A TAXING BEGINNING
Last week started out with a letter from the IRS saying i owed several thousand dollars in unpaid taxes, penaltyu and interest! After I got my heart restarted, a quick check of the EFTPS and my bank records showed all the payments had been made. It took a two hour phone call with a very helpfull IRS agent to discover that the payments had been made, but were credited to the wrong tax year. He was able to correct the tax year which also removed the interest charges, but the penalty for failing to file quarterly can only be removed by a written request and according to the IRS website can only be filed with the original tax return. That is now on my June To Do list.
WILL IT FIT?
For a few weeks now, I have been like a deer in the headlights on whter or not all my gear will fit in the alloted carry-on luggage space. With ony five days left before departure it was time to find out. I have limited my clothing to mostly quick-dry nylon (Duluth Trading's Flexpedition, Buck Naked, etc.) that packs compactly and can be laundered in the sink, if necessary, but my essential equipqage (iPhone, iPad, chargers, binoculars, CPAP and medications concomitant with my age) doesn't compress well. While shopping at Duluth Trading I cam across with a carry-on sized canvas bag that is particularly capacious and to my great surpprise with some carerful organization it swallowed everything in one gulp. Then I tried to pick it up and it brought back memories of the 140+ pounds of gear, weapons, ammunition, and radios I carried on my back when I was a Naval Gunfire Liaison Officer with the first Marine Division some sixty years ago.
Time to rethink, breakout my old reliable Duluth Trading backpack and re-distribute the load. It still all fits, but now I have room for those last minute items that will inevitably appear Friday morning, as I am leaving for the airport. Best of all the resdistribution of weight makes it feasible for me to carry in reasonable comfort. Now all I ahve to do is convince Delta airlines the backpack will fit under the seat in front of me so I can carry everything on board. 🤞
WHAT HAVE I DONE TO OFFEND TO GOD OF TAXES?
Last week started out with a letter from the IRS and ended with a letter from the Archer County Tax Assessor/Collector indicating i had not paid the property taxes for 2022. Hopefully their endorsement stamp on the copy of my check I put in this mornings mail will suffice to convince them of their error.
AND IN THE MEANTIME
We have been visited by a young raccoon that with a little coaxing I think I can get her to eat out of my hand. She has me remembering that as a teenager I would go into Baskin-Robbins with my pet raccoon riding on my left shoulder and have to buy two ice cream cones, one for the raccoon and one for me. The trick was keeping my cone in my right hand while feeding the raccoon with my left. I probably wouldn't get away with doing that here and now, but I might be tempted to try. 😜