On time!

For a change.

It’s April 15th, the Ides of April, that infamous day when our taxes are due.

Year after year, my accountants have applied for an extension—partly due to their own hectic schedules during this period and partly due to my not always getting the information to them quickly enough.

But this year, I was organized. I was prompt. I busily worked on keeping all those little receipts properly stored and labeled throughout the year so that the usual last minute scramble was neither last minute nor a scramble.

I am helped, of course, by the fact that I am semi-retired so that my corporate taxes are far simpler and by the fact that Florida has no state taxes. This doesn’t let me off the hook entirely, because my business is incorporated in NY and we have rental property there. So, we still have state forms to file.

Ergo, I haven’t felt like I could dispense with the services of the accountant altogether. This may be an area where I am spending money unnecessarily.

On the other hand, I have anxiety attacks when confronted with TurboTax or the like.

I realize I am paying an accountant to transfer numbers from my Quicken reports to the appropriate lines on the tax forms. Thus far, however, I justify that expense to myself by the knowledge that she knows which numbers and which lines and that, if she is wrong, she will go talk to the IRS and leave me out of it as much as possible.

Am I overpaying? Probably.

Is it worth it? I think so.

Anyway, the miracle is that it’s April 15th, and my tax forms have already been completed and filed, and I am done!

Done!

The only thing certain is death and taxes, but neither of the G-men* are coming after me today.

* G-men = Government Man and/or the Grim Reaper

Not so silly, really.

Except it is—sort of.

Today’s contribution of silliness is…(drumroll)…

The Carrot Museum.

And, not only the Carrot Museum, but the World Carrot Museum!

Pardon me a minute while I rofl!

I’m sorry. It just strikes me as really funny. And the icing on the cake is the website originates in the U.K. Some staid Britisher has provided us with an entire website about carrots!

In truth, it’s a fascinating site, full of much interesting information. Carrot history, tips on cultivation, recipes, and all kinds of trivia. (Remember my love of esoteric facts? I never thought to be questing after carrot quotes, but here they are.)

Anyway, I think this site has a lot to offer and is well worth a visit. When you’re done perusing it, I bet you’ll have a craving for a carrot.

Someday

I’ll be thankful for this again.

Today, I’d like to suggest something for which you all should be thankful. Just at the moment, it’s out of my reach—literally.

Working shoulders.

It’s nice if you can take them for granted.

Your shoulders are sort of amazing, providing all kinds of mobility and all kinds of stabilizing strength. As such, they tend to attract problems other joints don’t seem to have.

And that’s when you stop being able to take them for granted.

A couple of months ago, I started to have serious and sudden pain in my right shoulder whenever I moved it in certain ways. Drop-to-your-knees-and-howl kind of pain.

I thought, at first, that it would pass. Rest a bit. Stop working so hard in the yard. Take it easy.

It didn’t pass.

So, I went to a sports doctor. Got X-rays. Got a cortisone shot. Let’s be thankful for cortisone shots—even though this one’s effect was not as miraculous as I had hoped after various relatives’ stories of bursitis treatment. The efficacy of the cortisone shot for me was compromised by the fact that I don’t have bursitis.

I have adhesive capsulitis.

Otherwise known as “frozen shoulder.”

I’d never heard of it before—and I am here to tell you if I never heard of it again, it would be too soon for me.

The good news is it is known as a self-limiting condition. Supposedly, it will eventually wear off and I’ll regain most of my shoulder’s mobility.

Supposedly.

Meanwhile, I go to physical therapy a couple of times a week and do exercises on my own every day. I have a new appreciation for medieval torture chambers—because this hurts. A lot. In a way that mere words cannot describe.

However, I am thankful for the physical therapist who is able to ignore my gritted teeth, whimpers and occasional quiet screams as she works on my shoulder. I dread going, but I think it’s helpful.

And I’m thankful for the insurance that picks up most—although not all—of the cost of this. I’m spending a fortune in co-payments, and I shudder to think what the bill would be if I didn’t have insurance.

Mostly, I’m thankful for the years when both my shoulders worked well.

And I think you should take a minute and be thankful for yours!

Where am I?

I wonder.

No, I have not lost my mind.

Most likely, at the moment you are reading this, I know exactly where I am.

The difficulty comes because I am not writing it at the moment you are reading it. In fact, in this instance, I am writing it a couple of weeks early.

The reason for this extraordinary lack of procrastination is that my niece is visiting this week. (Yes, this week—the week you are reading this post.)

The decks have had to be cleared for fun and frolic.

The thing is, I don’t know whether we will be going to the beach, to St. Augustine, to Fernandina or where? I don’t know if her uncle will have convinced her to zipline over the ‘gators at the Alligator Farm. (I hope not, but there’s no telling.)

Will we have gone hiking?

Will we be at the Kingsley Plantation?

Will we be trying on clothes at the outlet stores?

Will we be out on the boat spying on manatees and egrets, ospreys and eagles?

Or will we be lounging on the dock discussing the meaning of life and what she wants to be when she grows up?

I have no earthly idea.

I do know, whatever it is, it will be fun.

She’s a pretty cool kid.

Past visits have included Cape Canaveral, flea markets and horseback riding. Stuffed piglets and straws.

She’ll be staying with my mom, but there’s a good chance we get her for a night or two.

So, at this point, now in the past, I don’t really know where I am today, in the present. (This post is getting as complicated as one of those Star Trek episodes where they run into a rupture in the time-space continuum.)

So, I’m wondering.

Maybe I’ll tell you when I find out. Maybe I won’t.

You get to wonder, too!

Stand up, stand up

Sitting may be hazardous to your health.

I saw a video clip the other day—and I don’t remember where or who—but the “expert” seemed to think that sitting was second only to smoking in terms of being a health hazard.

Now, health hazard information goes through phases. Yesterday’s cholesterol-laden eggs are today’s source of good nutrition. However, the sitting thing seems to have some common sense behind it.

Plus, anecdotal evidence.

(That’s me. I’m telling you anecdotes.)

I left one of the most walker-friendly cities in the world to live in something that’s a cross between rural and suburbia. Nobody walks anywhere. This is because there is nothing you want to go to that is less than five miles away.

In general.

We do have an excellent pizza place only half a mile away. The Park-and-Ride, when buses actually start to visit it, will be a mile and a half. There’s a shopping center a little beyond that whose main claim to fame for me is a Subway restaurant. Two miles in the other direction is a Kirkland’s, a Michael’s, a Kohl’s and, even more wonderful, a Dollar Tree.

But, quite often, the heat and humidity are just too high for a stroll to the store.

Back in the day, when I worked outside of my home office, I would walk to work, and I would walk (some) around work. Now that I’ve “retired” to become a writer? I walk nowhere.

I could ignore pop culture warnings, but it is clear to me that I have gained weight and lost energy. I have aches and pains that have multiplied exponentially—far more than one would think likely in the mere three years since I made the transition from New York to Florida.

People have been advertising standing desks, with and without attached treadmills. These seem like a good idea, but it doesn’t have to cost that much money.

Today, I am writing this blog post with my laptop on the counter and me standing in front of it.

My tip for this Tuesday is that you should do the same.

As often as possible.

No fooling!

Happy April Fools’ Day!

There aren’t really any miracles surrounding April Fools’ Day.

Unless, of course, you count the miracle that I’ve never really been the victim of a big April Fools’ hoax. I’ve never really been able to pull one off, either—except for that one election year where I managed, for about five minutes, to have my mom convinced that my crazy uncle had decided to run for Congress.

The only reason that was plausible is that he was just crazy enough to do it.

He’s passed on now, but he was an entertaining character—for those of us who didn’t have to live with him or be responsible for him in any way. And he gave me the great gift of verisimilitude in my first play where I managed to build a pretty good character out of some of his sayings and doings. It was a bit of a miracle the moment I realized that Uncle Vance had wandered into the pages of the script.

Truly, I suppose much of my family might think it appropriate that Uncle Vance should come to mind on this day. Certainly, he devoted much of his life to activities most people would consider foolish.

For instance, he was soon parted from pretty much any money he ever had.

On the other hand, he seemed to enjoy himself and to get by without working very hard. And, when he wasn’t threatening to throw you into the swamp with the alligators—just to hear you scream as he carried you thither—he’d do anything he could for you.

I think the miracle of April Fools’ Day might be to remind us all that the world doesn’t come to an end if you do something foolish. After all, the only way to get the life you want is to risk being thought a fool—and to actually be one, now and then

A taste of home

Sort of.

Back in NYC, after many, many years of searching, I had found a hairdresser I liked. I always got a good haircut at a reasonable price and, best of all, he was only two blocks away from my apartment!

The proximity is important because I have—I won’t really call it a phobia—let’s just say, it’s a severe dislike—of getting my haircut.

It’s not that I mind scissors snipping around me. It’s just that it seems an awful lot of trouble and money for something that so rarely seems to be an improvement. That, of course, was until I found Joe.

I had tried various other routes.

The Astor Place Barbershop used to be very popular. $8, you take whatever barber is open, and you get what you get. Definitely affordable in my young, starving actor days but not necessarily reliable.

There was a school in the basement of the Empire State Building. Also affordable—but they were “cutting edge” (no pun intended), and when you got what you got there, likely as not you got something rather weird which didn’t match the headshot on which you’d just spent hundreds of dollars.

There were stylists on the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side who gave cuts of varying degrees of proficiency. The problem with them is similar to a complaint of Jean Kerr’s in one of her extremely funny books. If I remember the quote correctly, it was something to the effect that they always acted as if, in another moment, it would have been too late.

I don’t need a hairdresser looking down his or her nose at me. I mean, I’m sure they do. I just don’t need to feel it every minute I’m in the shop.

So…along came Joe.

I loved having my hair cut by Joe. He was fast and good and friendly.

Moving down here to Florida, I was worried about finding a place to get a good haircut.

How thankful I am that there is a little shop over behind Whitey’s Fish Camp where Susan of Susan’s Total Image hangs out!

A friendly welcome and no sense that she thinks she is doing me a favor even to run her comb through my hair.

And walking distance!

Susan and Joe.

My hair and I are thankful.

Ducks in a ditch

(I just love that headline.)

I’m not exactly sure what the content of this post will turn out to be, but I couldn’t resist the headline.

I was out for a walk the other day. Trying to get some exercise, maybe lose some weight. I’ve been walking as often as I can.

I vary the route so as not to get bored. This particular day, I got the MotH* to drop me at a nearby shopping center on his way to the golf course. My plan was to look through the stores and walk home.

And I carried it out.

The route takes me down the county road, past a condominium complex where the sidewalk passes between a big retention pond and a ditch. The retention pond is an attractive feature of the complex. It’s landscaped. There are fountains spraying water high in the air, both for decorative purposes and to keep the water moving. (The latter discourages mosquitoes.)

And there are ducks.

Several species, in fact.

I don’t know what they are. Some big ones. Some small ones. Some brown and white ones; other of more uniform foliage—er, feathers.

I’ve passed by there on numerous occasions. Usually, the ducks are swimming around or sunbathing at the edge of the pond.

On this day, they were in the ditch.

On the other side of the sidewalk.

The voice in my head said, “Ducks in the ditch!” as if it were a Red Alert situation on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

I don’t know why.

The voice in my head is often inexplicable.

But there they were. Ducks in a ditch.

Now, what do you suppose possesses a duck possessed of a perfectly good retention pond to take possession of a far less—one would think—desirable ditch?

Is it a case of the water always being greener on the other side of the sidewalk? A natural illustration of the adage that one man’s algae-ridden swamp is another duck’s paradise? Did they just get tired of manicured perfection and want to take a walk on the wild side?

Your guess is as good as mine. But I’m thinking there’s a sci-fi parody in there somewhere.

* MotH = Man of the House

You knew we were going to get to him.

Sooner or later.

Sir John Smith, Admiral of New England—otherwise known, more famously, as Captain John Smith.

Most school children in the United States know the story of Captain Smith and the Jamestown Colony. Most of us remember all the exciting details of the capture by Powhatan and the rescue by Pocahontas.

And most of us now know that the truth of those tales is somewhat suspect.

Captain Smith made a good few enemies. His veracity has been questioned over the centuries. Investigation is complicated by post-Civil War scholars attempts to give precedence to the New England colonies over Virginia’s early settlers.

And Captain Smith seems to have made a habit of being rescued by young girls, since he tells the same story about his time in Transylvania prior to the voyage to Jamestown.

So, who knows?

Did he embellish his memoirs? Was he an ally or enemy to the Native Americans? An honor to the Smith name or not?

We’ll never really know.

But he was an adventurer, a survivor, a leader, and an explorer.

We’ll have to settle for that.

Research has shown

The silliest age

Could be the Age of Reason.

No. Strike that. I’m just being silly.

After all, it is Silly Saturday.

The question is, really, how does one learn to be silly? Is it a natural talent, or a learned behavior?

Today, we find some enlightenment from Guy Browning at The Guardian.

We’ll let him speak for himself in his aptly titled article:

How to Be Silly

I do think he’s got a point, though—if not several.

Don’t you?

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Category Archives: Life in General