Taxing Creatures

Since I had yesterday off for the President’s Day holiday and there was no snow for the first time in three days I had some free time.  Or so I thought.  I used the time to descend into the personal hell that is income tax preparation.  I shouldn’t complain because it is so much easier than it used to be.

There is no more running to the library hoping they have the right forms or trying to understand the arcane language of the tax code distilled down to the instructions on the form.  I just sat at the computer, downloaded the tax preparation soft ware and starting plugging in numbers. 

Since my children finally convinced me to bank digitally I easily accessed the records I needed there.  This is the one day of the year that I truly appreciate my wife’s generosity and inability to say no to organizations looking for charitable donations. 

It was easier than ever and I found I had time to work on the puzzle that I started on Sunday and completed watching the first campaign of the series Combat!  I also continued my walk down culinary memory lane by baking two beef pot pies.  These things were a staple of my diet as a single guy.  I could easily have over a dozen of them in my freezer at any one time before I acquired spousal supervision of food intake.  Since my wife, for some reason, doesn’t want me in an early grave, these are not permitted in my normal diet.  She did seem a little miffed when I reported my malfeasance in our daily phone call.  To rub some more salt into her wounded pride I also made a marble cake.  I figure if I’m going to get yelled at anyways – I should really go for it.

I had an extremely nice conversation with my son who’d down in Virginia for the week.  Neither of us enjoys long phone conversations but for some reason yesterday was different and I think we both enjoyed catching up after his trip to visit his mother in Panama.  He seemed pleased when I told him that his mother was exhausted.  He felt it was justifiable after the fatigue she imparted to the MEG (who seemingly never gets tired) and him last week.

 Since Buddy was acting a little morose after the departure of his morning walking partner I let him ride with me in the car on a couple of errands.  The first was delivering a bag of his poop to the vet’s for a fecal test.  Buddy seemed fascinated by my attempts at retrieving the sample.  I thought it would be easy since it was frozen.  Or so I thought.  After washing my hands seventeen times we mounted the vehicle and Buddy assumed his position – nose to the breeze.  He resented the fact I didn’t let him accompany me into the grocery store. 

Since the crazy New England weather calls for a big rain storm tonight I went to the movies last night.  The pickings were a little slim so I went to see a movie I wasn’t really sure about – Beautiful Creatures.  I feared this might be some sort of Twilight (which I loathe on a very basic level) rip off since it involved witches and teenage angst.

I was pleasantly surprised and actually enjoyed the movie a lot.  In the previews I thought the male lead, Alden Ehrenreich, looked a little goofy.  He turned out to be the real strength of the movie.  The kid has a lot of screen presence and reminded me, a lot, of a young Leonardo DiCaprio.  The movie was well made, great special effects, superb supporting cast, and although it slows down immensely in the middle third it was an entertaining way to spend the evening. 

Suprisingly Good Flick

Puzzle Progress

Buddy in the Car!

Nose in the Breeze

Desperately Trying to Convince Me to Let Him Go into Supermarket

Pot Pies!!!

Marble Cake - Yes!!!!!!