#166 - Spam and Taxes

Work wasn’t what I would call busy, but maybe steady. I only had two meetings, and my focus was getting the paintings approved so the next team, scene setup, has something to work on come Monday morning.

I was able to sleep in a bit today until about eight forty-five before my Teams app started ringing. I got to work right away, stopping only to grab a tea, a pickled egg and a slice of buttered malt bread.

Breakfast of Champions.

I worked through lunch since we had one o’clock and two-thirty meetings. I took a short twenty-minute break between the two and made myself a cortado. The need for caffeine was real today.

I finished the day off working on a painting assignment of my own and was completely ready for the day to end at just after five PM. I headed straight for the bedroom and watched some YouTube videos, mostly letting them wash over my tired mind.

Robyn came upstairs, and we watched a movie on Netflix called ‘War Machine’ with low expectations for it. The movie turned out to be better than expected; not just the usual army movie, it had a bit of a twist and made it more fun. There were a lot of convenient plot points, but that is to be expected with type of movie.

After starting the movie, I suggested that we order some food. I didn’t have the energy to cook, and Robyn was exhausted from filling out forms and watching information videos produced by the government. They are energy-sucking vortexes. I hope you never have to watch a government video or an HR training video. Both are torturous.

And of course, the oven is on the fritz, making cooking a little more challenging. Not that we couldn’t have fried or boiled something on the stove top.

Anyways, I put in an order at Paramount Fine Foods. Robyn loves their Fattoush salad with chicken and I always order the grilled Halloumi salad. The delivery time said it could be up to an hour or so we went back to the movie.

And then we get the notification that the order has been cancelled. Not the first time this has happened to me on Uber Eats. The frustration thing about it is the lack of information as to why it was canceled. I find that to be rude.

None-the-less, we hummed and hawed about what else to order and landed on In-a-Bowl. They make delicious poke bowls and we have always enjoyed the meals from there. And we both ate the whole bowls while watching the movie. Luckily, I didn’t feel overly full after such a big meal, as I hadn’t eaten that much during the rest of the day.

I bought a trailer hitch pin to attach the truck-nuts that arrived yesterday to the stepson’s best friend’s new truck. I figured worst - case scenario she’ll get a free hitch pin out of the deal. And I’ll sleep better knowing those nuts will be well secured to swing as nature intended.

Tomorrow is going to be writing day. I have my mentor assignment to complete, and I think I will need the whole day and then some to finish it. The idea is to write the rest of the story that the last assignment started. My gut feeling is that this isn’t going to be a short story, but either a novella or a full novel. The likelihood of writing anything of that length tomorrow is nil.

As such, I plan to get a good night’s sleep and enjoy the evening watch shows with my wife, and get some reading done. I’m looking forward to continuing the stories of Dunk and Egg as they wander around Westeros being all knightly and squire-y.

My stepson went out on a date this evening, and the person, who he had been talking to for months on a dating app, barely said a word the whole night. I hate when people do that, and I am a person who is completely fine with not saying a word. But when you are on a date, you should be able to keep up your end of things. Otherwise, it feels like a complete waste of everyone’s time.

But he found a place that sold hoodies and bought one that has a saying on it.

“I eat glue.”

Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

The stock market seemed to have dipped a little lower today as there still isn’t any resolution to the troubles in the Middle East. And the Strait of Hormuz is still undefendable. So, oil tankers are still at risk of being destroyed or disabled.

It seems Trump is trying to find legal justifications to continue his tariffs against sixty countries using the idea of cheap labour sources as a way to get around the agreement. People will go to all kinds of lengths to get what they want.

My writing teachers just finished another Kickstarter the other day and didn’t raise enough money to hit the last stretch goal. For the last goal, they were going to do a History of Women in science fiction. I thought that would be an interesting series of videos, since they know many of the writers personally.

Turns out they really were looking forward to doing the class and have decided to do it anyway for the Lifetime Subscribers and then to offer it for fifty percent off to the Kickstarter backers. I have a lifetime subscription, so I will get it for free when they record it at the end of April or the beginning of May. They have told some interesting stories about their author friends in the past as an aside to the classes they offered, and it was always interesting to hear them.

I haven’t used my BYOK writing device in the last two weeks. I have carried it with me to work on the train every single time I have travelled into the studio. Each day I had my laptop with me and was more comfortable writing on that while seated. There wouldn’t be anywhere to put the BYOK while on the train.

I had thought to keep it on my desk at work and do little micro-writing sessions of two to five minutes, since the battery would last all day. I could even plug it in as well.

In all fairness, work has kept me busy with little time for anything else and no one would appreciate me taking writing breaks. Normal breaks are fine, but I have noticed that when I decide to take my breaks playing a quick game of chess or writing, people get upset with me. The implication is always, “Why aren’t you working?” But go outside to smoke or into the kitchen to get a beverage, and it’s all cool.

It’s funny how people react to things like that. I remember years ago thinking I would get a pack of cigarettes to carry around so I could take as many breaks as the people who smoked, because no one ever game them a hard time even though they usually took more breaks than the nonsmokers.

But no one ever said life was fair.

Robyn has gone back down to her art computer to get her one-a-day painting done. The power of a streak compels you….!

She has such talent and an amazing colour sense that all her paintings end up looking great. It was what she has done professionally for over twenty years, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise. But it does every time I see one of her paintings because it is always so good. I am proud of her and glad she is enjoying her time off. We all got into the animation business because it was something we loved doing. After a while it can just become a job and I think she is rekindling her love of making art for arts sake.

I am jonesing for something sweet tonight, like a chocolate bar, cookies, or jujubes. Some days the desire for sweets is front and center. Unfortunately, we are all out of snacks. It’s probably a good thing, as I would be bingeing on whatever we had in the house otherwise.  I usually get this after I eat Indian food or something that is spicy, but I didn’t have anything like that today. I did enjoy multiple cups of tea today. Tea rarely tastes as good as it does when you make it at home. Not sure why that is. Maybe it is water quality, or the temperature of water, or even the type of milk used. But there is some kind of tea magic that only happens at home.

Mayhap, we are tea wizards.

When I ordered our dinner this evening, I also order a onigiri. It’s kind of like a rice sandwich. The middle was filled with spicy salmon, then surrounded by sushi rice, shaped into a triangular a shape with rounded corners and edges. The rice triangle is then wrapped in nori, dried seaweed sheets. And it is absolutely delicious.

Something I like even more than that is called musubi. I believe it comes from Hawaii and uses fried spam on top of an equal amount of rice and wrapped in a band of nori. The spam is often glazed in a sweet and savoury sauce, which adds to the overall flavour. It’s my favourite way to consume SPAM.

Never thought I would ever utter those words in my lifetime.

We got a bit of snow here today, all in a short period of time. After all the warm days we’ve had lately, made this a bit of a surprise. I think this mind warp happens to us every year in this part of the world. We know there will be a big storm at the end of March. Every year it gets warm and then a deep freeze follows.

Winter’s death throes fool us again.

And we are supposed to get one-hundred-kilometer winds tomorrow now. Judging by the sounds coming from outside the house, the high winds have already started blowing.

I’ll have to spend a bit of time next week gathering all the various tax documents I’ll need for the year-end. The past five or more years, my mother-in-law has been kind enough to do our family's taxes. She has a great understanding of tax law and has done it for most of her career. She retired a few years ago and has slowly let clients go giving her more time to enjoy life. And this year, it has come time for her to stop filing our taxes. But as a parting gift, she has offered to teach us some of the process and guide us through this year’s filing to prepare us for what comes next.

It’s been a real treat to know our taxes have been attended to by someone who possesses the knowledge and care to do it right. We have been very lucky over the years to have her help. So, thank-you Barb!

The process of downloading all my tax receipts is a tedious one, and not something I look forward to. I keep a file folder marked “Current Year Taxes” near my desk and drop anything that comes through the mail into it throughout the year. This still leaves lots of work getting all the other information we need to pay the least taxes as possible.

A solemn duty for all citizens of this country. No need to lose more money that is strictly necessary.

I am reading that Trump has now ordered two thousand five hundred troops and some amphibious craft, and warships to the gulf. Amphibious craft make a landing seem inevitable at this point. Having troops on the ground is a whole new thing and increases the stakes.

As March break approaches, I wonder how families will be spending their time off this year. Cuba and Mexico are essentially off the table for most people at the moment. And many Canadians aren’t travelling to the US this year because of their principles. Will I see a larger uptick in families on the train taking day trips, or will the streets of my town be busier than usual?

Okay, enough of this ramble-thon. Time to go read.

Night all!