35 million of us

This is now many people are filing at the last minute. This is how I have been every year of my life. It really ruins the days approaching April 15th. Tax preparation, like cooking dinner, can expand to fill up all of the available time. I did it and redid it and had great nashing of teeth, alternating between thinking it was IMPOSSIBLE for me to do and then perhaps possible. I just don't like the RESULTS...as in owing almost $4000. BUT, I am going to pretend I didn't notice that you should pay penalties for this. (Isn't that just like adding INSULT to INJURY!)
All is not lost. I shall proceed to ask Social Security to take hundreds of dollars from my measly paycheck each month so that I can come out perhaps about even next year. Came to the library and attempted TaxAct, a free service. But I kept going around in circles and getting sort of like error messages. Then I switched over to fillable forms, but that got on my nerves, too. SO, I am back to copying each form over in blue or black ink and sending it by US mail. See, once I go online, I will no longer receive the booklet in the mail and I really look forward to reading the booklets from cover to cover (twice).

The museum of extraordinary things (book), by Alice Hoffman. Liked the title and I like all fiction writers with the first name of Alice although I have trouble telling one from the other. The book takes place in the New York of the early 1900's and the Hudson River figures prominently. Also freak shows and the Triangle shirt waist fire and mean fathers and daughters who swim like mermaids and want more out of life.

Today went on an excursion with some friends...to the National Archives of Philadelphia (a well kept secret) and to the Reading terminal market. We went to see an art exhibit called Archives alchemy. The archives was getting rid of a lot of stuff...books, papers, microfilm. They donated it to an artist group called the Dumpster divers and suggested that they make ART from those materials. My friend had one of the best ones.....they really used to wrap things in cotton and secure them with cotton RED TAPE. She somehow got words on the red tape and hung it like a door screen, weighted down with US and foreign coins. It was called, "No scissors sharp enough to cut the red tape of immigration". There was a lamp decorated with microfilm and microfilm reels going all up the pole. The exhibit has been extended until the summer and the end will coincide with the closing of this branch of the archives. They will be merging with another location which is in some far away Northeast section of Philly. A handful of archive locations are being closed down for budget cutting. Sad.