Happy Birthday Mark

Today is Mark's 10th birthday. I don't have any babies any more, even if I insist on calling my adult children and my "tween" baby. Mark, Bob and cousin Roslyn are at the movies --- Prince Caspian. Mark and Bob read (well, reread) the book so they would be ready for the movie. At first they read together, but they finished it up separately. I am making a cake and preparing for tacos and tostados for tonight.

It is a tradition in my family to tell embarrassing stories on someones birthday, but I think I'll forgo that. Mark doesn't like it when he is the star of my stories. I've told him he has to live with it. I like to tell Mark stories because he constantly amazes me with his insight and his cleverness. He is funny and kind, smart and witty, and cute as a button. I expect him to grow into a fine, caring, independent young man, as my other sons have done and are doing. I'd feel smug, but I often wonder at them. How did they become such wonderful people? Good men. Good friends. Good sons.

Luck and love and laughter. That's all I can figure. It sure wasn't home cooking.

Wrapping up the year

Next week is the last week of school. The children are taking the second half of the PACT this week. PACT is the SC mandated test to see what our children know. Unfortunately, it's a "gotcha" test. No one is allowed to know what will be on the PACT except that it will cover "The Standards." The standards are broad and deep and impossible to cover in a year, especially if the children need to actually learn the information. Another problem with the PACT is that the results will come out in the fall and will be reported as basic, below basic, proficient, and advanced. Whatever that means. As a tool for assessment, it is useless. Students and teachers don't know what skills and knowledge are lacking and even the broad "basic/etc." scoring doesn't come out soon enough to be meaningful or helpful.

At Carolina School for Inquiry, the preparation for the PACT is a low-stress process that is supposed to familiarize kids with the test format and understand testing as a genre. Since one of the reasons we started an inquiry based child centered charter school was that we were concerned that regular public schools were teaching to the PACT rather than for life after the test, it is frustrating to have the PACT as such an important indicator for us. "Yeah, it's great that the kids are happy learning and that they seek out new opportunities and that they can tie together knowledge and skills from all areas and apply it in life. But what do your PACT scores look like?"

Frustrating, but a fact of life. We may not like it, but it's there. It is to be hoped: 1) that our students will show their learning on the PACT this year and 2) that our state will choose a test for next year that will provide accountability while giving a useful measure of learning. I'm feeling pretty good about both of those things.

Now appearing in the role of Ophelia...

When I was a child, we went to visit my mother's sister and her family in Maryland every Christmas and every summer. I always loved the visits, except for one thing. My mother would change from the competent, active, intelligent woman I knew into an insecure younger sister. For at least part of the time, my mother would turn into a ten year old, her sister would turn 15 and her brother would turn 5. It wasn't pretty.

It isn't pretty when it happens to me either. Even though I spend more time with my father and siblings than Mom did with her family, I still have a role and I don't play it so well. Instead of being an intelligent woman, a good mother, a competent & knowledgeable accountant, a problem-solver, I become the bright but flaky and slightly unstable sister. Even though I haven't thrown an object at anyone in over 20 years, I am the fish-wife, the temper-tantrum thrower.

My brother and sister don't pin me to these roles as much as my parents did, and my father continues to do. Sometimes, I sense that they are disappointed in me and my choices, but it isn't crippling. However, I have realized that it is a waste of time for me to talk to my father about anything that is important to me. When I talk about the charter school which I helped start and for which I serve as board chair, he says, "why do you waste your time on that?" Recently he asked me about the tax consequences of selling his house and when I tried to explain, he picked up a magazine and sighed, "Never mind, I'll ask Pete (the non-relative he pays to prepare his taxes.)" I spend a good part of my days making tax consequences understandable to people who don't do math. I am known as someone who can explain accounting principles in English. But not to my father, who only hears an 8 year old who wants to watch the Monkees when everyone else wants to watch something else.

I would like to say that it doesn't matter, but it continues to haunt me. When I need to ask for something or stand up for a point of view, I hear a voice telling me that I am a fish-wife and I am never satisfied. When I succeed, the voice points out how lucky I am and that luck can change. My inner sound track is "don't get too full of yourself." It plays in chorus with "pretty is as pretty does."

I can work on changing the song, but I'm not going to change my father's picture of me. Since there are more good things about visiting than bad things, I'll continue to visit. But I will check myself at the door, and not make the mistake of sharing hopes or fears only to have them used as further examples of my foolish inability to deal with the world. But I really really need a new theme song.

Happy Birthday Dad

Yesterday was my father's 77th birthday. Today, we are having a party for him. Many friends and relatives are coming from all over to be here. It will be a wonderful party.

His two sisters are coming, along with his sister-in-law. Two or three of our cousins will be here. Old friends from Dad's work at USC will stand with students he has taught over the years.

I am making mini-cheesecakes. Jello no-bake cheesecakes. Back in the day, before we discovered baked "New York style" cheesecake, that is what we thought of as cheesecake. My father always had it for his birthday cake. For today, I bought a cheesecake sampler with rich baked cheesecake, but I am making the mini-Jello cheesecakes. The cakes will be served with a choice of toppings --- chocolate chips in chocolate syrup, fresh strawberries in melted jam, and caramel with pecans.

My other contributions to the party meal are also old standbys. Cocktail sausage in barbeque sauce (recipe: open package of mini-cocktail sausages; pour in a bowl with a bottle of Shealy's mustard based barbeque sauce; nuke til hot), Saucisse en croûte (pig in the blanket), and deviled eggs. My brother will make the fancy stuff: pesto torte & other stuff I can't spell but which will taste good. My sister is providing the place and contributing meatballs, veggie platter, and chicken salad.

A good time will be had by all, I am sure.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Doldrums

It is said that one shouldn't make big decisions during a crisis or time of stress. I'm not sure what that leaves, because I'm finding it hard to make decisions in the aftermath of stress time. I guess I need a vacation.

Tax season is over, and I am immediately hit with my LIST OF THINGS TO DO AFTER TAX SEASON. Clients, bless their hearts, do not understand that although I don't plan to wait until October 31 to do their tax returns, I need a freaking break, and no, bringing in a box of stuff April 12 did NOT give me enough time to get it done by April 15.

My house needs attention pretty soon. My new car needs an oil change (it actually tells me these things, which is sort of cool.)

I have planted some seeds in my incomplete accidental garden, but I don't have the cash flow I'd expected at this time of year and can't buy more plants right now. If the seeds I bought earlier grow, that will be nice. A surprise, of course, since my gardening method is to plant stuff and go away. I'd like to buy some tomato plants to plant in pots around the deck. Maybe the cash flow will improve next month.

Part of my cash flow problem is related to the purchase of a study program for the enrolled agents exam. I think it is a good investment. I've started working on it, and plan to finish the exam (three parts) by the end of July. July 30 is my birthday, so I've set that as a goal date.

I am torn right now. I can go to work a little (helping the cash flow and making some clients happy) or I can clean my house (helping my psyche and getting rid of that unpleasant odor in the garbage can beside my chair.)

I feel like a revving engine stuck in the mud. Where to go? Will I get moving before I run out of gas? And will someone please take out this dang trash can?

The First Day of Not Tax Season

It is the first day of Not Tax Season, and I feel fine. The temperature is near freezing, but will warm up. The birds and flowers seem to have appeared while I was gone. My pepper seeds are peeking out. I talked to a client who told me she'd have a new bunch of plants on Friday, so I may work on my butterfly garden.

I have lots of work to do. I have to prepare weekly payrolls and monthly & quarterly sales tax reports, catch up on bookwork. I have a few tax returns that were brought in the last week that need to be finished, even though the extension is until October. Then I'll go to my April 17 list and contact everyone I said I'd talk to after tax season. Sometime soon, we will pack up old files and clean the office.

But today, I am going in at 9 and leaving at about 1. I am cleaning my house and visiting my child's school. I am buying fruit and whole wheat cereal. I might even walk around the block.

3:25 p.m.

3:25 p.m. This is as low as my energy level can go without me actually falling asleep. This is the time of day when I think that siestas are a really really good idea. I go for caffeine and chocolate and walks in the yard. I would do jumping jacks, but my bra wouldn't hold up and I might put an eye out or something.

I wonder (again) why I think doing taxes is a good idea. Why do I have the one job guaranteed to make me miss out on spring? Why can't I be Santa Claus and do the heavy lifting in the middle of winter when I don't want to go outside anyway? Why can't I be a lifeguard? Other than because I don't swim all that well, of course. Why can't I be independently wealthy?

Huh, I must have fallen asleep. Better take a jog around the yard and get back to work. Where did I put that stack of 1099s?

Up for Air

It is sunny outside, as I can tell by peeking through the blinds. I think it's still cool, but the wisteria and forsythia have made their debuts. When I walk around the yard in the hope of clearing my tax-bogged mind, I can smell the wisteria wafting on the breeze.

Waft. I don't know what the word means, really, but it sounds like what wisteria's scent does. I'll walk across a yard and sense a light scent, a hint of licorice and sugar. I look around, but don't see anything until my mind remembers... look up. And there it is in the tops of the trees. Clusters of purple flowers, looking like extra bright grapes, high in the trees.

Sometimes the wisteria is too much for the tree, and the tree --- usually a pine --- will fall over, leaving the wisteria to hold it up until it snakes over to another tree or fence or house.

Once I decided to trim my wisteria so it would bloom closer to the ground. The main vine, which was about as large around as the pine tree, became infested with bugs and collapsed. I was sad, until a few weeks later, when wisteria started popping up everywhere. When the main vine collapsed, the little tendrils and underground root decided to seek revenge on my yard. Now the whole back yard has colonies of wisteria that won't go away. Of course, I like it, so I guess it wasn't so much revenge as rebirth.

My rebirth will have to wait another three weeks, until tax season is over and I can take my life off hold. In the mean time, I did manage to plant some seeds and root some African Violets, so maybe by the time I can look around again, I'll have some very nice things to see.

If you steal from many sources, it is called research

I have been reading other blogs, enjoying the writing, and stealing ideas. Well, maybe that's too harsh. I hope so. I am reading about things that are interesting and that I'd like to explore on my own? OK?

Annie at writers, witches and words (http://anniekelleher.blogspot.com/) wrote about journaling, and not being a journal writer. I thought that was interesting, and as always, amusing. For some perverse reason, I ended up buying a new journal that day.

I like to think of myself as a journal writer. I think I'm more of a blank book collector. I love the feel of a new blank book or even a plain old spiral notebook. Clean, clear, and ready for all of the ideas, hopes, angst and to do lists I can pour into it. I almost always buy a new pen when I buy a new journal. It just works that way for me. Some people match purse and shoes, I match pen and journal.

Most of my early journals begin: "This time I really am going to lose 10 lbs." My later journals begin: "My old journals began, 'this time I really am going to lose 10 lbs,' but this will begin with..." whatever.

I tried theme journals.

Journals of story ideas and poems.

A pregnancy journal. Unfortunately, that one ended prematurely along with the pregnancy. I decided not to do that again.

I found a journal I'd written when I was 20 and miserable. It was a bound book with a print of a lovely woman on the front which had been given to me by a very good friend. The book cover was red. For once, I wasn't trying to lose weight. I had copied poems I'd written earlier. They are not terrible at all. I had written about how desperately miserable I was, and how I felt that even when I was happy it was just a short phase. I ought to show that to my counselor, huh? Anyway, I gave it to my son, who at 19 or 20 seemed to have similar thoughts. I don't know if he read it, and if he did, whether it reached him. I don't know what helps us get through those times. I didn't have Prozac and the beer didn't really help that much. He seems better now, but if he's like me, the thoughts are there still, eating at his faith in himself and his life.

But that's a different subject, and not necessarily my story to tell.

The new book I bought is also red. Red faux suede --- that's what the label said. I bought ultra-fine Flair pens to go with it. I wrote for two pages about journals. This is when I remembered a distinct advantage of blogging over journal writing. My hands cramped and my handwriting started to look like the scribblings of an old drunk. Genteel and yet erratic. Sums up my life, really.

Most of my journals are four or five pages of writing and a whole lot of blank pages. Some books cover many years, with huge gaps in between. They are usually mundane, trite, and frankly boring.

But I keep writing. I picture my grandchildren reading the books and giggling. I wish I had journals written by my grandmothers. My notebooks will probably by tossed with the things that you can't even sell at a yard sale, but I'll still keep writing them and hoping there will be something for someone in there.

It's in my nature.

My Minivan is dead, and I'm not feeling so good myself

It would be wrong not to post on Leap Day. It's such an event.

The computers at the DMV went down, possibly because they couldn't deal with February 29. Maybe not. No one else seems to have a problem. Maybe they are down in sympathy to me.

My minivan died. Really and truly. The minivan that has carted my growing boys and their growing friends around Columbia for the past 10 years is dead. The minivan that carried me, Bob, and Mark to New Mexico and back is kaput.

That was really my car. I saw an Internet video --- probably you tube --- called "Mom my car." A group of people sat around and talked in great seriousness about how to "Mom" a car. Like some reality show I've never seen, I think. They strewed french fries under seats, sprayed juice over the seats, stuck little toys in the air conditioning vents. One guy threw a ball at the car until "something broke." It was a funny video, but maybe you have to have a Mommed out Minivan to appreciate it.

My van's left passenger door fell off after a few years of enthusiastic opening and closings at the hands of boys who became men. It was on and worked fine unless some innocent offered to get the door and pulled it open ... and off. It almost always happened in the rain. What's with that?

I say it's dead, but it can technically be fixed. A new engine would cost about 5 grand. I don't know what the new door, rear light (where the door hit it when it fell off in the rain one day), and faulty electric system would cost to repair. It's already had a transmission transplant.

On the trip back from New Mexico, the car died in 5:00 traffic in San Antonio on the Wednesday before the fourth of July weekend. In a series of fortunate events, a nice man helped us move out of the middle of the highway. A nice 911 operator called a nice tow-truck operator who took us to a nice garage next to a nice motel with Internet access. We rented a car and enjoyed several days in San Antonio while the nice garage folk fixed our car, repairing it in time for us to get to Houston, then Columbia by Monday.

Since then, the radiator system had to be repaired as well. The head lights went out far too often, probably water on the bulb. But basically, a nice minivan.

Now I'll go back to work to earn enough to buy myself a new minivan. Some people think I should downsize. An Escort has been suggested... as if I can fit a husband, three sons (two about 6 ft tall), a daughter-in-law, a grandson, a niece and a father in a subcompact. What are they thinking? Where would I keep the juice boxes and bottled water?

I'll look at it, but I'd be lying if I said I had an open mind. When I down size it will be to a Karmen Gia. Something for me and my case of water and no one else. I'm not there yet.

I have been tagged, which is something that hasn't happened to me since grade school. But Annie http://anniekelleher.blogspot.com/ has tagged me and I'm it.



This is how it works:

1) Find a book closest to me with at least 123 pages.

2) Turn to page 123 and go down five sentences.

3) Type the next three lines into my blog.

4) Tag five other bloggers.



I will start by admitting that the book closest to me is the 2008 World Almanac, and on page 123 is the US Military payscale. Although interesting, and perhaps profound, I'm not typing the chart. So the next book is: Indigo Dying by Susan Wittig Albert.



"You don't need Les to rescue you and take you away, like some fairy-tale knight rescuing a princess out of a tower. You're on you own now, which means you've got to learn to be independent and take care of yourself. That doesn't mean you have to stop seein' Les, if that's what you really want to do. "



I tag:

Karen http://rose-gamgee.blogspot.com/

Lydia http://lydiasbalance.blogspot.com/

Carolyn http://avoidingstasis.wordpress.com/

Now, look, I'm breaking another rule. Although I've read some blogs, I don't know anyone else well enough to tag them. Hmmm. Oh well. Here you go peeps.

A Day Older Than George Washington

My mother was born February 21, 1936. Since she died in October of 2006, you don't have to worry that she will be upset that I've told you her age. In fact, even if she were still alive, it wouldn't bother her. Not really. She always told everyone she was 99 and that was that.

I remember the time I sat with her in the new dentist's office. I read over her shoulder as she filled out the form. When she wrote her age, I shrieked, "I KNEW you weren't 99! You're TWENTY-NINE." She shushed me and later told me not to tell women's ages out loud in public in the biggest voice you have.

"Why not?" I asked, admiring the genuine glass ruby ring I'd gotten from the dentist.

"Because it's not polite."

"Why not?"

"Because some women think it's bad to be too old."

"But not you, you don't mind being old," I said in shock.

I must have been a truly obnoxious child.

I found out many many years later that Mom did have one of those "turning thirty" crises. Her good friend died of breast cancer that year. She tried to quit smoking because, she told me with a dry laugh, "I thought it looked tacky to see 'old women' smoking, and old was 30." We both laughed, since by then, I was celebrating the 13th anniversary of my 30th birthday. She was still 99.

It was important to my mother that we remember her birthday. After a few years, she got prickly if we asked her what the date was. She gave me a saving grace, though. She told me that she was one day older than George Washington. At first I argued that it couldn't be true, but she insisted, in the same way she insisted that Santa Claus brought presents, the Easter Bunny laid colored eggs, and Hubert Humphrey would be president of the United States. So I quit arguing. It took awhile. I really was an obnoxious child. I can't remember when I realized that if I forgot the date of her birthday, all I had to do was look at the calendar. George Washington's birthday, February 22. Mom's birthday, the day before.

This worked for several years before the federal government stepped in to make my life more difficult. And although GW always celebrated his birthday on a Monday, Mom wasn't ok with moving her birthday around. I thought it would be very convenient to always have her birthday on Sunday. But she was funny that way.

It was ok as long as most calendars still had "GW's birthday observed" and "GW's birthday." Then many quit including the real date. Once again, I was in trouble. Finally, I just learned the date of her birthday. February 21. Or was it the 22nd?

Best laid plans

Last weekend I hibernated. I read two books, soaked in the tub, rubbed on vanilla lotion. It was probably a good thing, because my week was terrible. One small crisis after another. Rather than get anything DONE, I put out fires, outlined regulations to prevent future fires, talked to a whole lot of people, researched minutia, and ran gratefully out the door at 5:00 Friday.

Saturday, I was sick. I thought was a hangover, even though I've had more to drink and felt better. But it was more than that. I had fever, chills, a headache so severe I couldn't lift my head, nausea. As I threw up the last bit of bile in my stomach, my kitten Taz gently put his paw on my arm. I took it as a sign of comfort, although I'm sure he was saying, "Please quit messing up my water bowl."

Today, I feel better but not great. I can move my head, I ate cereal, bananas and oranges. I still have chills and I think I'll crawl back to bed now. One more fire to put out, then off I go.

Hibernation

I am in dire need of a snow storm or a bad cold --- metaphorically, at least. I don't want the power to go out & I don't want to feel miserable. I want an excuse... no, an absolutely unquestionable essential need to take a couple of days off and do nothing.

I want to go to the library and check out a stack of books that have no socially redeeming quality other than entertainment. Nothing thought-provoking, heart-breaking, or life-altering. Nothing with big words I don't already know. Maybe even something I've read before a few dozen times.

I want to go to the grocery store and buy canned soup, cheddar cheese, and artisan bread. Maybe some apples and oranges. And green tea bags, bottles of diet Coke, and LIMES.

I want to get my lavendar sugar scrub,vanilla shea butter lotion, and ginger bath salts.

Then I am going to make some tea and soak in the tub until the water will no longer run hot, my feet are pruned, and my children are banging on the door yelling that they have to pee and Dad just used the downstairs bathroom, so it will be a long long time before they will go in there.

Then I am going to put on my fluffy robe that my mother in law gave me for Christmas and my wooly socks that I crocheted for myself when I got cold and crawl into bed. I will drink tea and diet Coke with lime, eat cheese sandwiches, canned soup, and oranges, and read books with no redeeming social value.

Then I will get up and go back to work, to family, to play. And I will be smiling.

Tax Season

When my youngest son was little he thought there were five seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall and tax season. He still gets a sort of sad look when I say it's almost tax season. It means I won't be at his school every Friday. Every other Saturday morning is shot (although I never do much on Saturday anyway.)



But I get excited. I start planning for tax season in November. OK, sometimes I start planning in May. We have a pretty good system set up, but I like to tweak it. I think about the process, the checks & balances, the filing system. Every year, we get better.

But with the other things that continue to go on in life --- love, children, housework, tax season leaves very little time for creative activity. All energy goes into living and taxes. I guess that's metaphorically true of everyone, huh?

Happy New Year

The temperature outside is 25 degrees, which is quite warm for some folk, but really really cold for us in South Carolina. I get to see if my "light" L. L. Bean coat is ready for this. I think it is. After all, people in Maine wear light cotton sweaters in the summer.

It is time to get back to work. A real routine times 10, since it is TAX SEASON. Before filing begins, we will be closing books, preparing W-2s, and making sure we are caught up with all non-Tax stuff. Our fear that the tax season would be seriously delayed has been calmed. Only a few forms are affected by the delay. The IRS, monolithic bureaucracy that it is, has worked harder than Congress deserved to make sure the filing system will be in place. Although I'm glad we will be able to file most returns on time (mid-January), I am not sure the IRS isn't enabling Congress and encouraging them to continue to refuse to face tough issues. But for now, I don't care.

This holiday season has been nice, but not restful. I haven't had more than two days off in a row, and usually those days were so filled with obligations that they can't count as a vacation. I got some things done, but not close to everything. Maybe I have to be busy to get things done. Or not.

Christmas Eve

I just got back from finishing my shopping (I think.) It was pleasant, since there aren't many people brave enough to shop on Christmas Eve, but the merchants didn't know that. Lots of clerks, (relatively) few customers, and I am in hog heaven. The pickin's were slim, but I am a flexible shopper. And the Christmas ornaments at World Market were 50% off. I couldn't afford NOT to buy them! If I forgot anything, I'll wrap cash in Christmas crackers and let it go.

So now I am relaxing & thinking about wrapping. We'll go to my son's house and have a small family gathering with take out chicken and sides. They are going to Katy's family tomorrow, so we will just spread the season a little more.

Friends, family, and a paycheck that outlasted the giving. What more can we ask?

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Rainy days and Fridays

It is Friday morning. I hear the rain outside, but it is too dark to see. Since this is South Carolina, precipitation usually means it is warm. It may bring a cold front, but that will be crisp dry air that will make my hair stand up when I take off my hat. That's ok. It is Christmas, and it should be cold.

Yesterday, I went Christmas shopping. I've done it before, but it's always an adventure. My brother and I went to the Village at Sandhill, which as my son points out, is not really a village, even if it does have a horse and carriage ride. I've seen places like this in other cities, and it always makes me feel as if I am in Disney World, without the water rides. I expect to see Goofy and Cinderella. I don't. I do hear every version of little drummer boy ever made, but that's not necessarily a bad thing... once a year.

Two years ago, I was sick at Christmas time. Really sick. For two days before and two days after Christmas, I lay in bed and whimpered. Since I am a last minute Christmas person, many gifts went unwrapped if not unbought. Christmas eve, I arranged the presents, crying because I couldn't get it done. My husband didn't seem to see the problem, and that of course, made it worse. Christmas morning, I left the bed to watch my children open their gifts. Someone opened mine for me and I went back to bed while the rest of them went off to my parents' house and then to my husband's parents' house. I threw up and went to bed.

For a few weeks afterward, I found presents that had not been delivered. I handed them over with a shrug and an apology. "Sorry, I was sick. I lost 20 lbs." (Always looking on the bright side.) "There will always be next year."

It was my mother's last Christmas. She was sicker than I was. I couldn't see her, because I couldn't take the chance of infecting her in her weakened condition. And of course, we really didn't expect that to be her last Christmas.

Oh Well.

Today, I work, and get a paycheck to pay for some of my Christmas spirit. Then I go out again and shop some more. I am not sick; no one is, praise god. I will make my husband wrap presents or at least bring me rum-soaked eggnog as I wrap them. He may not see the point, but, god as my witness, he's going to pretend he does. I will see my father and siblings; think of my in-laws in Antarctica and Wild Dunes; and sing one more version of Little Drummer Boy.

bummer

Have I already named a post "bummer?" I really didn't plan to spend a lot of time whining. I know I said I would, but I didn't think I meant it.

I am having a lousy no good month. I am feeling sort of yucky... not really sick but with what my old doctor called "the grunge." A headache that comes and goes, sort of sore throat, no fever or anything that will help me garner any sympathy. Nothing that makes someone give me hot chocolate and say "You need to go to bed, honey."

I have been really irritable lately. Everything seems outrageously disproportionately unreasonably difficult. I can't get my e-mail to work, and somehow decided everyone was trying to cut me out of the conversation. No one loves me. I need to eat some worms.

I tried to do a job very quickly so I could get to a meeting, and there were so many additional things and I made so many mistakes that I had to fix that I pretty much decided I should resign and let them hire someone who knew her assets from a hole in the ground. I became convinced everyone wanted me to quit but was too nice to tell me.

I failed the business part of the enrolled agents exam for the fourth time, which means in reality, that I must start again next May, but meant to me that I am a moron who shouldn't be allowed near a balance sheet or a tax return and should consider mowing lawns other than the fact I'd probably break the mower. It doesn't matter that I passed the other two parts with relative ease and that most people say the exam, especially the business part, is brutal. I should be able to pass it.

And I have a zit.

I think I'll go to bed with some hot chocolate.

Oh look: "No misspellings found." Things are looking up.

Weathermen

Why do weathermen take credit or blame for the weather? Why do they say, "sorry, it's going to rain on Saturday, I hope that doesn't ruin your outdoor plans"?

Why do they use judgement words like "Good weather" or "Bad weather." OK, a hurricane is bad weather. I'll grant you that. But why do they call 81° in the second week in December "GOOD weather." It's not GOOD weather. Right now, I want rain, because of the continuing drought. And I want cold, because it's December, by god, and I want to wear my closet full of cute Christmas sweaters.

But no, the smarmy weather guy smiles and says, "I've ordered some spring weather for this Christmas." Oh please. Send it back. It's not my size.