The Time War and the Other Tax Block

This was my plan. As soon as I got all my tax documentation, I was going to sit down and do my taxes. Really. Mid-February at the latest. Now usually it's my fault that I put it off to the last minute, but while I did miss a couple of opportunities to sit down and compute, for the most part, I was blameless. A daughter visited; I had an operation (Good excuse, right? Say it's a good excuse.); my grandson spent the weekend; I went out of town; I had to make things for my PRE class; I had to clean the house for Easter; there was Easter; and, finally, my grandson came again. And there you go. All my time disappeared into the vortex. 

Yesterday (I wrote this on the 15th), just in the nick of time as usual, I finished figuring out how big a check I was going to have to send the government. I wish I could say that it was all over, but since, for the second time in two years, I did not get a form from the Social Security Administration, I had to file for an extension. So, I ordered the form and I still have to finish filling out my 1040 when it arrives, but at least I have written and mailed the stomach-turning check, so the worst is over.

Lately, I have found it almost impossible to write anything, and I realized yesterday it's been because of the taxes. The dread of doing what is really a pretty simple job, has so filled my consciousness that nothing else could manage to squeeze past it. Now, all that has gone away, and this is the third blog post I've written today. I have to admit that neither of the other two (one of them is scheduled to appear later) required much writing, still, they both had more words than none, which has been my average lately.

Part of my problem, too, is daylight savings time. Yes, I know that everyone else has done all their grumbling, and had a miserable sleepy week over a month ago, but I never have adjusted to it. Since I usually get up almost three hours before I have to leave for work, it was easy just to sleep late for a few days. I was going to get up 10 minutes earlier every day and make a slow transition. But, then I was off work for my operation and then I took two weeks off for vacation, and now I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and start getting up.

Okay, I'm finished grumbling now.

I have many pictures that I want to post from my retreat and from the pilgrimage and the tractor show. Probably many more than you want to see. But, as it is getting close to my bedtime, I will only show you two. Last Sunday when we were walking, I came to a field and I thought that it would be interesting to take a picture of it from the same place every Saturday for a year because now it is practically barren, and before long something will be growing in it and it will change frequently. So, I took this picture on April 6.

Then just four days later, the rains came down and floods came up and when we passed the field on the way to work, it looked like this.

It's not the same position because we were in a hurry and we had to stop in the middle of the road and roll down the window to get this one, but you get the picture--instant lake. I knew the field would change quite a bit over the year, but I didn't expect this much change this fast.

AMDG

By the way, if you don't live in the US, this is the other other tax Block.

My Morning So Far

Here is the room from which I was just rescued. Please excuse the blurry picture. I'm still a bit shaky.

Here is the culprit.

Locks nowadays being made from cheap metal, the tread sheared off the lock and so I couldn't get the door open. Now, this is a really well-built, older building and the walls are very thick-and I'm claustrophobic. I had to really yell to get anyone to hear me, and then they thought I was stuck in the elevator, so they were all outside the elevator door trying to get it open. It was funny once I knew somebody knew I was stuck in there. I think half the staff was in the ante-room before it was all over.

I'm not a person who carries her cellphone around all the time, but I think I could become one. 

Okay. Back to work! I guess the rest of the day will be dull.

AMDG

Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings on NPR

I haven't had a chance to listen to this yet, but I thought some of you might be interested.

UPDATE: Okay, that was a great interview. Listen if you have any interest at all.

AMDG

A Few Spring Things and Some Other Things

For some reason, actually many reasons, I just could not get to work on time this morning. A few things happened to slow me down, and then when I was about 20 minutes down the road, I started wondering if I'd remembered to take my blood pressure medication. I couldn't remember taking it. Then I had to debate with myself about whether or not I was going to go all the way home to take it, and eventually I did. I was really glad when I got there because it was the time of the birds. I'm not sure exactly what time that might be, but this was definitely it. I couldn't see very many, but I could hear them, and for once, I remembered to record them. And so, ladies and gentlemen, here they are:

 

About twenty seconds in, you can hear an owl, and then there's something cawing in the distance. It was very difficult to drag myself away from all this just to work all day.

Spring is proceding apace. Lots of these showed up this morning.

And a few of these

Although I'm afraid half of my azaleas are dead.

And there was this.

Since we have neither a body of water, nor fishermen, it's a bit enigmatic.

The cow egrets returned to dine with their friends.

I really need a better camera.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And the other things. On the way to work this morning, I would have sworn that there were mountains in the distance if I didn't know that there aren't.

It was really much more pronounced in person.

Poor man's Magritte

Ceci n'est pas une porte.

Came across this while driving around on my retreat, about which more later.

Just when I was wanting fish guts

At the rest stop

Behind the security shack at the rest stop

But goats, goats are okay.

And I almost forgot to add this comment which was left for the very short post from yesterday in which I requested someone to hold hot coals to my feet to make me write. It was too good to languish unseen.

Thanks so much for this. I'm a writer out of Creil, Netherlands and what I just read here on blogger couldn't be written any better.Reading through this article reminds me of my previous roomie, Burton. He persistently kept preaching about this. I most certainly will send this material to him. Pretty sure he will have a good time reading this. I am grateful to you you for revealing this. It's made me remember the reason why I loved this blog so much.Thanks for keeping it going, I'm gonna start checking back more frequently. How often do you update your blog.Feel free to surf to my site.

Obviously, some people can read a lot into a blog post. I'm not sure I would want to have a roomie who persistently preaches about burning feet with hot coals.

AMDG

Which of you would be willing to come to my house and hold hot coals to my feet until I write something?

AMDG

Justice and Mercy: True Grit and The Night of the Hunter

The 2010 version of True Grit may be the best new movie I've seen in the past twenty years. It's the first movie that I can remember watching twice in a week since I sat in a theater in 1965 and watched Help! two times in a row. Shortly after my first viewing of True Grit, I read an item posted on MereComments by James M. Kushiner about a review of the movie by Stanley Fish. One of the commenters, Nick Milne, suggested that The Night of the Hunter would be an excellent companion piece to the new movie, and he mentioned that it was one of the Coen Brothers favorite movies, so I immediately ordered Night of the Hunter from Netflix and found that, yes, they are very companionable--one almost might say made for each other.

The movies are filled with parallels and opposites. There's a murdered father; there's a murdered mother. There's a daughter that's hunting a murderer; there's a son who is running away from one. There are two boarding houses, one run by a woman who is so stingy that she charges Mattie for a flour sack to hold her gun, and another who lavishes her possessions and affections on any stray child that comes along. Both of the murders are marked: one has the words love and hate tattooed on his knuckles; one has a mark on his face. One child seeks vengeance; the other demands mercy.

And then there are the apples. The first time I watched True Grit I noticed a big, beautiful bowl of red apples sitting on a table in the boarding house where Mattie Ross is staying. The camera stayed on the bowl just long enough to convince me that they were supposed to be noticed. And, of course they are apples, which cannot help but convey a message of temptation. These are very tempting apples. When Mattie leaves the house, we see the bowl again. She takes some of the apples. She seems to be stealing them. Near the end of The Night of the Hunter (In some ways True Grit almost seems to be backward from Night of the Hunter.), we see a very similar bowl of apples, and the boy, John Harper, takes one, but he uses it in a very different way.

I don't want to spoil the movies for those of you who have yet to see them, so I won't say much more, except to note two other similarities that Nick Milne mentioned in his blog comment. He said that the song that the murderer, Harry Powell, sings all through The Night of the Hunter is the same hymn that provides the melody for almost the entire score of True Grit. Milne also wrote about,  "...the ethereal silhouetted horse-and-rider-at-twilight sequence[s]" in both movies.

Separately, each of these films is worth watching. Together, they are really fascinating. Just sitting here writing about them makes me want to watch them both again, back to back, and I would encourage you to do just that.

AMDG