Taxes. The day is come

Doug just went to the post office to drop off our envelopes filled with our taxes. Seeing as we live in Massachusetts(*), I don't think the post office is open today, so he'll swear like a sailor and perhaps hurl a brickie-mart through the window, and come home angry.

Or, perhaps just because today is tax day, they'll have someone on duty to postmark everything for the taxes. Perhaps, but I think I'd be dreaming.

(*) Living in Massachusetts means today is "Patriot's Day," and every state office is closed. The Boston Marathon also runs today, which means the news for the past week and for the next couple days is all about The BM. Seeing as I'm not interested in it, the TV is off. The news... web based and non-Boston sources. It is a "hack" holiday, as they call it. And one of the things I miss most about not working for the state.

Doug finished our taxes yesterday morning, we ended up owing a lot less than we thought we would have in his initial estimations. Which is good. We had saved aside about $3000, and it turns out we owe less than $2000.

Hurrah.

Some cushion in the bank account.

And if unemployment will finally get around to sending me the two checks that I've been waiting for (**) (well, in all fairness, one of them is for the card I mailed in on Friday, so I'll cut them some slack)... we'll have enough to make it through May. I will by then, hopefully, have been paid for two websites, and life will be good, because then we'll have enough to make it all the way through July.

(**) I called unemployment last week just to inquire why I haven't gotten a check yet, and was sent through one of those infuriating voicemail systems that tells you nothing but thinks it has let you know what you need to know. And then it hangs up on you without giving you an option to register further queries. The system told me my "claim is being researched," which is total bullshit because there is NOTHING to research on me. I've now gone without a paycheck for 4 weeks, DET assholes. Send me some unemployment money! I want to be on the dole for a change!!! I tried calling back to get a person, but the only people who answer are the really nice people who initially take your call and get your claim set up. Then, you're screwed. The really nice initial talking people don't take follow up claims questions. They transfer you to the ... soul-devoid auto-liar. So I'm pissed at them right now. Ooooooooo. Barnacles!

After the taxes were done, Doug needed some outdoor activity so he attacked the yard with a vengeance. He's much better at yardwork than I am, and the outdoor area of our home looks much nicer. We have to get plants to start the garden. Today Geoff "planted" squash seeds all over the yard, I'm not even sure where he put them. Some are near the bulkhead to the basement. Some are near where he dug a pirate hole this past winter.

Regardless, I anticipate a ton of summer squash plants to be springing up all over. Geoff loves gardening, so this year we'll have a good garden. It is a task he likes doing, involves dirt and digging, and he likes to see the results when the flowers or veggies grow up. Then, he likes to pick them. Sometimes when I don't want them picked. But we'll see if this summer he understands better about when to pick and not to pick.

Everyone is home for school vacation week, which meant I didn't get to watch any of the crap TV I enjoy watching to make myself feel better about my own life (ie, Jerry Springer...) but I did watch a ton of Nickelodeon and Disney TV. Jessica is wandering around the house, bored out of her mind. I might take her bowling.

Doug got home and reported that the post office was indeed open, which is good, and he went to the butcher shop by the post office and got some grillables... steak tips, boneless pork tenderloins, chicken... and marinades for them. The butcher shop also has "the cheapest beer in town," and they aren't lying. Prices average about two bucks less a 12-pack than where I normally buy beer, so he bought some more for the larder. We're well stocked now. If only our vegetable garden was actually in full production. We'd never have to leave the house again!

There is a HUGE frigging cardinal in our yard this year. Holy cow. He scared the crap out of me this morning. I was looking out the window and he landed on the roof of the bulkhead. Everything was green green green all around and suddenly WHAM! big frigging red as sin bird right in my face.

I guess I'm easily startled.

I just saw him again in the apple tree, with his female... they are picking bugs out of the tree or something. Last year, we had red wing black birds and orioles in the tree. I hope they come back. They were delightful to sit and watch. Geoff has binoculars now, which Grandma Bonnie sent him for Christmas, so he's been walking around out there with them, checking out the wild world of springtime at the Way Out Inn.

Not much else to report really, there's not a lot going on. No good stories to tell. So I'll stop boring you and get back to laundry folding. Ciao.

ant infestation...

The weekend was a washout. Not because of weather, but because the good graces didn't smile upon us or our happy circle of friends with great luck. No. Not at all.

Aaron and Michelle were supposed to come visit. They dropped their transmission on their car. Seeing as they are all the way the heck up in Maine, and it was like Friday Night, we couldn't get ourselves together fast enough to get up there nor would we. They (A&M) had barely been at their house all summer, seeing as they were living out at Mount Desert Island while working with the parks service at Acadia, so they had kind of a messy house which needed some love and attention.

So we all opted to reschedule. Sadly.

Pictured above is Mr. Aaron himself, at his finest; a most intelligent, kind and loving rendering of him I think. HA! Aaron sent me this picture when I was grieving for Missy. He called me on the phone and said "Hey, check your email, I sent you something that will make you smile." The file name was something like "Tree.jpg" so I was not at all prepared for this. I actually laughed my ass off and started crying at the same time. Here's a guy who knows how to cheer a girl up!

That's a true friend.

Back to the story.

As you know,Geoff had a fever and was sent home from preschool Thursday... remember, we lost out on tix to the Pats/Deadskins pre-season game? Thinking this was your textbook little stomach bug, we (Doug) brought him home and rode the day out with him sleeping. That night he got ill (as in puking but no further details are necessary there... lucky for the babysitter we didn't abandon him with G-puke after all!) and I spent the night sleeping with him. Friday he was listless, we figured that was par for the course, and I waited to come down with whatever stomach bug he had.

He doesn't have one. He has an ear infection... come Sunday morning he was all crying and pulling his left ear and complaining that he couldn't yawn. So we got him to the doctor (thanks Dr. Barrett!) and got a prescription for amoxicillin. 48 hours later he's a new boy.

I think we would have been a whole ton of no fun at the way out inn if A&M had managed to come visit us. Geoff pretty much just walked around whimpering, and it was sad.

We did however get a closet cleaned out and organized books to take to the 2nd hand store. The closet is going to be a home entertainment center. We have to build in shelving and make it rock. I'm looking forward to that day.

I felt inspired after clearing out the closet. Empowered. Charged up.

I tore a fence out of the yard because of it.

We have a couple of old ratty white picket fences that are about 2.5 feet high, and they are so damn trashy looking. Doug refers to them as "shabby chic," but that's such a load of horseshit. They look like crap.

So I have been trying to convince him that one of the fences, the one over by the creek, had to go. I want to pull out the hydrangea, cut out the evil grapevine that actually has grown all up and around all the trees around our neighborhood (no lie) and cut back the tendrils on the black raspberries and blueberries.

That area is such a waste back there. It could be SO nice.

So Doug moaned and complained and said "we'd" do it later in the fall.

He went inside.

I started yanking on the fence. It pretty much came right the heck out, the total piece of shite that it is. He initially pretended to be hurt. Pretended is the key word. I didn't take him at all seriously when he protested. He whimpered like I was taking his teddybear away or something. Turns out he really was kind of angry with me. He let me know after I was completely done that he really did like that fence and he was hurt that I just dispatched it the way I did. I basically told him he was in need of counseling. I'm sick of living in a place that looks like it is half falling down. And my proactivity probably just shamed him.

I told him to get over it and move on.

I went back outside and all that was left was the bottom of the fence. I pulled it out and the whole thing was infested with ants. Crazy loaded with black maniacally scrambling ants!

I almost leaped out of my skin.

I didn't expect to see the wide Ant Diaspora of 2001 in my yard. An exodus caused by my hand. With creepy results!

I ran in the house to see if we had any Raid or anything. Doug shrugged and said to just pull the fence away and cart it out to the woods, chuck it out there before the ants could regroup and invade, thus eating us alive in our sleep as revenge.

In other words, "No, Ms. Stupid-ass For Pulling My Shabbychic Fence Down, we are out of Raid."

So I pulled all the parts of the fence together, threw them in the wooden cart, hauled them into the corner of the yard and chucked them all, piece by dreaded ant-covered piece, into the woods. I walked back around under the tree area, and pulled all the pieces back even further, just so they weren't visible from the yard or I would be sitting on the deck looking at broken nasty pieces of wood fence simply teeming with ants, thinking they were on their way to an organizational meeting on how to meet out their revenge by chewing me from head to toe in my sleep.

Shudder.

So now the fence is out. I've got some hacking and bushwhacking to do to clean the area out. I feel like it will be nice to have just a tad more yard to look at instead of something "shabby chic."

Not much else to report from this angle. I'll let you know if my sugar bowl is full of crawling little fiends later. Ugh. Shudder!