beaner's blog

Funny for the week

  There's a commercial running for a weight loss product, Slimquick (not to be confused with Slimfast) and I have seen it many times.  In case you haven't, there are two animated figures, a man and woman, and she says something to the effect of "I've been dieting for 3 months and this is how much weight I've lost", and her shape shrinks a dress size.  She goes on, "my husband has been dieting for the same amount of time and this is how much HE'S lost,"  and the guy loses so much weight his pants fall down.  Then the announcer goes on to extol the benefits of the product as commercials usually do.  Across the bottom of the screen scroll the usual disclaimers:  Results not typical and may vary among users, consult with a physician before starting any weight loss program, etc.
And this one:
Cartoons lose weight quickly.

It was the Mrs.

Re: last post, and who else gets an F-18 escort (or is it F-22's now?), that would be MRS Obama, who was heading home to get the girls ready for school this week.  I hate to leave things up in the air, so to speak....

"Look, up in the sky, it's a bird..."

It's a plane, is that Air Force One?  Isn't the President still overseas?  Flying over my house yesterday morning was a very large plane, escorted by 4 fighter jets...low enough to be heading into Langley AFB.  Who else travels with that kind of escort, the Vice-Pres on Air Force Two?  It was very cool, I'd never seen that before and that's saying something because this area is surrounded by military bases of all types.

In other news, I'm having a panic attack because I bought a car yesterday.  A Hyundai Sante Fe, deep cherry red.  A little more than I had budgeted for, but really the monster van has lived past it's usefulness.  I don't know what all of the buttons do!

Hello, IRS

This is what it sounds like in my friend Sam's-whose real name is Arlene-- cubicle at H&RBlock:

Me:  Hey, Sam! I have a ton of medical this year and made my quarterlies on the spousal support, so I'm hoping for at
       least a little refund this year.
Sam: The good news is (ex) is letting you take the mortgage interest deduction since you do pay the mortgage on the
         house.  The bad news is you don't get to take any of the kids as dependents, so this is how much you owe.
Me:  But, Sam, I lost a body part (thyroid).
Sam: I'm sorry.  You worked enough to qualify for the 25% bracket, and the quarterlies were based on the 15%
         bracket.  The brackets go 10%, 15%, and then right to 25%.

So, boys and girls, remember that you have to spend over 7% of your gross income to get a medical deduction. Which I did, but not by much. And Sam gave me the upcoming tax credit list, which I don't have right here; nothing that most of us will qualify for next year.

I have a couple of choices:
1. Convince my ex to not take the spousal support as a deduction so I don't have to pay the taxes.  Ha.
2. Work less (and then not pay my bills).
3. Double up the quarterly payments and not buy the car I was hoping to get to replace the '93 Dodge 350 van(seats
    15 and has 217,501 miles) that is my everyday vehicle, work the same schedule, and pay the bills.

Sigh.  Going with #3. 

Nicodemus

Nick the neurotic, my flat-coated retriever

 

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Paradigm shift

I think of a paradigm as a perceived reality; that makes it simpler to understand.  To shift from that requires a revelation of sorts.  Something that makes our reality shift to embrace a new concept.
In the past couple of weeks I've been making a few changes around my little house, throwing things away.  This is a change that's come about slowly--it is very hard, when your world falls apart, to let go of anything.  Those things tie you to the past you know, the concepts by which you have lived your life. 
I was raised in a family that was not by any stretch of the imagination wealthy.  We made do.  We used what we had until it fell apart.  We managed and budgeted.  So when I married, I didn't expect a profligate life.  I also didn't expect to find myself justifying every penny, to feed a family of seven on $25.00 each per week (and that included inedibles, toilet paper, laundry soap,etc), to have my kids gluing their sneakers together because they were worried there wasn't enough money for new ones.  To, near the end, having a full out panic attack in the grocery store while contemplating the difference between one chicken or another; whether I could justify the extra sixty-seven cents and get the larger one.
It is sometimes the smallest of things that brings about a fundamental shift.  This past Thursday I replaced the toilet paper holder in the bathroom.  The one that I threw out was about 70 years old, rusted, a bent wire on the wall; and I'd lived with it for thirteen years.  I was nervous as I unscrewed the plate and then tossed it in the trash.  It was still serviceable, I could still make do.  And then that shift occurred.  I can decide.  I can, when necessary and if I can afford it, make a change for the better.  I don't have to live with a thing broken, beyond repair. 
Oh, thank God.  I've moved on.

Three Minutes

I'm a rock-n-roll kind of girl, listen to hip-hop, salsa, break your heart Billie Holiday blues.  But here is where my soul finds rest; an exquisitely measured heartbeat, a small moment of grace.  Breathe deep, then exhale everything that burdens you and let it lie.  For just three minutes.

11 Bach_ Orchestral Suite #3 In D, BWV 1068 - 2. Air, _On The G String_

Alfred Scholz: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Christmas Crises

So I'm wondering if I'll have a Christmas without a crisis NEXT year.  Last Christmas Eve I spent dizzy and throwing up in the emergency room due to a sinus/ear infection that laid me out for a week.  This year my refrigerator, which has been actively dying for a couple of years, gave up and wheezed to a halt on the 23rd, so Christmas dinner was coordinated out of a cooler full of ice, the freezer, and the utility sink in the back room where the eggs went to live with a quartet of ice packs.  And I am again battling the sinus thing, although more prepared with Amoxicillin and a wicked antihistamine/decongestant called LoDrain (something new, works great).
At some point you just have to throw up your hands and say, "So what if the tree lights worked for 4 days and then shorted out, leaving a decked but dark corner?  So what if the cat left a present carefully wrapped in a towel on the kitchen floor that I stepped in first thing Christmas morning?  So what if my daughter-in-law and I both bought my son the same thing as a gift?   So what if the dog ate the rest of the bacon?  It's Christmas, and like the Who's down in Whoville, I know Christmas is within our grasp, as long as we have hands to clasp."
And I do, and did, and hope you had a merry Christmas, too.

Hamming it up

If any of y'all are getting a Smithfield ham for Christmas, please take a moment to remember the pain those of us who live here go through when the plant fires up the smokers.
Hunger pains.
Oh, my God, this town smells delicious.  Like Grandma's kitchen on Sunday.  Like pot luck at church.  I neeeed a big bowl of mac'n'cheese to go with that.
Cross the bridge down by Smithfield Station and you'll be enveloped in hammy goodness, even with the car windows closed.  And I live on Main Street.  There's no getting away from it unless the wind blows the wrong way.
Excuse me while I make a sandwich.

DOH! A Deer...

I had this nice little post in mind, about how we are enjoying the rare experience of leaves turning color, cool days and chilly nights.  However, coming home from work Wednesday I thunked a deer, and fall is not so fun anymore. 
I drive a huge van, so the only damage to that was a crack in the plastic around my right front headlight.  I turned around to look for the deer, but it had run off.  Hitting it was an up close and personal experience--there is no front end to speak of on the van and it might as well have been sitting in the passenger seat next to me.  It's scary, they appear out of nowhere, suddenly showing up in the headlights.  I had safely passed the soybean fields where a herd usually hangs out, I don't know where this one came from. 
Now I have a case of eco-guilt.  I hate to think of a deer limping around the woods with a broken leg.  I know they don't last long when they're wounded and killing it outright would have been a mercy.  And I must confess that while I was turning around to look for it, I was wondering who I could call that late at night to come make it dinner.