Penalty Box

Today, a replacement box of archive boxes was delivered by Office Depot as we had run out. The box must have been stored near some rusty pipes because the whole top of it is covered in rust.

Guess who didn’t notice that and leaned next to the box in her light gray lightweight wool BR suit pants?

Guess who tried to get the resulting large orange stain on her left thigh out with soap from the bathroom and then with club soda?

Guess who now has a much much lighter rust stain next to a bizzarish water mark?

These pants are hitting the dry cleaners tomorrow. I made a sign for the box that no one is to go near it; it is in trouble with me.

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

I have been super busy the past few weeks, too busy to have even caught the news that author (and some time Cape Cod resident) Kurt Vonnegut has passed away.

After reading Slaughterhouse Five my junior year of high school, I began devouring his books. They helped me come to terms with my personal frustration with the establishment of that particular time: the Gulf War and the Thomas Supreme Court hearings. I found his novels accessible and evocative in a way that I am sure a generation before me found J.D. Salinger.

Anyhow, I like this quote that the NY Times chose to include in his obituary:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

So it goes.

A Winter's Tale

One of the best stage directions in the history of plays is by William Shakepeare and is in his play The Winter's Tale.

The stage direction is: "Exit, pursued by a bear."

Yeah. ::sigh:: That's kind of how I feel about this last winter storm that we had on Saturday. I kind of wish that we could just shoo the bear bad weather away.

I wish that I had known this BEFORE I did my 2006 taxes

If you haven't filed your taxes yet and you don't read the instruction book cover to cover, you might be interested in this.

from Bostonist.com

We'll take this opportunity to remind you, dear reader, that there's free money coming to you on your taxes this year. Everyone gets $30 back if you're filing by yourself. Families generally qualify for the $60 credit. All you have to do is check a box. The government has been charging so many fees for phone service over the years without enough contention. Focus was given to some of them and the result was the IRS saying that they had erred in their ways and will be giving back individuals $30 in phone taxes. As many tax issues are, and as the great debate over the Bell v. Gray patent race, the issue is exceedingly complex. There are all sorts of forms and calculations that you can do – but someone told us that on average it will take you 14 hours to complete. 14 hours isn't worth the extra thirty cents we'd likely be able to claim from the government. We're satisfied to take our $30 this year and calling it even. Seriously, $30! That's real money. $30 is three Celtics games in the nosebleed section, three movies at the AMC Boston Common, a whole mess of Anna's burritos, or about one-seventeenth of a ticket to go see the Sox play at Fenway. Remember to check that box on your taxes, and thank Alexander Graham Bell for patenting (notice we're not claiming he "invented") the telephone…and he did it here in Boston.

Sadly, I didn't know about this when I filed my taxes and am going to miss out on this. Now I am annoyed. Oh well, maybe my $30 I let the government keep will go fix some potholes.

Internalize much?

I have been reading The Other Boleyn Girl by Phillipa Gregory for my bookclub, which meets on Saturday. As this book is almost 700 pages, and I was only on page 450-something as of yesterday, I had to make a big push to get through 150 pages last night.

Big mistake. I had dreams all night that I was Anne Boleyn, living in the 21st century, going around to various fertility doctors for treatment (involving injections and X-rays and ultrasound) so that I could bear Henry VIII's heir. At one point, I was yelling at doctors: "You don't understand!! If I don't have a baby, he will kill me!! Literally!!"

The book is good. It isn't really historically accurate, which bothers me. And I realize that is petty because the book is FICTION. I do like the dynamic between the sisters, and the idea that, while they were compatriots, they were also rivals. It is an interesting angle from which to approach the historical events of this period in English history. But STILL. Someone out there is going to read this book and think that Mary Boleyn was the manipulated baby of the family, when in fact, she was the oldest of the three and basically did a lot of that stuff on her own and THEN some.

One thing I have learned from this experience is understanding now why my college Renaissance history professor got so mad when students used Shakespeare's history plays to explain historical events. Henry V did not go to war with France over some tennis balls; you learned it here.

Supah Cool Poetry

This is poetry I made on my refridgerator. I refer to my refridgerator as Supah Cool, because that is what it does. (My dishwasher is Supah Clean. My stove is old and doesn't have a name.) So this is supah cool poetry.

At the Motor Vehicles

When I was a child, I used to accompany my mother on her various errands. One thing I remember was her keen frustration every time we had to make a visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Whether it was renewing a license or transferring license plates to a new car, the lines were long, and the wait seemed endless. Actually, one of those often quoted little kid things that I said growing up was "why is Mommy mad at the motor vehicles?"

Both my brother and I instinctively knew that the DMV was not the place to start whining to my mother about the wait so I took advantage of the time to watch people. And yesterday, when I went to renew my driver's license at the mini-Registry of Motor Vehicles at the Cambridgeside Galleria mall, the wait provided me with the opportunity to do some people watching again. There was a young man "upgrading" to an "OVER 21" license, and several people waiting to return license plates. There was a person whose gender I could not figure out feeding an infant from a bottle. There were a couple of people who really needed a full service RMV and weren't happy when they found that out after waiting.

There were only two people working there after six, a woman in her mid-forties and an older man. The older man sat at the front desk and reminded me of Mr. Brady from "Days of Our Lives." While he was very all business and didn't take any crap, he was also the type of person who called all the women "dear." He was sweet to me, but then again, I had all my forms filled out correctly.

From my place right by the door, I could not only see, but hear everything going on at the front desk, and it was obvious to "Mr. Brady" (whose name I think was George) that, while I was playing at disinterested, I was paying attention. One woman, who had the option to keep her photo, said it was horrid and wanted a change. The man at the desk good-naturedly disagreed with her opinion, took the photo and then looked at the computer display. He then exclaimed, "Now THAT'S HORRID! We can do much better!" much to her surprise, and he looked over at me. I pointed back at him, and teased, "That's it! I want YOU taking my photo!"

Sadly, when my number was called, nearly an hour later, but still before closing, I went to the lady. And despite spending the whole day destroying my eyes in front of the computer, I passed the eye test. And the lady took a really good photo of me - my first ever on a driver's license!!