34 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-2-16”

  2. I suspect that was KIm.
    Have a nice trip.

    A prospect is looking at our house this afternoon.

    There is a big deal with the closing on my house in Greensboro. .
    They need a copy of my 2015 income tax return. For some reason they got mixed up.
    You see, I made a typio on the return I sent electronically.

    My address was sent as 30 Tall pines R$d.

    That is R$d
    Nobody noticed it and IRS took my money. But now, IRS says that the return is not valid. (Only for business transaction purposes.) It will take them about three days to clear it up.

    Meanwhile, ISIS is running wild.
    Gorillas are being shot and people are protesting.
    The next president will be Hillary or The Donald.

    But we have to get the $ out of that address..

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  4. I though I saw a chipmunk in the header photo, but I might be mistaken. What is that creature? Another in the many forms of Waldo!

    I smell smoke when I am outside. I checked the online news but saw nothing except bad news. So I won’t know unless someone calls to let me know what it’s from. I did see that the assistant attorney general’s husband was found shot dead in his car at a red light. He was a Lyft driver. She was the first one assigned to work on sex-trafficking in GA. See what I mean about bad news? They have a one year old baby. Very sad.

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  8. Those small errors can lead to such nightmares. More and more, no one wants to take responsibility and do the common sense thing. Our paperwork errors (not made by us and not causing any more tax liability) took hours on the phone, much paperwork and weeks to resolve. Years ago common sense would have prevailed. But then, years ago we did not have the internet etc. to spread all kinds of innuendo and rumors. Nor did we have lawsuits for everything under the sun. The cost of sin in time, effort and money is staggering.

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  9. I saw the tail end of the cardinal before I noticed the chipmunk.

    Cheryl- I guess Kim answered your question already, so this may be moot. Our recently married daughter invited the mother of the groom to her local shower, along with local family and friends. Her groom’s church had a shower, but I don’t know who was invited (they all were invited to the wedding). My wife’s family had a shower for her in Iowa so that some elderly relatives who wouldn’t be able to travel 3 hours to the wedding could be involved.

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  10. At least it’s Thursday. A short week for those of us who work.

    But we’re heading into warmer weather this weekend which I’m not looking forward to

    So sorry for the snafu, Chas, and Kathaleena is so right — common sense would/should resolve all of these things in an instant. But of course, it is the federal government your dealing with.

    Almost as annoying to me as fine-tuned etiquette. Ugh. (With apologies to Kim.)

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  11. Donna, fine-tuned etiquette can actually be useful. Imagine, for example, that you absolutely love bridal showers, and you’re disappointed that you didn’t get an invitation to your niece’s. But understanding that it isn’t necessary etiquette for you to be invited because you live two states away from her, you don’t need to feel insulted. Likewise, since I personally hate showers, it’s helpful for me to know which ones are required of me, etiquette-wise (close family, close friends, a certain level of work colleague in an office-hosted shower) so that I can go to those and skip the rest.

    I don’t like rules like when you can or can’t wear white shoes, and social expectations of what is in or out of style (curly hair in . . . now it’s out) drive me nuts. So I follow the basics and ignore the rest. (I refuse, refuse, refuse to straighten my hair. In fact, in the strength of the curly-hair-is-out era, I continued to mousse and scrunch my not-quite-wavy-enough hair to bring out the most curl possible.) I read somewhere that it is proper etiquette that if you are invited to a wedding, whether or not you attend you give a gift. To me that is nonsense. It’s an honor to be invited to a wedding, but if I don’t know the couple well enough to choose to attend their wedding, I’m not going to go to the bother and expense of picking out a gift for them, either. Likewise, if I’m out of town or otherwise unavailable to attend, I don’t get a gift. Now, if it’s family, then I do. But someone from church or otherwise an acquaintance but not a friend, no, I won’t get a gift unless I attend the wedding.

    But then, I also hate wedding registries and avoid using them. To me they’re tacky (“these are the gifts I want you to buy for me”) and also impersonal (Aunt Fran didn’t choose wonderful towels; someone, you forget who, bought the towels off your list). And yet most of America sees them as a wonderful convenience. And I admit that when I got married, I appreciated that a lot of the gifts were totally “impersonal” gift cards, and now I often buy gift cards for other people. But then, I also loved it that I had friends with really good taste buying me some gifts that I use and remember who gave me the gift. I didn’t register–any gift I received was chosen by the giver, not by me, and that made them more personal to me.

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  12. Good Morning…I wrote a post but alas it disappeared…it is somewhere flying over Colorado….
    Comcast called this morning at 6:55…and automated call telling us a technician will be here tomorrow morning between 8:30 and 12:30 to hook a line to the house…and we need to be here….forget the fact that the cable has not been laid under the road yet and we haven’t seen a worker out here in at least two weeks….I pushed 2 to speak to a real person…waited a half hour…when he did come on the line, he was confused…a rep will call us later he says…and “thanks for calling Comcast”…ummm…I didn’t call you…you called me!!
    The rep just called….he thinks they are all crazy…and I concur!!! 🙂

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  13. Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. I was just thinking that I have not left this five acres in three weeks other than some walks with dogs and children. Meantime, husband headed back to Sacramento and now is off again to Dallas. This keeps up he could be home soon! He is zigzagging all over the South West.

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  14. Well, I like wedding registries. 🙂

    Showers … no comment. 🙂 Although the last baby shower I attended was fun as it was huge & very loosely organized (meaning you could escape the “games” without being too obvious about it) and I got to visit with some good friends I don’t see often in another part of LA.

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  15. Another day of politicians and coyotes ahead for me. I’m just about finished (I think) with my state senate story (our primary is next Tuesday already!) & am trying to figure out where the coyote story trail leads next. … I see I received an email from the LA wildlife guy whom I’ve been in touch with before but missed talking to after last night’s meeting. Very nice guy, way overworked — he’s essentially a ‘wildlife’ department of 1 overseeing a humongous city — and he’s of course bound by what the city will and won’t do.

    The city’s entire approach is education (only).

    Education is definitely a component of the problem (which isn’t going away soon if ever) — but it’s frustrating for residents who now regularly see coyotes (who are much too comfortable around people) trotting along neighborhood sidewalks at all hours of the day.

    Looks like residents on FB this morning are talking about hiring private-company trappers since the city won’t trap. And that could get ugly. But it’s what happens when the local governmental entities basically refuse to do much of anything. It sends a message that residents are on their own.

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  17. The cardinal and chipmunk were playing a game of sorts. The chipmunks were stashing food, and the birds A jay did it too) were digging it up and eating it. It seemed mean to me, but the chipmunks seemed to ignore it and just went about finding and hiding stuff. I have some more shots of a swollen cheeked chip for another day.

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  19. That is fun, AJ!

    Lately there are two squirrels hanging out at our cedar tree. I put out bread for them yesterday, and they did not scamper away as I did so, but they hung around and watched and one went down to grab a bite of bread. There is an indention in the trunk of the tree that was perfect for a bowl of water so I put that out this a.m. since the weather is hot and dry. I think I have made two new friends ♡

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  20. The President was here snarling traffic, then after the flyover, one of the Thunderbirds crashed south of town…thankfully the pilot walked away uninjured, having ejected. The jet looks like it was simply landed in a field…so thankful no one was hurt…..

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  21. We were scheduled for a showing at 1:30 today.
    So, we left to do some business and waste some time.
    We returned at 3:00.
    There was a message on my answering machine. They cancelled at 1:25.

    😦

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  23. Aw, bummer, Chas. Hope someone comes through for you soon.

    Cheryl, pretty pictures in your Smokies album. Looks like a lovely place to go. I’ve never been.

    Finally got my tax refund questions answered today. The higher amounts that got deposited in our account were due to our preparer finding an error she’d made when she looked over our return after we’d left. She’d either misread or mistyped the income from my husband’s W-2, and had originally put it down as $1,000 more than what he’d made last year.

    I stopped in at the office, got my corrected copy of my tax return, and am happy that the extra amount that I wasn’t expecting in our checking account is not there mistakenly. 🙂

    I also got a crown today. Yippee. My gum hurts — they did a lot of digging around, and told me it would be tender. That’s for sure. But I’ll survive.

    Good Patheos article, Donna. I enjoyed the humor the author injected into it, too.

    Gorgeous weather here today — mid 70s. Time to head back outside.

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  24. Some tragic military accidents going on today — 2 air crashes (including the one Nancyjill mentioned, other was in Tennessee); and now this: Fort Hood says 3 soldiers dead, 6 missing after Army truck overturns near rain-swollen creek in Texas. (via @AP)

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  26. “. . .I had friends with really good taste buying me some gifts . . .”

    Cheryl – Maybe gift registries were begun by people whose friends had bad taste in gifts. 🙂

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  27. I think gift registries can be a thoughtful thing to do for others. No one is obligated to use it. I know my daughter was reluctant to do one for her recent baby, but had so many ask for one that she broke down and made one. Most of us do not know another’s tastes that well. Nor do we know their décor. I would much rather give a person something they would really like, than something they want to give away.

    I even ask my grown children for lists. This also helps us not to duplicate what an in-law may be giving. No one enjoys returning duplicate gifts.

    I do have a large extended family, so perhaps that is why I find them so helpful.

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  28. There have been a couple police cars out on our little private lane for an hour or more, one of them is parked in Emily’s driveway. (As a two-family home, we have driveways on either side.)

    This is very unusual, because our lane is not a real road. Only one car can go up it or down it at a time, & there are only three houses here.

    Emily was outside earlier with Forrest, & they asked her if she’d seen “a kid running without a shirt on”. Hmmmm.

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  29. I just peeked out the window. They’re gone now. Emily had seen them talking to our next-door neighbor, so she will ask her about it when she sees her at the school-bus stop in the morning.

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  30. Hope they find whoever they are looking for, Karen. We are on a very small stretch of road, yet seem to have more than our share of law enforcement chases. Never a good feeling.

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  33. Kathaleena, I get that in our culture, gift registries are pretty much expected. (We also ask our kids, and each other, for gift lists for Christmas and birthday, which is something I’m not used to and only sort of like.) I did have several people ask me where I was registered. But I wasn’t inclined to register, and my then-fiance said outright, “No, don’t register. We don’t need anything! It would be better if people just gave us cash or a gift card.” So when people asked where we were registered, I explained, “We’re combining two households into one, and we’re throwing out stuff as it is–we don’t need anything. We’d just like to have you come to the wedding.” And then if they said, “Well, how about a gift card? If I got a gift card, what would be good?” I named three or four stores. When the ladies in my church threw a shower, they specifically designated it a lingerie shower, since that was the one thing I didn’t have. (Though some people did bring other things.)

    Because we didn’t register, people either gave us gift cards or checks or they bought us something creative (in several cases, they bought based on knowing my wedding color / favorite color, and so I got some really lovely green serving dishes, dish towels, etc.). Other than a couple of sets of bookends I’ve never used (book ends only work if you aren’t filling up the whole shelf!) and one or two repetitions, pretty much all the gifts were good ones. Our library contains a lovely piece of wall art sent by one of you, and our bedroom has a photo frame (with our wedding photos) sent by another. Both show better taste than anything I would have registered for, and I really think it was probably more fun opening gifts when it wasn’t the sense of “Which item on my list did this person buy?” And when I look at the gifts, for the most part I remember who gave it, which I think I wouldn’t have done if they had bought something I chose and put on a list. It would just be “OK, good, they got us the towels, and we don’t have to buy those.”

    A younger couple probably couldn’t “get away” with not registering, but I do still dislike the idea of registries and I was happy to be able to avoid them!

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