Friday, February 08, 2008, 07:19
Mission Accomplished
I'm happy to say that my mission is accomplished, and I've now got more Procrit for my kitty cat Duke.
I don't know where this week has gone to, though.
For one thing, I have not been feeling all that great. I've got a sore throat, my right ear is plugged, I've been running a fever, I'm coughing, and I'm so tired I can barely drag myself around. The Sunday school kids were all sick last week, and I think I've got what they've got. I'm not the only one, though. I've been hearing lots of deep coughs when I've been out and about.
For another thing, we had the visitation Monday evening for our church member, the funeral on Tuesday, on Wednesday I drove 30 miles to go to the hospital to get more Procrit for Duke and of course, Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, so we had church Wednesday evening. In our little three-point parish, we rotate Lenten services, and the first service was at a church 30 minutes away.
No wonder the week seems to be going by in a blur.
It's not going to let up, either, because Sunday we are having a meatball dinner at church, so we'll be making meatballs on Saturday. Plus I've got to make a salad and a dessert to bring. We were hoping to put the proceeds toward fixing the church roof, but with all of this cold weather, our treasurer tells us we have almost gone through the $2,300 we prepaid for LP, so it appears that the proceeds for the meatball dinner will go toward heating the church for the rest of the winter. We've only got 30 families to support the church, but somehow, we are managing to hang on. I believe it is important for me to do what I can because my grandparents, great-grandparents, and great aunts and uncles were among those who built the church. It gives me a funny feeling to know that people so closely related to me who all died long before I was born came to the same building for church, sat in the same pews, watched the same change of seasons as they walked into the church and talked about it with other people walking into the church -- that they looked out over the same landscape.
Oh, and did I mention that it was below zero again Thursday morning? And that it is supposed to be below zero at night through the weekend with only highs of about 5 above zero Fahrenheit? (Yipee. I was hoping we were finished with that kind of weather. Guess not.)
Also, for those who have been hearing about all of the snow that fell in Wisconsin this week, it wasn't here. The southern part of the state got hit with as much as 20 inches of snow, especially around Milwaukee. But that's more than 250 miles away. We only got a couple of inches of snow here on Monday.
At any rate, at least I've got more Procrit for Duke. Now it's a matter of giving him more injections of it three times a week for the next three weeks. Then I've got to bring him back to the vet clinic for more blood work. He seems to be feeling a little better. He has not been spending as much time huddled over the heat vent in the bathroom. He's been eating a little more on his own, too. And Monday evening when I fell asleep on the couch, I woke up to find him curled up by my feet. At some point while I was asleep, he must have decided he wanted to get off the rocking chair and come to curl up by me.
Tuesday evening when I crawled under the quilts on the couch, I had almost fallen asleep when I woke up to find Duke staring at me from the small cedar chest my great-uncle had made for my mother when she was 10 years old. He had climbed up on the cedar chest and was just about eye to eye with me. I lifted up the quilts, and Duke crawled under the quilts. He has always liked to curl up under the blankets with me. He stayed there until I woke up a while later.
Unfortunately, not only is Duke gagging and retching before I give him the Amoxicillan, he also has added gagging and retching before I give him the vitamin and mineral supplement called PetTinnic.
And then, Thursday morning Duke also gagged and retched when I was only reaching out to pet him and did not have any kind of medicine in my hand.
Well. One thing about it. At least he feels strong enough to gag. Maybe that's a good thing.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, February 04, 2008, 14:52
Better Late than Never?
As I understand it, employers are required by federal law to put the previous year's W2 forms into the hands of their employees by January 31.
We had no problems with W2 forms this year. Both had arrived by mid-January.
No -- it was the federal tax booklet that seemed to have gone missing. You know, the one that comes with the forms you filed last year, all of the instructions, the handy mailing envelopes and the preprinted mailing labels and the label you need for the top of the tax return.
By the middle of January, I was beginning to wonder what had happened to our tax book. The state tax book arrived in early January. But there was no federal tax book. In other years, both have often arrived on the same day.
I wasn't very comfortable with the idea of something that has our social security numbers in it floating around somewhere and then falling into the wrong hands.
I mean, really. Last year the printer for the state of Wisconsin made a HUGE mistake and sent out state tax booklets with the social security numbers on the mailing labels. Mine was one of them. The printer was then required by the state to pay for a service called Equifax to monitor activity on credit cards for those social security numbers. I can't help but wonder if that particular printer is still in business yet.
Phone Calls
The farther along we went through the January with no federal tax book, the more concerned I became. Finally last week I decided to call the IRS to find out if there was a problem of some sort.
Boy, now -- that was a mistake on my part. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is trying to call the IRS?
There are a number of 800 numbers in the telephone book for the IRS. I tried the local office in Eau Claire first and found out, by their many-minutes-long telephone recording, that the local office is mostly in business to help people who need face to face help with their tax forms and that the voice mail for that office is primarily to tell people when the office is open and to give them instructions if they need to make an appointment.
The local office did, however, mention calling several IRS telephone numbers for additional help. So I did. Another big mistake.
In all, I called three different telephone numbers. Each one led me through a maze of options (Press 1 for. . .; Press 2 for . . .; Press 3 for . . .) Each time after I had spent 5 or 10 minutes listening to a recorded voice running through all of the options and following what I thought seemed likely to be the right option, I would get to the end and realize that nothing was specific to the problem I had -- that our federal tax book had not arrived in the mail.
Local call
Finally I called the local office back. After another 5 minutes of listening to options, I got to the point where I could leave a voice mail. I explained the problem and left my telephone number. Several hours later an IRS employee from Madison (not Eau Claire, where I had left the message) called me back.
"This is such and such with the Internal Revenue Service. Employee number such and such and such and such. How can I help you?"
I explained the problem yet again.
"Do you mean Publication 17? Or are you talking about another publication?"
Publication 17? What the heck is Publication 17?
"Well," I said, "I don't know what number the IRS has assigned to the tax books that are sent out to taxpayers every year. All I know is that we have not yet received the book with the forms we used last year, the mailing labels, the envelopes and all of that."
"If you are referring to Publication 17, you can go to the office in Eau Claire to pick up all of the forms you need," said the lady.
I still didn't have the vaguest idea of what publication I was talking about. How could I? I didn't have the publication in front of me.
"I just want to know if there was some sort of delay in sending out the tax books," I said.
"If you are referring to Publication 17, you are more than welcome to go to the Eau Claire office to pick up forms," the lady said again.
Sensing that I was not going to get any more help beyond this, I said "yeah, sure, thanks. I'll do that." And then I hung up.
$3 Gas
I already knew, right then and there, that I was NOT driving to the Eau Claire office to pick up tax forms. Jeepers. Gas is over $3 a gallon. The Eau Claire office is 30 miles away. Why would I drive 30 miles using gas that's over $3 a gallon to pick up forms that I can get at the local post office, at the bank, or that I can download off the Internet? Sure, I'm willing to drive 30 miles to get Procrit for my kitty cat Duke. I am NOT driving 30 miles for tax forms.
When Randy arrived home that night, I informed him I couldn't find out what had happened to our tax book and that I was going to have to get all of the forms myself. Which didn't make me very happy. I have enough things to do without driving around God's green earth looking for tax forms that -- if the federal government really wanted me to file income taxes -- would make sure I had in my hot little hands.
And that's another thing. Employees of the federal government act like United States citizens should be THRILLED to jump through hoops to file incomes taxes and then pay so much of their hard-earned money to the government so the money can be squandered and not spent very wisely. What would happen if you and me and everyone else in this country handled our finances like the federal government handles finances? The country would have been out of business long ago, that's for sure.
Ta-DAH!
I had not gotten around to procuring the various forms we needed yet by the time Randy went to get the mail on Saturday, February 2.
"Hey," he said. "The book you've been waiting for has finally arrived."
I thought for a moment. "You mean to tell me I have finished writing 'The Coldest Day of the Year' and didn't know it?" I said.
"No, no. It's the federal tax book," Randy said, holding it up.
Ah. The federal tax book.
"But," I said, "it's February 2. I thought . . . well, I thought because employers needed to have the W2s to employees by January 31 that the government needed to get the tax books to people by then too. Not after January 31. *By* January 31."
"Well, hey," Randy said, "it's only a couple of days late, right?"
And that, of course, is another thing I find highly annoying. The federal government expects people to pay their taxes on time and if they don't pay their taxes on time, they pay all kinds of penalties. I guess it's a matter of "Do as I say and not as I do."
At any rate, I've finally got the tax book. Now I can work on our taxes. And that, let me tell you, will be one good job done when I am finished.
Duke
I can't really say that I am seeing much of an improvement in Duke's condition yet. My mother always did say, though, that I needed to work on being more patient.
One thing I have noticed, however, is that when I am ready to give him the Amoxicillan, he gags. As soon as he gets a whiff of that bubble-gum flavored pink antibiotic, he is ready to toss his cookies. He retches and gags for a few moments. Then he settles down and I am able to give him the medicine.
It isn't funny. But in a way it is -- because Duke's brother, Tiger Paw Thompson, used to have the same reaction to Nutracal. Duke doesn't seem to mind the Nutracal. But the Amoxicillan makes him feel urpy. (If Duke could talk, I know what he would say. "Oh, sure. She's giving me icky medicine that makes me want to throw up. And *she* laughs.")
Other than that, Duke is pretty much the same. He ate a few pieces of dry KD Sunday. But he still doesn't have much of an appetite.
LeAnn R. Ralph