Yep, it's that time again here in the United States. Some people dread it. I file my taxes in January. A year ago, I had to pay the IRS almost $4,000.00. I had been on Health Care, what most people here in the States call Obama Care. When I turned 65 in August, I switched to Medicare, which was cheaper and had better coverage than Health Care. The IRS sent me a letter and a form to fill out after I had filed my taxes. I've been filing my own taxes since I was 16 and it was THE most confusing form I've ever seen. It didn't help that I had the flu while I was (pun intended) feverishly trying to complete the form to get it turned in on time. It all boiled down to this: Since I had switched insurance before the end of the year, I had to pay back the subsidies I received to keep my insurance lower. I know, didn't make any sense to me, either. The subsidies came from my own tax dollars, so I had to pay back my own money? I could have fought it, but if I lost (which, going up against the IRS I figured I would lose) I would have to pay penalties and late fees on top of what I owed. So I wrote a check to the IRS, but put a note inside the envelope with the check telling them they should have told people if they were going to switch insurance that penalties would be involved. Of course, I never heard back from them. Lesson learned. As my late Father used to say: You can't fight city hall (or the government, in my case). Believe me, I've told everyone I can when the subject of income taxes comes up, especially for people my age, to wait until January to switch your insurance. So, here's my contribution to Tax Day:


All the best to my fellow taxpayers.

~

Saturday - 61 degrees and sunny

Sunday - 46 degrees and almost an inch of rain

By this coming Tuesday it will be lower 70's.

Spring in Indiana. Not bad at all, compared to Colorado right now!

~

What a beautiful day today. Sunny and 61 degrees (F), I spent the day outdoors.

If not for the news carrier leaving me Friday's newspaper on Saturday and my Red Sox losing 9-5, it would have been perfect.

Well, you can't expect perfection, no?

~

Last Sunday I dropped and shattered my favorite glass. It was over 60 years old and I had been using it since I was a boy. Originally it had been for jelly. Back in the 1950's and 1960's and into the 1970's, peanut butter and jelly often came in collectible glasses. You can google it if you want to see how many different types there were.

Mine was a 16 ounce clear glass with images in white on both sides of a riverboat on the Mississippi. My Mother gave it to me, along with dishes, pots and pans when I first moved away from home. I had taken that glass everywhere I've lived over the years. It survived good times, bad times, marriage and divorce.

As time wore on, I drew comfort from drinking from this glass at meals, or any random time. It held more than liquids. It held memories.

And now it's gone forever. It might seem foolish to lament the loss of something as trivial as a glass, but I feel as though I've lost an old friend. The memories we shared.

Now the search to find another like it begins.

Funny how an inanimate thing can trigger such strong feelings in an old guy like me.

~

I kid you not:

It is so windy today, I was almost knocked over walking out to the mailbox.

~

I struck a nerve on my blog, blog.

I never said anyone HAD to adhere to a strict guideline.

Do as you wish, don't wish that you did.

Just so there's no confusion:

A blog (a truncation of the expression "weblog" is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informational diary-style text entries (posts).

Source: Wikipedia.org

I hope this clarifies things for everyone.

~

Before I ask my questions, I want those bloggers to know that this is not an attack, which, having said that will have some of you upset any way. So, here goes it:

If all someone posts on a blog is just videos with no text, is it indeed a blog? Shouldn't those video only postings be called a vlog?

Not that I'm complaining, mind you, I've seen some interesting videos and listened to some nice songs I might not have heard otherwise.

I'm just asking out of curiosity, seeking a definition of terms, you might say.

Which leads me to my last question:

If there are two different genre's, shouldn't there then be another category listed for one to post, so there's no confusion?

Food (and that might be another classification as well) for thought.

~

Have you ever had Deja Vu? That's the sensation that you've done something before. My late Mother said that she thought it came from your dreams, i.e. that you've dreamed it, just don't remember it.

I had a spooky one at Walmart Saturday:

I'm standing in a checkout line, when I notice the woman ahead of me is looking at snacks displayed all around the lane. I made a flippant remark about not caving in to impulse buying. She said she was actually trying to find Blue Diamond blueberry-coated almonds, which are apparently hard to find.

She said she was visiting her children at the local university. She is from North Carolina, which I figured from her accent. Then we gave each other that look - we had done this before.

Both of us shook our heads and smiled. Who knows? She paid for her items, said goodbye and walked away. As the cashier was ringing up my items, I looked at her walking away. She looked back, smiled and shook her head, then walked on.

Spooky.

~

According to my dreams, Heaven is subdivided.

The area that I will (hopefully) occupy is called Lucy.

???