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

1.   What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before?   We bought a piece of property and are building a retirement home.   I haven’t talked about it here, but I love it so much, and it’s so exciting to see it finally coming together!   We’ve been talking about doing this for years. 2.   Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?   I don’t think I made any resolutions for this year.   I did a big overhaul a few years back, and mostly kept them, so I haven’t felt as much urgency. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Michael’s best friend, who is sort of like another son around here, and his wife had an adorable little girl this year.   That’s the only one I can think of. 4. Did anyone close to you die? My Uncle Jim.   Three of my favorite clients, two of them very unexpected. 5. What countries did you visit? None but the US this year.   I did get to go to Hawaii and Washington DC thoug...

The people in my house are weird about their cats.  Not me, I mostly tolerate them.  But Joe and Emily just lose their minds over them. It happened again last night.  I fed the pets when I got home.  They were all here.  A couple of hours later, Emily started looking for the girl kitty and couldn't find her.  She got Joe all worked up.  The two of them were tearing the house apart looking for her. Now, that particular cat doesn't try to get out.  If it was the boy cat, yeah, I could see maybe he sneaked out when someone came in.  But the girl doesn't try.  I figured she'd squirreled herself away somewhere and she'd come out when she was good and ready.  I continued with what I was doing. They went outside in the rain and were calling and calling.  Emily started to cry.  Joe was frustrated.  No one would believe me that the cat would come out when she was ready. And of course, eventually, the cat came out of th...

I spent most of the day in a snit.  I finally sent out an email last night to the people who haven't bothered to say what they want for Christmas yet.  I got a very snotty email from my sister-in-law saying she doesn't have access to the list, only my brother does.  If I'd given her access she'd have done it the first day.  She's very busy, blah blah blah.  I responded that I had indeed given her access on the first day (I'm sure she just ignored the email) and I sent her another link.  No response.  Then I got an email from my brother, her husband, that I really need to include her because he's just too busy to do these things. And then they all said they wanted Amazon gift cards.  Took a really long time to make that list. The other brother who hadn't done it made his list, and his kid who I am supposed to buy for wants a concealed carry holster.  I am wildly opposed to people carrying guns everywhere, and I'm not going to buy it. ...

Every year I say it, and every year I'm shocked at how dark and cold December is.  It's kind of like having a baby, you remember it hurt, but every time you do it again you're surprised how MUCH it hurts. So it's dark and cold and wet.  My arthritis hurts.  I came home at 3 yesterday, thinking I'd get some work done, and instead crawled into bed and slept for two hours. I've never had this much work in December, and I'm not sure how I'm going to get it all done before taxes start.  I've got five cases needing representation work, in various stages of completion.  I have two people who haven't filed for six years (each!) who need their books put together before we can start.  And will probably need some negotiating when we're done. One of my clients with the biggest messes was born in the same hospital I was, three days before me.  Since women stayed in the hospital for a week, we almost certainly shared the nursery for a few days.  Our ...

My siblings, in-laws and I have always exchanged gifts at Christmas.  We do a drawing for adults and one for kids, so everyone gets one nice gift.  For a long time we exchanged gift cards, because that's really what everyone wanted.  Last year, youngest brother said exchanging gift cards is stupid.  Everyone should give three ideas of something they would like, so everyone gets an actual present. I had a really hard time coming up with ideas, but I did, and it was fun.  So we decided to do it again this year. We drew names on Thanksgiving.  A Google doc was posted the same weekend for people to put their ideas on. Three families have ideas for every member.  Two families haven't even started.  Care to guess who one of the families is?  Why yes, it's the very same younger brother who came up with the whole idea.  I have him to buy for and also one of his kids.  They're taking a trip out of the country for a week between now and...

My company decided, back in August when it all seemed like a good idea, to buy a tax practice from someone who is retiring.  It's a good solid business and comes with a bookkeeper, which we needed.  I'm sure it will turn out to be a good decision.  But oh my god has it been a week. On Monday, the movers came.  They came to my office, picked up old stuff we wanted to get rid of, and took it to Goodwill.  Then they went to the other office, picked up computers and office furniture and etc and brought it to us.  My partner K was stationed at the other office.  I was at ours.  The third partner, J, has recently felt that she doesn't want to be as involved in managing the business, so she was sitting in her office doing I don't know what.  Don't get me started on that one. So the move went off flawlessly.  Then our tech guys came in and started moving computers around.  I am getting a brand new computer, which is great except that no...

My mother is a force of nature, as I may have mentioned before.  I really do love her, and feel so lucky that I still have her in my life.  But oh, my goodness, some days... This past summer, she told me that she really likes the clear lights that people are putting up on their decks around the neighborhood, and she wishes she could have some.  Absolutely, I said.  They sell them at Costco, I can get you some this weekend.  Oh no, she said.  I don't want to be a sheep.  Everyone else already has them, so I'm not going to get them. Okay, mom, whatever.  You're being ridiculous, but whatever.  She has mentioned several times since that she really likes them, but won't hear of me getting her any. At Thanksgiving, she was worrying that she didn't have her Christmas lights up yet, "everyone else in the neighborhood has them up already." Wait a minute, I said.  What about being a sheep?  Oh, it's different, she said.  This is...

Emily has been working as a sales clerk at Fred Meyer for a couple of years, and she was really hating it.  She liked the people, but hated the managers, and the men who think they're entitled to bother young women in the stores (and seriously, can you believe that is still going on?  What's wrong with us?) So at the beginning of the school year, she took a job working for the before and after school program at our local elementary.  There was supposed to be a site manager, and she would be the assistant teacher.  She was going to work 20 hours a week. The site manager was late every day for the first three days.  He fell asleep with the kids there.  He took some of the food that was intended for the low income kids and ate it.  Emily was horrified.  She told her manager, and there were complaints about him from the school, and by the end of the third day he'd been fired. Emily has been the acting site manager ever since, often working 40 ho...

My niece's birthday is Wednesday, so my brother and his wife decided to throw a family party for her tonight.  We had so much fun!  The Seahawks were playing Monday Night Football, it was a VERY exciting game that went into overtime and we won!  It was so much more fun than watching it alone at home while Joe worked overtime, which is what I would have done otherwise. This is the brother who had both knees replaced a couple of weeks ago.  At one point, his wife yelled "Oh Shit!" at the game.  In front of my mother.  My brother got laughing so hard he was crying, had to get up and leave the room.  It was hilarious. I bitch about my family, but we sure do have fun together.  It was a great evening.  Go Seahawks!

I don't remember if I ever talked about it here, but my youngest brother and his wife split up a couple of years ago.  I am 100% certain she is addicted to something, it's like her life did a right turn a few years ago and she became a different person.  She took up with a man who had already cheated on two wives (but he loves her, so he'll never do it to her!  ahem)  She left the kids with my brother and refuses to pay child support.  It's just been awful. Fortunately the kids are old enough to get it, and my brother is a very good dad.  Life has gone on. Yesterday he told us that she is supposed to have the kids for Thanksgiving, but she's told them she might make other plans.  Can you even imagine?  My brother is working a second job to get caught up again after he had to pay off half her debts, he'd planned to work that day four hours from home to get the holiday pay.  So the kids would have been on their own for Thanksgiving.  S...

Joe is the youngest of eight siblings.  Five are still alive and live in Indiana.  We are very fond of them, though we don't see them often.  One sister-in-law in particular has been around for most of his life, and has always been very loving and generous with him (and me!) That sister-in-law loves our President.  Today she posted half a dozen things on Facebook about how misunderstood he is, how God has put him right where he wants him to do the things he's doing, how we need to pray for him.  She even posted the one where he's hugging the flag with a silly grin on his face. I need someone to teach me how to make barf emojis.  I love her, but this is getting ridiculous.                      ___________________________________________________ I spent 20 plus years getting up at 6 a.m. to get my kids to school on time.  I am very much a night owl, but I did it because society expects us to ...

My brother had his surgery and is recovering very well.  However he can't drive for 12 weeks.  His daughter goes to the same high school Emily did, and apparently he's been driving her in the morning.  He asked if I could take her for the foreseeable future.  This will mean getting up about 6 a.m. again.  I thought those days were over.  But I said yes. Tonight I found out he's got my mother picking her up after school.  Why can't she take the city bus, I asked.  That's what Emily did.  It gets her kind of close to my mom's house, she can walk there and then mom can take her home from there.  It's the same bus I took when I went there, for that matter. Apparently the bus is not an option for her.  Hmmm.  I must be a very bad mother.  All my kids took the bus home from school.  I get driving them in the morning, but there's plenty of time and buses in the afternoon.  Ridiculous.  And my mother really sh...

Today was a sobering day.  I have a client who is dying of lung cancer at 61.  She never filed her 2014 tax return so the IRS did it for her and now they say she owes $400,000.  Her family wants to get this settled before she dies, and they brought me a big box of receipts to sort through and put things together. The receipts all smell of cigarette smoke, which makes me sad.  Projects like this really give me a snapshot into a person's life.  She ran a small restaurant.  In the box are complaint letters, business receipts, thank you cards, catering menus, you name it.  They threw in her personal stuff too, I found receipts for teeth whitening and facials and fancy haircuts.  The number of NSF fees is astonishing, one month she had over $1000 in bank fees alone. I wonder if she'd have made different choices if she'd known she had such a short time left.                    _____________________...

Wow.  Just wow. Today is the day people have to file their tax returns if they filed an extension.  I had sent all but one of my returns out for signature before today.  The last one got me his last form last night, and I sent it out first thing this morning. One guy told me he'd be in to sign between 3 and 4, and he came.  He paid my (rather large) fee, thanked me profusely and left.  His ex wife had to sign too, and she had some trouble but she got it done in the end. Another one, the wife signed about noon.  At about 2 the husband started emailing me, very upset because he couldn't sign on his phone and he was in a meeting.  My eyes rolled so hard my partner heard them in the next office.  He finally managed to sign, but he was pretty grumpy about it.  (let's be clear, again -- they've known since April that today was the deadline, and didn't even get me anything until Thursday). My final one that I thought I might get back, the on...

I went to work on Sunday for four hours, and got everything done that I could.  I sent out stuff for signature.  One guy owes $75000.  Another one owes $50,000.  Some really earth-shattering amounts this year.  But I've done everything I can.  I have eight returns left that are all out for signature.  I'm going home at 4 tomorrow, and if they're not back to me by then, oh well.  My mantra is, I can't make people care. Michael has been dating a lovely young woman named Lucy for about two years.  I like her very much, and she seems to like me, which is huge, because I scare a lot of people.  She's very smart and down to earth.  Michael seems to think she's going to be in the picture for a long time, which makes me happy. Emily is dating a young man named A, I'm not giving his name yet because I'm not so sure he's permanent.  He makes her very happy a lot of the time, but he can also be a little, shall we say, whiny.  Em ...

Wow.  Today was... unforgettable.  I called it way worse than that as it progressed, but I think I'll try not to swear too much here. Tuesday is October 15.  That is the day that you absolutely, positively have to get your taxes in in order to avoid penalties.  You were supposed to pay what you owed in April, but people don't know that.  They think if they procrastinate enough they don't have to send the money in right away.  Or maybe they think if they wait long enough they won't owe, I dunno. My first clients of the day came to me last year for the first time.  They made their appointment several days ago.  I asked if they could please get me their information ahead of time so we could finish up today.  They sent me everything about 4 yesterday afternoon.  Whatever.  I stayed late and got it done.  And then when I looked at my email this morning she'd sent me a whole bunch of new numbers, and another form she'd forgotten....

Today I met with a client I've been working on for several weeks.  They're doing an offer in compromise, which means that they owe the IRS much more than they could ever hope to pay, and we're trying to settle so they can move on. They're in their late 70s and have nothing.  Very little savings, no house, no retirement, nothing.  They've got social security, and they're both working a little bit and that's it.  Not enough to live here. Today the wife came in to pick up her packet to mail in, and she mentioned that if I talk to the IRS about them I should mention that her husband is having "a few" memory problems.  Like what, I asked.  Well, like last night he was out after dark and couldn't figure out how to get home.  She had to go out looking for him.  She started crying when she told me how scared she'd been. I pulled out the letter I'd written to go with the offer and rewrote it.  That offer is a slam dunk. Sometimes I feel ...

There have been so many times lately I've thought, oh, I should put that on Facebook.  But I can't, because the person in question would see it.  So time to start writing again. I had a new client come in today.  He and I were born three days apart, at the same hospital.  In those days, new moms stayed in the hospital for a week, so we were almost certainly in the nursery together.  We went to high school together.  He was gorgeous, a football player, in student government, super popular.  I was none of those things.  I doubt he knew I existed then. My high school class has a Facebook page, and I have really enjoyed getting to know a lot of my classmates better.  This particular one has a wicked sense of humor and is very knowledgeable about politics.  He has made vague references to a checkered past, but I didn't know much about it. Yesterday an IRS revenue officer knocked on his door, and today he was sitting in my office.  ...