Once Again--a Taxing Time

And here we are again: Taxing Time.

I dread it. Not because of the $$ I must pay (to our accountant [I'm too math-dumb to do it myself], to the various levels of government) but because of all the time it takes just to prepare to meet with our accountant.

Which will happen this week on Thursday at 1:30 p.m.

By working on this blog post, I'm already delaying what I know I must do. (I've gotten even better at this than I was as a dilatory schoolboy.)

I'm actually pretty good about keeping receipts organized, etc. I have a sort of accordion file box in which I keep things sorted by date and category. It looks like the pic below--but ours is black (appropriate: It matches my mood).

But each year around this time I have to go through that box, put things in envelopes and file folders, separate out the W-2s and 1099s and whatever.

Oh, and then I print out a tax report using Quicken, the home-finance program I've been using since the late 1990s. It actually saves me lots of hassle. Though never enough to make me smile--not during Tax Time.

Our mom used to do our family taxes--and she was "math-smart" enough to do it all. She would close the door to their bedroom/study, and pity the fool who would open that door on Tax-Prep Day. Even Dad knew better.

We tiptoed around the house, went out with Dad for supper (the A&W in nearby Ravenna, Ohio, was a favorite), and generally did all we could to avoid the Wrath of Mom. Which rivaled, I later learned via a film, the Wrath of Khan.

I'm much more public about it, here at home. I do the prep right on the dining room table, right where Joyce can see me, can commiserate and thank me every time she passes by--though I do think she doesn't come downstairs as often on Tax-Prep Day. Wonder why? (Not that I'm a needy guy, mind you.)

Anyway, it will all be over by late Thursday afternoon--and then I will wait for the call from our accountant's office, the call that says we need to come in and sign things. Or--worse--the one that says we need to come in and sign things--and bring our checkbook.

Sunday Sundries, 263

1. HBOTW [HUMAN BEING OF THE WEEK]: Chuck Wilson, a former Harmon Middle School student in Aurora (I taught him in 8th grade in 1985-86--in the same class as our son). Chuck now lives in Hudson. Yesterday, I looked up from my reading in the coffee shop--and there he was. He told me he'd learned I was having some trouble with my balance, etc., and he gave me his card and told me to call him anytime for any help we might need. (A confession: I wept.)

2. I finished two books this week ...

     - The first was a new novel (her second novel) by Téa Obreht, Inland (2019). It's set in, sort of, the Old West (Arizona in the late 19th century) and Obreht has two stories going (they overlap near the end), one about a boy named Lurie (who grows into a man), and he narrates his sections, telling his story to Burke, his camel. (This would take some explaining--read the book!)

The other story (in the 3rd person) is about a struggling family in Amargo, AZ, a family in the newspaper business, a family struggling to survive (there's a drought going on), a family caught up in a political battle as well about the railroad and their town. The focus is on Nora, wife and mother (whose husband is not around, to say the least).

So ... back and forth we go between our two principal characters--violence in Lurie's story, survival in Nora's.

The end surprised me. I mean, I had a whiff of what was going on, but I couldn't see what was cooking. Don't want to say more.

It's not an easy book to read (complications, shifting points of view)--but, once I got "into" it, I was hooked.

     - The second was a book I should have read a long time ago--Nathaniel Philbrick's graceful and full account of the whale ship Essex, a ship rammed by a sperm whale and destroyed, a ship whose story Melville knew, a ship whose story was one of the inspirations for Moby-Dick.

The survivors spent months in their smaller whaleboats in the vast Pacific--and near starvation, they resorted to cannibalism to survive. Only a handful did survive.

Philbrick, who, as you no doubt know, is a wonderful writer about maritime subjects (and he has some books on the American Revolution, too), and you can tell from the outset that you
are in the hands of an authority. So we get not just the cover story--but much background: on whaling, on Nantucket (the ship's home port), on seafaring in 1819-20 ... and much more.

Near the end I read of a local connection. It seems that another ship later discovered, floating in the sea, a chest that had belonged to Captain Pollard of the Essex; it was purchased by another whale hunter, whose daughter inherited it and took it with her to ... Garrettsville, Ohio, where she was living. (She later donated it to the whaling museum on Nantucket Island.)

Garrettsville, Ohio, where my mother taught for ten years (1956-66), where my younger brother graduated from high school (1966), where we, living in Hiram (three miles away), did virtually all of our shopping when I was an adolescent.

(BTW: Joyce and I got to meet and talk with Philbrick on Nov. 7, 2018, when he did a presentation at our local Hudson Library & Historical Society--a presentation arranged by archivist Gwen Mayer.)

3. Last night I went to see Bad Boys 3 (Bad Boys for Life) at the local Hudson Regal Cinema. Although the film's been out for a few weeks, the auditorium was crowded--but no problem in these days of reserved seating!

It was gory (no surprise), sometimes funny (no surprise), sometimes emotional (surprise), sometimes puzzling (the end is, to say the least, morally challenging!).

I thought, watching it, how common it has become for women to appear in kick-ass roles. This one had two women cops who scared me. Ferocious hand-to-hand fighters, crack shots, etc. It's a major change in the film culture during my lifetime. I'm not objecting, mind you--just observing.

Martin Lawrence has, uh put on a few, and even Will Smith is showing his years (as, of course, I am), but I still found myself laughing at the damnedest things--which, of course, is precisely why I went to see it ... well, that and the popcorn!

Not for everyone, but most in the audience seemed to be loving it. (Link to film trailer.)

4. We've started streaming the most recent season of one of our favorite shows--Vera--via Britbox. Good, brisk pacing, unique characters, great acting, clever plots (she's a cop), wonderful scenery (Northumberland in England).

5. Final Word: A word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers ...

     - from Oxford English Dictionary

literose, adj. Literary in a studied or affected way. [RARE]

Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymon: Latin litterōsus.

Etymology: <  classical Latin litterōsus well versed in literature, cultured, erudite <  littera letter n.1 + -ōsus -ose suffix1.

In quot. 1859 apparently: full of letters, elaborate.

1859 Athenaeum  12 Nov. 628/2 The whole subject of substituting the Roman character for the illegible, difficult, and, to coin a word for the occasion, literose alphabets of India.

1888  W. D. Howells in Harper's Mag.  Feb. 479/2 Daudet is always literose.

1928  G. J. Nathan Art of Night  9 Don't be afraid of slang if it will make your point better and more forcibly than literose expression.

1998 Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc.  118 566/2 Less successful, but similarly literose, are ‘commentary ad literam’..whatever that may be; and ‘questiones’ and ‘sophismata’.

Derivatives

 liteˈrosity n. the quality of being literary in this manner.

1887 Harper's Mag.  Sept. 640/2 What is notable in all the descriptions is the absence of literosity.

1981  W. Alexander William Dean Howells  ii. 49 By the same token, prose style and dialogue must avoid literosity and affectation.

Twitter Twaddle

For the past week or so--for a reason I can not comprehend--I've been getting email notices from Twitter that there's a new tweet I might want to look at. A tweet from Johnny Manziel.

If you don't remember, he was the Browns' #1 pick some years ago (2014). "Johnny Football." His career ruined by alcohol and other sorts of poor judgment. (I know this from the very little I've read about him.) So, yes, Johnny Manziel.

Why?

I don't follow him; I haven't checked, but I'm certain he doesn't follow me. (I just now checked: He is not following me!) I have very few, by the way--followers, that is. Millions shy of Pres. Trump's followers--and, I know, I'm far less interesting than he.

I don't tweet much. Every day I post links on Twitter to my two blogs (DawnReader and Daily Doggerel). But that's pretty much it.

So ... how does Johnny Manziel figure in all of this?

I can't imagine. But here are some guesses:

• He knows I grew up in Hiram, Ohio, where the Browns used to have the summer training camp (at Hiram College).
• He knows I used to be a big fan of the Browns. (I stopped watching football some years ago.)
• He knows I once reviewed a Terry Pluto book about the Browns (When All the World Was Browns Town, 1997, a book about the '64 championship season).
• He has a fondness for doggerel. (Hey, the Dog Pound!)
• He likes knowing there's someone who has fewer followers than he.
• On Twitter one day, he mis-clicked.
• On Twitter one day, I mis-clicked.

I felt sorry for Johnny Manziel, back when he was in the Cleveland news. A young man with powerful talent--but more powerful demons. As his career imploded, I remember hoping all would work out for him. I have no idea what he's doing now, but I'm guessing that it resembles in no way his dreams from boyhood and adolescence. And that, of course, is profoundly sad--for him and for anyone else who must surrender hope. 

Which, of course, eventually, is just about all of us.

Valentine Time

I just mailed some valentines from Joyce and me to our son, daughter-in-law, grandsons (Logan and Carson), and I confess I have a number of feelings:

• Guilt. I still have a pile of Christmas cards I haven’t answered. Joyce has asked me if I’m going to answer them (there’s a basket full of them by the kitchen door); I’ve said that I will. (Am I a liar? Or a gifted procrastinator?)
• Nostalgia. I remember our valentine activity when I was in elementary school back in the early 1950s. Our teachers set aside time for us to write them to our classmates—all of our classmates. No exceptions.
• Guilt. Though our teachers required us to prepare cards for everyone in the class, I would always pick the ... unpleasant ... ones for kids whom I didn’t like—or who didn’t like me. Is there a valentine with a skunk on the front? That one goes to Donald McDonald (real name), a kid who beat me up on the playground one day after school.
• Nostalgia. I miss sending cards to my mom and dad—both gone now (Dad in 1999, Mom in 2018). I used to have fun, picking silly cards for them, writing silly verses to include ... They must have wondered what kind of child they had brought into the world—though by that time they surely knew. Only too well.
• Nostalgia. Back in elementary school I would examine very carefully the cards I got from the girls I liked. A skunk on the front was bad news. A heart? Could be great news!
• Nostalgia. We boys back at Adams School had multiple “girlfriends,” and we numbered them (I generally had three at a time). A shock to learn the girls were doing the same thing with us boys.
• Nostalgia. Joyce and I have often gone out to dinner on Valentine’s Day. But in recent years we have an agreement: nothing special on the day. So ... I don’t have to worry anymore about getting a skunk-card from her. (I never did—I’m just being ornery.)
• Regret. I have not saved a single valentine from boyhood. Not from my grandparents, my parents, my other relatives. What a jerk!
• Hope. I want another Valentine’s Day with Joyce. I want many of them. I want ...

Oh well ... HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY TO ALL WHO DARE VENTURE TO THIS SITE!

Pursuit of Dizziness

When I was younger, “Dizzy” was a nickname some famous people had—the great MLB pitcher Dizzy Dean (1910-74), the jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.(1917-93). And in my boyhood, the term was one we’d use for someone who was a little, well, weird. “That kid is dizzy”—that sort of thing.

Well, it’s now a nickname I’ve kind of given myself—not because I’m odd (though I am) but because I now have to battle with actual dizziness throughout the day.

As I wrote here another time, I’ve had to give up (temporarily, I hope) my (dreaded) practice of going out to the local health club/gym most afternoons. I’ve fallen a couple of times out there—not doing anything too dramatic, just walking laps around the indoor track. Going there has just gotten, well, dangerous for me.

It’s gotten worse over the past year, so our family physician is now dealing with it. Back in 2017 I went through a bunch of tests for her—including a brain MRI. Inconclusive. (I love telling the story that the report after the MRI said that my brain was “unremarkable.”)

After those tests, I just ... dealt with it ... as best I could. I had already discovered that I was fine lying down, pretty fine sitting, not-so-fine after being on my feet for, oh, ten minutes or more.

There are some suspects: my BP med (she had reduced my Rx by half, but I’ve not really noticed any substantial improvement). My pulse is low—in the 47-50 range most of the time. That can be a problem.

And, as I’ve said, I’ve taken some falls— not only out at the gym but in the house (nothing drastic) and outside. I had a fairly bad one a week or so ago—the ice on the sidewalk was no help! I wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t get up (I had a heavy backpack with me), so I called Joyce, who fortunately was home (only about thirty feet away!), and she came out to help me up—brushed snow from my coat, brushed shame from my dignity. (She’s really good at that—an has had a lot of practice in our half-century together.)

So far I haven’t really hurt myself—bruises to body and ego—but here’s the complication: One of the cancer meds I’m on has the delightful side-effect of weakening my bones. (I’m taking other meds to somewhat counter that problem.) So, naturally, I worry that some mild fall will have a not-so-mild consequence. I’ve been lucky.

So ... we’re going to pursue some more testing, including another brain MRI in a couple of weeks (painless—but frightening). I’ll settle again for “unremarkable,” believe me.

And all I can do is hope that the tests reveal something that therapies can remediate. It’s a horrible thing, having to be circumspect about every step I take, lying down frequently throughout the day to recover lost balance, feeling that I’m becoming more and more dependent, less and less able to bear my share of responsibilities at home. Etc.

As I said, I have learned to cope (somewhat), but I despise this period of being Dizzy Dan, who can neither pitch nor play the trumpet.

Midnight Rambler

Remember that song? "Midnight Rambler"? The Stones? 1969 (the year I got married!)? (Link to song.)

Well, when you get, uh, older, the term midnight rambler has a bit of a different meaning--a meaning involving a trip-in-the-dark to you-know-where. (I know: TMI.)

Anyway, last night, back from a Midnight Ramble, waiting for Morpheus to welcome me back into his soporific arms, a name popped into my head.

Harrison Bergeron.

And as I lay there--my whirling mind keeping Morpheus away--I could not for the life of me remember the source of that name.

Time passed.

A character in a story!

That I remembered. But what story? And by whom?

I fell asleep. About an hour later I woke up again--time for another (post-)Midnight Ramble. And when I returned to lie down, the author's name returned to me: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Yes, it was Vonnegut who wrote the story "Harrison Bergeron"; it was a story that I sometimes read aloud to my students when we were reading another Vonnegut story ("The No-Talent Kid") in our 8th grade literature anthology--all this later in my public-school career: 1990s. Vonnegut first published the tale in October 1961, but I'd found it in his story collection Welcome to the Monkey House (1968).

our copy

And then that story just flooded back to me ... (link to the complete story--it's not long!).

It's the story of a time in the future when the government has declared that everyone must be equal (i.e., mediocre). People who are talented must be government-handicapped in some way. Strong people carry weights around. Attractive people must wear masks. TV announcers have speech impediments. Intelligent people wear ear devices that blast harsh sounds at intervals to distract their thinking. Dancers and musicians must be ordinary. Etc. All this is enforced by the U. S. Handicapper General.

We are in the Bergeron family home--and their son, Harrison (no longer living with them), is enormously talented and attractive. And he, apparently, is rebelling.

He shows up at a TV studio where a talented ballerina, much handicapped, is going through a dance with others. Harrison strips her of her handicaps. And they begin to dance--defying gravity itself.

Then the Handicapper General shows up ...

It's a funny conception (Vonnegut was good at that); it's got a piercing message (Vonnegut was really good at that). Equality, for him, meant equality of opportunity--not equality in all we do or achieve. Who wants to watch a Super Bowl with a bunch of ordinary players? Hire an electrician who knows only that sparks can hurt? Listen to a band with average musicians? Look at works of art produced by someone like me (who has zero artistic ability)? Read books written by ... you know?

Anyway, I was glad to remember that story--hell, these days I'm glad to remember pretty much anything!

Let's end with a light moment. When I just checked the lyrics for "Midnight Rambler," I found this at the very beginning--and laughed when I realized its relevance for Old Guys like me:

I'm a-talkin' 'bout the midnight rambler

Everybody got to go …

Family Chores: Share and Share (Not So Much) Alike

Over our decades of marriage, Joyce and I have sort of divided up our household tasks and chores. We didn't prepare any list or anything (no visits to a lawyer's office to have something notarized), but things have just kind of ... evolved.

I've never really listed things before, so this may be a profound mistake. But here we go ...

• I load/unload the dishwasher.
• Joyce does the laundry--and puts the clean clothing away.
• I prepare our income-tax information and meet with our accountant (I know: This occurs only once/year, but it's still odious and time-consuming, right?).
• Joyce circulates around, emptying the waste baskets, carrying the refuse out to the re-cycle or trash bins.
• I do most of the cooking. (She prepares the weird veggies she likes + her salads.)
• I do the snow-shoveling (well, I used to ... my "balance issues" have made this more difficult, so Joyce does some of it).
• Joyce deals with the service and repair people who come to the house. This can be a major enterprise ...
• We've just had a our wooden-slat fence in the backyard replaced; took a long time (months); Joyce handled all of it--dealing with the builder, etc.
• I wrote the check.
• Joyce and I change the bedding together.
• Joyce and I do the grocery shopping together.
• Joyce wraps all our gifts--birthdays, Christmas, etc.
• I do all the baking.
• Joyce gets the cars washed now and then.
• I pay all the household bills (with her financial contributions, of course).
• Joyce takes care of all the plants outside. (We have a lawn service for the mowing, etc.)
• I make sure to wind all three of our mechanical clocks.

I'm starting to run out of things that I do, so I think I'll stop right here. This way it looks, you know, more balanced.

When, in fact, it's not. For she, of course, is the heartbeat of the house. And how do you match that?

You don't.