Taxes and Treadmills

I’ve been going to the same Certified Public Account to get my income taxes done since Ring was a pup and he’s been died and buried under a rock in the back yard for over twenty years. I’ve never had a dog named Ring but that phrase was a favorite of my husband’s to denote that something happened a long time ago. Don didn’t have a dog named Ring either. He picked the phrase up from his dad who got it from Don’s grandfather who---family folklore claimed---actually did have a dog named Ring that resided in the back pasture with a rock rolled over the grave to keep wild animals from digging up his childhood dog. I love family verbiage like this and wish I had another generation to pass it down to. Today, out of curiosity I googled “since Ring was a pup.” (Or maybe it was suspicion that made me want to fact-check three generations of males who were all gifted storytellers.) I found ten listings for the phrase, three of which were links to my own blog entries, four to other people’s blogs and three appeared in newspapers dated 1911, 1914 and 1922. Oh how I would have loved to break that little tidbit to my husband! He would have laughed and loved to have one of his grandfather’s tales get exposed after so many years of blind faith in its accuracy. 

My taxes are much too simple to require the services of a CPA but he’s been doing my taxes since---well, Ring was a pup and Don and I both owned businesses and rental property. It was complicated back in those days of employees, depreciations and income and expenses coming in from all directions. Simple now or not, as long as I can still drive the dreaded S-curve to get to the CPA's office, I’ll keep going to him. He’s a straight-up, honest guy who plays by the rules and I like that. We’ve never worried about the IRS hauling us off to tax evader's prison.

The next day I had to go to the dealership for my Chevy Trax’s 10,000 miles free maintenance---tires rotated, oil changed and the fluids topped off. “Have you seen the new arrivals in the show room?” asked a salesman who stopped in the waiting room to refill his coffee cup. “Nope. The last time I did that I went home with my Trax." Can’t fool me twice. The day before my appointment I cleaned out the inside of the car of its winter clutter and when I was done I felt ten years younger. Why? Because I found a pair of prescription sunglasses that I’ve been looking for for weeks. I’m not a person who misplaces or loses things and every time I’d think about those glasses it would make me feel old, like it was a sign that I’m losing brain power. I tore up my reminder note about the missing glasses, quit obsessing about them and went back to believing that my brain might live to see another year before it descends into a pile of mush. 

Friday was my 15^th time on the treadmill at the YMCA and I’m doing one and a quarter miles in a half hour. I decided not to follow my trainer Julie’s instructions to add five minutes every third time until after I see my doctor in April. He’s the boss of me not that tall, skinny-as-a-flagpole girl with her bouncy black hair and Marilyn Monroe red lips. If she ate an olive she'd look pregnant.

My Treadmill Playlist: From the top of the stairs to the treadmill is about a half a city block and I start my iPod playlist at that point so I can strut down the aisle with the Bee Gees singing, “Here I am, prayin' for this moment to last, livin' on the music so fine…” By the time it’s finished I’m on the treadmill and ready for what comes next, the Saturday Night Fever version of The Fifth of Beethoven. I love that piece! Years ago I used to plow snow to it---windows rolled down and the volume jacked up in an effort to keep myself awake near the end of my shift. My third treadmill walking song is by The Killers, All These things That I’ve Done. Until today when I googled the lyrics, I thought they were singing, “I got sold, but I'm not a soldier” They’re actually singing “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve imagined a backstory for that line and now I have to start all over again. What the heck does that mean? The forth song is my favorite: Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees. “Life is goin’ nowhere, somebody help me! Yeah, I’m stayin’ alive.” By then the treadmill is getting harder and I’m wishing someone could help me! 

Then comes the biggie, the 9.52 minutes long Finale from The Lone Ranger movie otherwise known as The William Tell Overture. I really love it but I alternate between wanting to let go of the treadmill to become a made-believe orchestra conductor (which would have me flying off the end of the machine) and trying to figure out which of the false endings is actually the end of the piece so I can slow down and cool down with Helen Reddy’s I am Woman. All I know for sure is when the bass oboes play I think I’m going to die if Finale doesn’t end soon. It doesn’t. I’m going to be three-quarters of a century old soon. I can practically count on my fingers and toes the number of days until it's cake and candle time and I can’t believe I'm doing this gym thing---that I'm actually ABLE to do this gym thing!  ©

Widows, Plumbers and Playlists

Spring has arrived. You know how I can tell? Both toilets got backed up at the same time. To make it even worse the plumber and I can’t coordinate our schedules until next Wednesday. But not to worry, I got them both working again if only temporarily. The air intake/vent on the roof probably needs cleaning out again. Two years ago when I had this reoccurring issue, the plumber added a second air intake in the basement and that plus Bio-Clean cured the problem. Until now. I could have panicked. I could have gotten upset but I applied my Litmus Test and asked myself if the situation is an inconvenience or a disaster. I can say it was a mini disaster back when Don was alive and it was hard to get a wheelchair bound guy down to the gas station in time for nature’s call, this time it’s not. I know what the problem is and I have the money to throw at it. Besides, I’ve had my new iPod plugged into my ears and everything is better when you have a playlist. How can you not find humor in the absurdity of plunging a toilet while Joe Cocker is telling you to get naked but leave your hat on while you strip?

Ever notice how often Brian Williams asks famous people he’s interviewing what’s on their playlist?  Just think, a year ago I didn’t even know what that meant and now I have a half dozen of them. Brian, apparently, isn’t the only person who likes to know what celebrities listen to. There are websites devoted to telling us things like Hillary Clinton’s playlist contains Hey Jude, President Bush likes Brown-Eyed Girl and Stephen King’s most played song is McDermott’s Dance With Me.

Actually, having a heavy concentration of music back in my life is new since before Don's stroke nearly 13 years ago. When you live with someone with severe language disorders like he had, I couldn’t have distractions playing in the background while he was trying to get out words. If I missed something I couldn't queue him to refine his attempt and he wasn't likely to be able to say it again. But they make iTunes too easy. I go there each night and buy five songs, but I suppose that will stop when I get my first credit card bill. In the meantime, the iPod is a bittersweet addition to my life. Damn it, typing this paragraph made me choke back a few tears.

I also got a new cell phone last week so I’ve been in tech land learning how to text. It’s not hard and I doubt I’ll keep the service on my plan but I wanted to see what’s so fascinating about it that it has kids all over the world texting their lives away. The phone’s camera, on the other hand, is fascinating. When I got my first camera back in the 1940s we had to send the film off to Kodak and we’d get prints back in two weeks---if you were lucky. Then we progressed to being able to drop the film off at the drugstore where the turn-around was a mere week. How great was that! we thought. Jeez, now I know how my dad felt when he’d tell about being alive when radio was born and how he lived to hear a man talk to us from the moon. I’m telling old people stories. Next thing you know I’ll be hauling out the photo albums and making the plumber, next Wednesday, look at them. He won’t care. He gets paid $25.00 per five minutes no matter how he spends those minutes he’s at your house. I got to the point that I had to tell Don not to try to talk to him. With his language disorders it once cost us an extra fifty bucks just for him to exchange a handful of words with the guy and for Don to drag him out to the garage for a tour.

The world is coming to life all around me. The birds are returning, the snow is gone and my deck furniture is uncovered and calling for me to come bring my iPod outside and sit awhile. If I do that, I just know that Otis Redding will start singing, “Sitting here resting my bones and this loneliness won’t leaving me alone.” But then again it’s just as likely my playlist will bring me Keb’ Mo’ singing, “I’m grateful for the simple things that we take for granted every day. Listen, I can walk I can talk, I can use my mind. Okay. I’m amazing, a dream come true. I’m marvelous; I’m beautiful. Guess what? So are you.” And those two songs, my dear friends, express perfectly the yo-yo of emotions this widow is bouncing between this fine spring day. ©

iPods and Vacillating Widows

Have you ever bought something then wished you’d gotten a different model? I just did. I bought an iPod Nano 7th generation and after shopping accessories I wish I’d gotten the 6th generation because you can turn them into neat watches with after-market wristbands and the clock app. They sell a cheaper silicone wristband for the 7th generation but who wants to look like you’re wearing a credit card on your wrist? I never guessed that going smaller than a credit card could actually be an advantage, or that someday I’d own a tiny device that could play pod casts, movies, books or hold a thousand songs and also be a voice recorder or a radio for when I’m out walking. I love the recorder app because I get a lot of good ideas when on the nature trails and this device will keep me from forgetting stuff.

In my garage I have a 14” x 20” radio built when radio stations first started broadcasting in the early 1920s and it was popular to send away for tubes, knobs, wires and plans to build a radio to receive their signals. It has earphones the size of the Titanic to listen in private and a horn style speaker to use for group listening. The speaker stands two foot tall and was designed by Thomas Edison himself. Amazing isn’t it, the technological changes that take place in roughly 100 years. I can’t wait until the next little kid comes over for ‘show and tell’ so I can compare my new iPod to the walnut radio. If I was tech savvy enough I’d figure out a way to hook the iPod up to the two foot tall horn speaker then go out walking with that combo in tow. That would be a head turner, wouldn’t it? I know someone who took a 100 year old manual typewriter and turned it into a computer keyboard. It’s mind-boggling what kids can do these days.

Lately I’ve been vacillating between feeling like I have a lot of quality time ahead for new goals and panicking because I feel like time in running out. Back and forth I go. The reevaluation of priorities and options that most widows seem go through in their second year out has me back on the train to Crazyville. And still other times I think the Prime Country radio station is conspiring to tie me to the tracks as an approaching train is coming at full speed. Yesterday on my way to the grocery story Clint Black was singing, “There’s no time to kill between the cradle and the grave.” No shit, Sherlock! Too bad you didn’t tell me that fifty-sixty years ago. I’ve wasted too much time in my life.

“Father Time still takes a toll on every minute that you save

Legal tender's never gonna change the number on your days

The highest cost of livin's dyin', that's one everybody pays

So have it spent before you get the bill, there's no time to kill.”

Even the March weather seems to mirror my vacillating moods. Two days ago it was like spring. Today I’m looking at five inches of snow outside my window. I want spring! I want clear and solid decisions regarding what I want my future to look like. But then again maybe I’m putting too much pressure on myself. Maybe life is meant to be fluid and flowing from one place to another, less structured and free of stressful decisions and schedules.

“But I can look ahead and see that time ain't standin' still

No time to kill but time to change the kind of hurry I've been in

And quit this work and worry lookin' back at where I've been

You don’t look ahead nobody will, no time to kill, no time to kill.”

I almost wished I’d heard those lyrics before I bought the iPod. Do you know how much time you can kill at iTunes? How do I get myself into time robbing stuff like this when I have other dragons to slay? Four years ago President Obama gave Queen Elizabeth II a personalized iPod that has video capabilities---she already had one that had audio and had expressed a desire to upgrade. He took a lot of criticism from Republicans for giving that gift but from all accounts, she loved it. It’s comforting to know I’m not the only old woman on the planet who lusted after an iPod. I only wish I had the staff she has to upload music into the tiny thing! I just want to play it, not spend my life setting it up, and I’ll bet my husband’s uncle felt the exact, same way when he built the radio that sits in the garage. The more things change, the more they stay the same. ©

Painting above:  Salvado Dali's Persistence of Memory 1931