christopher575

I knew/hoped I was over paying my estimated taxes last year. With the selling of the house, particularly, and the semi flaky CPA I had to work with - who didn't even give me the estimated tax amount until I had to ask twice, I was in a better safe than sorry situation.

Last night I got an email from a different CPA at the firm (I haven't had to deal with flaky at all this year), asking how I wanted to handle my $5000 refund!! Whoa. The email explained that it is enough to cover estimated takes for this year with a $1,300 overage - did I want to just pay up and then get the overage into my checking account?? FUCK yeah!!!! So. Taxes paid for this year's return. Taxes paid for next year's return. Enough cash to pay the CPA and still some left over? At least enough to pay for a couple of Biggie's vet visits. Yafuckinghooooo! What a load off. No details yet. I expect they will come today but that is a big relief. And from here on own my tax situation will be totally simple Simon. Nice.

Tuesday, house cleaning day. Yeah.

I've been rewatching Season 1 of The Pitt, before I watch Season 2. I'm still reading Dark Ride by Lou Benney and it's a great read. It has not gone where I thought it would which makes it even better. I'm a little more than half way through and already thinking I want to slow down the read to make it last longer.

The Mariner game is on TV today which will be fun.

I am so relieved about those damn taxes. I didn't even realize how stressed I was.

I had the best swim this morning. I woke up ready to go and just enjoyed the heck out of it. Funny how some days are don't wanna and some are Move Over Katie!

Steroid shots make my foot feel instantly better for a couple of days and then there are about 3 days of back to ouch before it starts working for good. Then in about a week, it will turn black and blue and stay that way for about a month. We are back to the ouchy part. But I was able to walk to the pool and back so, not horrible.

When I redid all my mp3's, I dumped them into folders - 30 files in each folder. Zero curation. I think Karen Carpenter had a beautiful voice but the current batch I'm listening to is about 25 Karen Carpenter songs and that's really more than anyone needs in a row. So I'm now swapping out for the next folder of 30. This batch has no clues. The files are named 1.mp3 and 2.mp3 so no telling what the fuck is on them. Come Wednesday - the next lap swim day - I'll probably be begging for more Karen Carpenter.

spacefem solved my Hazelnut coffee problem. Syrup! Amazon is bringing me a small assortment of small bottles of sugar free coffee syrup - Hazelnut, Carmel and Vanilla. I put the Hazelnut k-cups out in the elbow with a sign that says FREE. They were gone before I got back from my swim.

I have a plastic shoebox full of batteries. I have a few C's. a few D's. A fuckload of AA's. Some buttons - various sizes. A couple of really weird ones and 1 AAA. What do I need right now? 2 AAA's, of course. Sigh.

Another Paramount+ treat. One of my all time favorite sit coms. No one watched it but me, I think so it only lasted 2 seasons but now both seasons are on Paramount+. Superior Donuts. Good cast - phenomenal writing. Still very fun. I'm treating myself to an episode a day.

I've never put together a Lego set. I've thought about it but resisted knowing that it's likely a rabbit hole for me. Plus now I have bunnies to make 3 a day and I'm on track so far. And then I have to sew pockets onto my swim robes. I have projects. I don't need more. Plus, there are all those hours that spifikins stole from me when she introduced me to that fucking arrow app.

My foot still hurts but it hurts WAY less and is on the mend. It's always surprising to me, the absence after something has hurt for so long. It's like a little gift. Or a big gift, if you are my foot.

I love a little Hazelnut flavor in my coffee now and again. The other day, at Safeway, I picked up a small box of Hazelnut flavored coffee pods. I brewed one yesterday for elbow coffee. I think I knew this but had forgotten. Those Hazelnut pods are HAZELNUT!!!! I wanted a hint and they are like a tsunami. BUT I drink my coffee black so, honestly, only wash my mug once in a great while so this morning's coffee had the perfect hint of Hazelnut. Win?

This morning I got up and put the comforter and pillow cases into the washing machine and changed the sheet with the help of Biggie which made it, of course, way more of a chore but it is done. And the comforter will be done in another hour. My washer has this lovely heavy bedding function. It probably does nothing special but I love having it.

Then I went to the pool and had a wonderful swim.

I have nothing on the calendar this week at all. There are baseball games every afternoon on the radio. Yesterday, they had a 'new' announcer for a few innings. I thought we had all of the worst baseball announcers already but wait, there's more! This guy was, apparently, a Mariner pitcher for a minute just before the pandemic. He talks way too fast and says absolutely nothing interesting. It hurt my ears. He said that he would be on the TV broadcasts for some games this year. Fine by me since I mute those anyway. Geesh.

I have 20 more bunnies to make before Saturday. Shouldn't be a problem. There are 2.95 done already.

I have my good book to read and tons of stuff on TV. There is a new (to me) Dawn French comedy on Paramount+ called "Can You Keep A Secret". I have two more episodes to watch. It's kind of hilarious in a very Dawn French way. She gets me.

When my brother was here, we got rid of a lot of shit and shifted and organized the rest. I could not have done it without him and it's still reaping such rewards. It's just a joy to be able to find stuff, to easily put stuff away and to have it all look so nice. My utility room went from a claustrophobic mess to a joy and the storage room... perfection. Yesterday, I shifted some stuff around so easily. I do love this apartment. But even more so now.

When the closet got redone, I took down the cat cam since I moved their beds but now Biggie has a new spot so I think I need to put it back. EASY to do since it's just on the shelf in the storage unit with the correct cable and wall wart. Soooooooo organized am I.

My appointment with my foot guy was at 8. I checked in and then sat down and opened up my game on my phone and before I could put finger to the screen, I heard "Susan?". I was in - shot, chit chat, - out and at Safeway by 8. He said 'make an appointment for 3 and if fine, cancel!' So I did. Very efficient. It takes 2-7 days for the steroids to start work BUT the psychosomatic results are immediate.

I walked all over Safeway with only a hint of pain. Except I couldn't find anything to eat. I walked up and down every aisle looking for inspiration. None. I did manage to spend $90 because I got coffee and other high end stuff. The oatmilk I like for my oatmeal comes in a gynormous container so I went looking for something in a smaller one - maybe something shelf stable? And, whaddya know? There's my stuff! Smaller container and shelf stable. Nice.

We get new menus today for next week. This past week has been a loser. At the first of the year, I changed my meal plan to $300 from $600. So the pressure is off to spend money on food I don't want. I think $300 is a workable amount as long as the menus aren't losers!

I have a load of laundry laundrying and I did order an Italian wrap from the dining room for lunch to be picked up at 11:30 to enable me to get back here for the first baseball game.

When we got to the pool this morning, we discovered a major miracle. The shades were down!!!! The shades that haven't been down in months, were down!! And now they can go up and down on command. The issue, apparently, was a dead battery. Which, of course, had anyone known, could have easily been fixed months ago. BUT, no matter. It's all fixed now and whew.

Today I break into my first refill of Wegovy. Since I plan on doing this for the rest of my life, these milestones have less significance but I still kind of think about them.

There is nothing else on the calendar today. I picked up the Timer Ridge Timeses on the way back from volleyball and delivered them. I took Martha's bowl back to her with a thank you note. She left us a bowl of tangerines on the credenza in the elbow with a Happy Chinese New Year note and a little placard explaining oranges and new years. It was cute of her and the bowl was very Chinese. (She and Richard both are Chinese. Richard used to be the representative for the whole of the 3rd floor. They live in the other wing. They still come to Saturday Elbow Coffee and still kind of feel like they 'belong' to us.)

I do have an Amazon return but I think I'll just drop it off tomorrow after the foot doctor.

I have discovered one issue with my Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus. It is VERY picky about how it charges. If it does not get a cable and charger it likes, it shows that it's charging but actually, it is just tickling. Yesterday, I took it off the charger to use for taking notes at the committee meeting and didn't notice the battery was so low and very nearly ran out of juice. Just now I hooked it up to a proper charger with a Google cable and the thing has added 15% charge since I started typing this paragraph. Ok. Lesson learned.

I'm still loving the tofu litter so much. It's so much fresher and cleaner and easier to manage. But, it is also so much louder. Biggie is in the little box right now and it sounds like he's digging to China. Of course, I did just scoop it out so he has to fix it back right but still.

Ok, time to quit fiddle farting around and get this day going.

When my doctor asked about any other issues, I said 'well, the normal back and leg issues from being old and fat and out of shape.' That's when she started talking GLP-1. She said not so much for the numbers but for the burden relief. And that's how it got started.

I'm about finishing 4 weeks and I've lost some of me steadily - not too much. I think she'll be pretty pleased when I check in with her in a couple of months. I haven't yet lost enough to notice anywhere but on the scales.

Except...

My wrists!

I wear a watchband on my left wrist and 3 DNR bangle bracelets on my right. My watchband kept sliding around so I couldn't tell the time without fiddling with it so yesterday I took out a link Much better.

Today, after maybe 5 months of wear at this size, my bangle bracelets fell off twice during volleyball. Just now I took them off and squeezed them smaller.

So, Susan, where would you like to lose weight? Ass? Hips? Boobs? Chins? Nah, let's go wrists.

I'd like a partial refund, please.

Yesterday morning, I put on shoes and socks and took a step and pain shot right through me. My right foot's pinched nerve spent the day being horribly painfully pinchy. I managed to walk down to the buffet to pick up dinner and when I got back and got off my foot, it still hurt for another hour. It woke me up a couple of times last night and kinda felt sore this morning but I walked to the pool and played an hour and a half of volleyball and walked back and so far, so good.

My appointment is Friday and I almost called yesterday to see if I could scooche it up. But, I didn't and maybe it will be fine. I do know that I have exactly 0 tolerance for chronic pain. And I hate my feet. Particularly the right one.

My credit card is at UPS getting loaded onto the truck but, honestly, now that Amazon has the right number and I can use my phone's wallet, I am not longer in a panic to even get it. I got an email from Chase saying I don't even need to authenticate it. Slick.

We only had 5 for volleyball this morning but it was the best 5 so it worked out. I turned to Gemini about the sun's glare while swimming. I've been using dark polarized goggles and Gemini said what I need is good reflective goggles and gave me a list starting at $90. ! I found some $50 ones for $30 on Amazon and ordered. They arrived yesterday but they were dumped at the front desk instead of put into the lockers. When packages get dumped, you have to wait for them to be delivered. They deliver M-F in the afternoon except for the days they do not. Saturday, a security guy brought up my order from Chewy's which was really nice. Yesterday, I got nothing. Hopefully, I'll get the goggles today.

Today is housecleaning day. I did laundry yesterday. I have kind of a Jones for a Goodwill trip but not with this foot so that will need to be another day.

My best morning is after a lovely sleep, waking up to dark, drinking my coffee and interneting and then going for a swim, all before the first light. For half the year, I can do that easily. But, today starts the other half of the year. I woke up at 6:30 and I could see light. CURSES! I'll get a bit of a reprieve when day light saving time kicks in but only about a week until it's full assed daylight before I open my eyes. And soon it will be full assed sun in the pool unless I want to swim at 4 am. ARUGH. Oh well, it was a lovely winter. And at least I have shades I can lower in here. And maybe someday they will get the fucking shades at the pool fixed. Meanwhile I need to get blackout goggles. My dark ones aren't going to cut it.

My CPA uses this secure file system for exchanging documents. It's very easy on my end plus, it tells me when he downloads the stuff I uploaded. Dude was working at 9 pm last night - Valentine's. Ahhh the life of a CPA.

Hazel, John and Joan all have some kind of cold/crud. Timber Ridge now has a nurse who will come to your apartment and assess or wound dress or any number of other things. It's a FABULOUS service and she is really good. She's seen them all and so we know it's not life threatening but... John and Joan are over 90 and Hazel is close so on any given day, breathing can be life threatening. I do find myself not as interested in spending a lot of time in the elbow and walking on the other side of the hall when I pass their apartments.

I did get to Target yesterday. What a shit show that store has turned into. They had 5,897 different colors and combos of thin ankle socks. I wanted socks with thick bottoms. So I went to the men's section. Every single piece of their mens underwear was behind lock and key so you had to find some invisible sales person with attitude to unlock to even look at the shit. I bought a twofer bundle of cheap assed socks on sale (even so paying double what they are really worth) and got out of there.

Then on to Trader Joe's where I discovered at checkout that there was a problem with my credit card. DECLINED 3 times! WTF?? The really sweet clerk said his end indicated the card "has been compromised." So I whipped out my debit card and then went to the car to investigate. Sure enough, I did not have the card. Where the fuck was it?

Oh well, I've had that card/number and secret 3 digit code for a fair number of years and used it for everything. Would not hurt to refresh. So I called Chase. And I learned a lot. 1. There is no way in the app or online, to find out your actual full card number. If you don't have it written down somewhere else or have the card, you do not have the full number. 2. Chase is actually pretty damn efficient at this stuff. I had to wait and I was transferred but I never had to hear hold music. There were no weird charges on my card. Once I verified that I did not have it, they started the replacement stuff. 5-7 business days. "Oh no, said I, can't you expedite that?" "Of course, I can. 1-2 business days. It will come via UPS and probably be there Monday." Thank you.

I totally forgot to ask why they had locked the card in the first place. Then I remembered/pieced together what probably happened. The only time I actually use the actual card is at Hobby Lobby where Jesus won't let them use Google Pay. Yet another reason for not shopping there. I need to stop that. I'm guessing I left the card there and they called Chase and Chase said ok will lock it down. But, that was Tuesday and I've charged stuff since then, haven't I?

Oh well. done is done. But, here's the interesting bit. When I got home, I logged on to check and verify when I was actually in Hobby Lobby and when I looked, Chase had already changed my card number to the new one! And, according to them, I can use the new card in my digital wallet right away. Interestingly, even though I have my Amazon and Chase account linked together, the old card number is still showing up there so I'm afraid to use it for Amazon purchases. I'll wait until the new one comes and everything looks kosher.

And I need to make sure all my credit/debit card full numbers are written down somewhere I have easy access to whenever and wherever.

Someone opened up YET another Poshmark account with my email address. Holy fuck people. Lean your email address and it is NOT susandennis@gmail.com. Poshmark sends out a lott o shit.

Ok, now I need to go pull an uncrustable out of the freezer and clean up my breakfast dishes and scoop out the litter box and then watch Tia Weston's Sunday morning YouTube update. Busy day!

Volleyball was fun this morning. Two of the players will be gone next week so it could be dicey but today was fine.

I'm still enamoured with my new toy. It's an android tablet (think giant phone) but it has way more tricks. It has something called PC mode where the screen moves from phone like to PC like (with toolbar at the bottom, etc). It's weird but interesting.

The keyboard is still great but the screen with the stylus is also VERY cool. I can write out in handwriting what I want - like search terms in Google - and the screen replaces my chicken scratch with print and the search begins - in an instant. It's just very cool.

Also I discovered last night that the app that I use to listen to Library books - Libby - also has a giant magazine section. And they are a joy to thumb through on this tablet. And they are free.

Elbow coffee starts in a bit. I never got to Target for socks yesterday and now I need some Trader Joe's stuff which is next door so maybe after elbow coffee, I'll make a little trip.

But, as usual, with these entries, when I get done, I get dressed!

It's now 2:15 and except for a short lunch/Jeopardy break, I've been at this tablet since it got here this morning and I'm in love. It's weird. I've had Chromebooks for years and android phones for even longer and while this is android, it really falls between the Chromebook and the phone and is kind of an operating system of its own.

Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus

The keyboard is one of those that attaches magnetically. It is one of the nicest keyboards I've ever typed on. Clean, sure key presses and no weirdness at all. Honestly, I wish my Chromebook keyboards were this good. Heck, I'd still be using my Google Pixelbook, if the keyboard had been half this nice.

The pen is fine. It's not as functional as say an Apple pen and the handwriting experience does not have as nice a feel as the Kindle Scribe but it works great and I'll be using it a lot. I have a note taking app that you just write with the pen and then lasso what you wrote and it turns it right into text. Soooo cool. (Taking minutes at the Food & Beverage meetings!) And there is a spot for the pen to sit where it also charges. Quite handy.

Oh and there's a whole section for watching streams - I swipe left and there are all my streams even with suggestions for what to watch. I think I might be liking that most of all.

There's some weirdness in the operation and I cannot decide if I'd rather use Gmail from the app or from a Chrome tab - baby steps. But I sure do like this new toy.