Dots all, folks!

[captainsblog]

The most reliable indicator of how busy I am these days comes from looking at the current month on my phone:



A dot means there's SOMETHING in my life happening that day. Not all of them are actual commitments (April 15 is clear of specific appointments so far, but Tax Day is there from the phone's onboard holiday calendar), and not all the actual commitments are worky ones (such as doctor/dentist appointments). But see tomorrow? That's the last, other than Tax Day, where I have an entire weekday to do my job on my schedule for the next two weeks. And Tax Day is a drop-dead deadline for at least two clients other than taxes, both notorious for not taking "drop-dead" seriously.

Next week looks particularly toxic. Early court in Rochester Monday (I may get dispensation on that), followed by afternoon court here; early court in Buffalo Tuesday; two mid-morning court in Rochester Thursday; and depositions, which I hate with the heat of a thousand suns, on both Wednesday AND Friday. Plus clients coming and going for other appointments, and just as likely without appointments, for any other free moments you might think would be there.

The week after Tax Day? Niagara County for court Tuesday, Buffalo for court Wednesday, possible court back in Niagara County Thursday, and court in Buffalo/a dental appointment in Rochester Friday. When a peridontal picking is the most relaxed you get all week, it's pretty bad. (It's also Good Friday. Make of that what you will.)

It only settles down during the week after Easter, but even that is dottier than I often am three weeks out.  None of this factors in not-yet-arrived complications in a few long-term litigation matters that could rear their ugly heads at any moment; or the Chapter 11 I did, finally, file today after three days of technology fails; or any of the five or so new referrals from the past week getting bigger and/or uglier.

It's a good problem to have, but that doesn't make it completely non-problematic.

----

One thing that happens with both of us when we get overwhelmed, with work or other concerns, is we turn a little scatterbrained.  This is not a sign of old age, as we've been doing it for years; we call it "bus pass syndrome," which goes back to our first two or three years together around our 1987 marriage, when we still only had one car and Eleanor usually took the bus to work.  The transit company, in those pre-Metrocardish days, handed out punchcard bus passes, and when work was particularly stressful, one of the first things she'd misplace would be her bus pass, usually with many unpunched punches on it. 

Among my signs of that just this week:

- Remembering to get a 40 pound box of birdseed.  Not remembering that we keep said birdseed in the front hallway, not down cellar near the catboxes (different 40-pound box involved in THAT), and hauling the birdseed all the way down to the laundry/catbox area before realizing, duh.

- Reading an online article, and hearing a radio show, both talking about the Rochester Red Wings Opening Day festivities.  They both mentioned that they would be Thursday; I got all excited and, thinking I would have to go there today for work, started making plans to be there with friends.  They, fortunately, were kind enough to point out that the home opener is NEXT Thursday.  Oops. (On the bright side, I did get out of having to go there today, and I will be there anyway next Thursday for the real thing.)

- I also got in my head that the Mets' home opener, which I did not plan to attend but hoped to watch, was tomorrow. This made sense in my brain because their division opponent Miami Marlins scheduled them for a night game last night, and Citi Field home openers are always afternoon games. Nope: not only did the Mets have a 1:00 home start today after the game 1,000 miles away last night, the Pee Police chose after that game to run random drug tests on Our Heroes, so they didn't get back to New York until almost 3 a.m.  And thus did they get shut out this afternoon despite giving up only one opposing hit (sadly, a two-run homer) in the first eight innings, but it was still fun to watch once I realized when it was.  (Keith Hernandez bought a plug-in car! I want to know more!)

----

Then there was last night's fun with taxes.  Not ours, although tomorrow I will make the last relevant move toward getting those filed.  No, the kid's.

Regulars will recall that Emily moved to Virginia at the end of last January, following Cameron, who made the move a month before. She adulted and did her federal and VA returns for 2018, but H&R Dad offered to e-file her quickie one-month NY final return to get her back $170.

But nooooo. My tax-filing program won't let me e-file a part year NY return for her, even though I bought five free return filings with my own federal/NY proggie. But New York, gods bless it, REQUIRES you to file electronically if you use a computer program to generate the return. Irresistible force, meet immovable object.

Help links in the H&R Block filing program require establishing a MyBlock account, which of course used Internet Explorer to link to.... absolutely nothing.

But there's a tech support number. Answered by HAL himself. He eventually promised to forward me to a live support person- which of course produced Muzak. A wonnerful a wonnerful, here's another lovely tune by that fabulous band, Nine Inch Nails on a Blackboard.

At least three times between  close to 15 minutes of serenades, Mrs. HAL cut in with their current slogan: "Block has your back." Silly me- I thought that was a fifteen-yard penalty from the spot of the foul.

In the end, their live human person couldn't help, beyond the advice to file the return in paper and hope for the best.  (I sent it to Em, along with the screenshots of the various hey, I tried! transactions.) But just talking to the live human person gave me a brilliant idea for a possible, if perjurous, workaround. (It didn't work, so we'll never know if I'd be charged.)

Speaking of criminal charges, I saw the prosecutor yesterday who will be handling People v. Pepper on the 29th, and he promised it will be dismissed as long as me and the dog behave ourselves for six months thereafter. That's three and a half years for you and me.

But there's still a dot dere until I get it approved by the judge:P

Comments

[warriorsavant]

I tend to carefully note appointments in my Calendar program. Then forget to look at it. Thursday, I had a a conference to go to. I've taken to stopping at my office and working for an hour before-hand, because, well, money. At 0830h, Evil Secretary looked at me and said, "you're done." "What? It's only 0830." "Um, you have a conference? Remember? Going from here to the conference, then come back later." I'm not actually going simple-minded, I never did remember stuff like that. As far as I'm concerned, "Remember" is defined as, "give ES instructions to tell me when I need to know."

[captainsblog]

The reminder/alert option is helpful. Also, relentless. Ruthless ("I wonder where Ruth is.") Dogged. (Arf!)