My life, for what it's worth, part 2

Hmm.  Last time I wrote I was all grumpy and tired.  And tonight I'm grumpy and tired.  I wonder if there's something about that that makes me want to write. Joe and I rarely fight about things.  The biggest thing we've fought about in 30 years is stuff.  He likes to save everything and gets very angry when I try to get rid of things.  Honestly, you'd think he'd been a deprived foster child who carried a garbage bag of his possessions from home to home, the way he carries on. Michael moved out of the house more than four years ago.  He left a ton of stuff in his bedroom.  Joe immediately started storing his things in there.  Whenever I would ask Michael to take what he wanted so I could clean out the room, he would say that he couldn't find his stuff because Joe had so much in there. Danny moved out more than a year ago.  He left a ton of stuff in his bedroom.  Etc.  Same story. I finally got sick of it.  All week ...

What a last day.  Tax season is always stressful, and the last day is always hard, but this one was particularly bad.  In a normal year I would have had things wrapped up on Sunday.  I worked hard all day that day and left feeling happy that I was all caught up.  I had a couple of appointments Monday, no big deal. Monday I came in to a full schedule, mostly procrastinators who knew they owed, waited til the last minute and were mad about everything.  Even some of my own clients, who started months ago, didn't come in to finish until Monday.  They wandered in without an appointment and wanted in depth planning and a nice chat, which would have been fine if they hadn't been piling up in the waiting room. Today I went through my list carefully and sent emails to a half dozen people who hadn't finished yet.  I did a return for a preparer who got the flu and couldn't get caught up.  She promised to pay me but I bet she won't.  I got a letter f...

Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that five people as different as my brothers and I could grow up in the same house with the same parents. Today four of us got together for Easter.  Two of the brothers there are extremely pro gun.  They went out and bought assault rifles when Obama was elected, because they wanted to have them in case he banned them.  One brother does hunt and shoot on a very regular basis -- I'm not defending his having one of those stupid guns, but at least he does use it.  The other brother hasn't been hunting or shooting in decades.  They started a loud discussion about their guns, and how nobody ever better try to take them away. Another brother and I are violently opposed to assault weapons being available at all to the public.  Both of us would vote to ban them entirely from the earth. The fourth brother is kind of in the middle, but he's the one who makes political discussions stop, and he wasn't there. And it went just...

Hard to believe we're halfway through February already.  Tax season is off to a frantic start, we're much busier than normal for mid-February.  Which is both good and bad.  Yesterday, for instance, my partner who doesn't like spending money looked at the schedule for today.  I was busy with appointments all day, but she wasn't, so she told the receptionist not to bother coming in.  I would not have done that, but I don't care.  I saw clients all day, and the phone rang and rang and rang.  A dozen clients dropped off paperwork.  And tonight my partner was bitching that she hadn't gotten anything done all day.  Hmmm.  I gently suggested that we not tell the receptionist not to come anymore. Yesterday we threw a big party for my mother's 85th birthday.  It was the usual annoyance.  I asked her what kind of party she wanted.  She obviously knew, but she wasn't going to tell me.  I thought it would be nice to have it at ...