn’t much I can do about that. 

The Old Bat Cave is going to be on the Asylum’s open house tour next Monday. Since we don’t have any vacancies – the only way prospective residents get to see the apartments is to see real apartments lived in by real little old ladies. Which must be pretty hard on our marketing department in these days of carefully staged houses and apartments. 

OK… I have been here 5 entire days. Isn’t it time to go somewhere? Woke up in the middle of the night depressed because I was still here. And there was no place to go. No place even scheduled to go to…

The taxes have been started. I don’t actually “DO” my taxes any more. My guy does them. But, being me, I do them before I give them to him to do. I don’t need a tax guy now. But, some day, I will not be able to do the taxes. I want to have someone lined up and ready to step in. And, my guy usually finds a creative deduction or two that basically pays his bill. Will have to rethink all this with the 2018 filing. 

Still tired.