Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Feeling like a sausage again

I have lost the feel for losing weight. Clothes are getting tight again. It is just so much work and deprivation to eat the right things.

Have NOTHING check out on my library card right now. THAT feels weird. Resisting the impulse to pick something up. I need to concentrate on the 5 books I am reading right now before I get one more.

Murder of a stacked librarian (book), by Denise Swanson: Picked this up as I thought it was a library series. Instead, it turned out to be a murder series. Just happened to be a librarian this time. I found that I have read her before. About an investigator who lives in a small town and has a lot of relatives. Usually, she is deciding amongst various men, but now she has married one. Most of the chapter titles had something to do with books. The murdered woman was a stickler for the rules, libraries being just one of the places where she exerted her wrist slapping behavior. So, there were a bunch of people who she pissed off.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Every pose is not for every body

So says my Yoga instructor. It was good to be back at Yoga today. What a good way to start out the week....with a Yoga class at 10:30 AM on a Monday. A co-worker asked me how I get out of bed being retired. I realized I have something to do every day of the week that gets me up and out. Lazing about in pajamas has only been a "problem" a few days.

I am in the cocoon which is the computer lab at the Ocean City Public Library. Good things are nicely behaved people and you can have up to three hours of computer time. I don't mind asking dumb questions since I don't know anybody. I always feel like I am being a PAIN at the local libraries where I know everyone. Hope I don't forget to pick up my book, which is the reason I came down here. For the price of the gas, I could have BOUGHT the book, French women don't get facelifts.

Tried to go for walk on the beach, but it was mighty windy and cold, as I might have expected. Beautiful, nonetheless. Walked for about ten minutes with shoes on. Ankle felt OK, but felt a twinge in the right hip by the end. I don't want to be one of those people who has a hip or knee replaced or has to have a triple bypass. All of that would be HIGHLY inconvenient since I am a single lady living on the second floor.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Spring has sprung

Such a delight to walk outside and see sprouts on the trees. Even on my dogwood about that I suspected of being dead the other day. OK, I only have ONE daffodil on all of those green sprouts in the back yard, but now I know they ARE supposed to be daffodils.

Under the Tuscan sun (book), by Frances Mayes - I REread this book in anticipation of trip to Italy this May. Getting in the mood for something old and charming. About a couple who buys an old house in Tuscany (wasn't it a SINGLE woman in the movie?) They spend a fortune on renovations and are back at work in California much of the time. Goes into detail about construction gone wrong and wonderful meals and exploring trips.

Tomorrow is Easter. Playing the chimes and singing three songs with the choir. Gotta come up with something pastel-like to wear. Looking forward to the flowers and perhaps a taste of Easter candy? Not so much fun since our local candy store went out of business.

Monday, April 14, 2014

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.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

The masochism that is doing your own taxes

Why am I doing this? Is it FUN reading the booklets from cover to cover each year, twice? Am I good at math? No, no and no. Double checking my numbers in order to get the amount down that I owe, I am only finding mistakes that take me in the wrong direction. Certain mind fucks like....why do I have to pay taxes on dividends and gains NOW and then again when I cash them in? It seems wrong, so wrong. Just learned about a new form, 8949, so you can summarize from this one onto schedule D. Why did I ever think that my life would get less complicated after retirement? It still seems to be getting worse every year. I seem to owe over $3000 and that is giving me a royal pain in the ass.

We are water (audiobook), by Wally Lamb: It seemed way too long. Excruciating in spots and I wanted it to be over. Then it got OK again. Story is told from too many viewpoints and jumps around in time. First I liked it as it just went from husband to wife and you saw how they got to be the way they are. Then the kids got into it and the new girlfriend and the evil cousin. The basic theme is family secrets and how they mess up generations of people. I felt a bit more sympathetic when I listened to the interview with the author and found that he teaches writing in a women's prison and has second-hand knowledge of abuse issues with a great proportion of the prison population.

Warm today, too warm. We had guests at breakfast, which was very nice since out breakfast club has been decimated by illness and death. Sat out in the back yard as I ate my lunch and was pleased to hear only birds and cars, no barking dogs or cursing neighbors. My neighbor left me a variety of gorgeous daffoduls in a honey jar. He's a sweetie.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

ERRANDS...(what I do best)

Recent legal news about a photography company which is being FORCED to take pictures at a gay wedding. Why would you even WANT someone opposed to gay marriage to be photographing you? How could they even do a good job?

Tao: Phoenix rising (performance group): Japanese drumming including dance, cymbals, flute, costumes. It was truly special. High energy made me want to go to Japanese drumming camp (if there only was one!) I loved the whole androgyny thing they had going...all part of the tao. White and black, good and evil, feminine and masculine, positive and negative. All things are really their opposite or eventually get back around to that. I loved the women not acting ladylike: dressed in gorgeous floor length white gowns with bustles and slamming the drums with all of their strength. Men with long hair dressed in skirts. Touring from Japsn and passing through Vineland, New Jersey. I thought of about 20 people I should have invited, who would have loved it.

Amish businesses have a 95% success rate and they only have an 8th grade education. What is the secret of their success?

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Crossing three things off of my list

Got online - a daily need (like sunshine). Completed arthritis class this AM. The good thing about an 8 AM exercise class is that you can cross it off the list. A friend took me out to breakfast and then we went to see the Muppets most wanted movie. Seeing a movie is a weekly goal of mine.

Big beat Miami 2014 (album), by David Guetta and a lot of friends. Enjoyable as techno background but no songs that really speak to me and say SAVE ME on Youtube.

Muppets most wanted (movie): Funny with lots of famous people on for about 3 minutes each and good songs. Then I went to Hoopla and was able to borrow the album, which made me very happy. Nice seeing the Muppets travel around the world as I like seeing the world. Went with a friend to the early show (11:35 AM) and we were the only people in there so we could laugh as loudly as we wanted to without bothering anyone. It is very disorienting to come out of the movie theater and it is only the middle of the afternoon. Particularly enjoyed Tina Fey. Usher was....an usher. We had to get the popcorn, even though we had just had breakfast, because it was $2 popcorn Tuesday.