Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

Says the IRS, my refund is approved and should be in my hot little hands next week. I have already bragged to my CPA sister, i.e. Good Sister.

The only significant complication this year was getting the last of Mom's Social Security money. What you do in that case is just act like a normal Social Security recipient and go through their little worksheet, which because of my other income said that 85% of what I got was taxable.

Oh: KEXP sent me a tax form for my donation to them several days after I filed, so I could have deducted that. I guess donation statements aren't subject to the same proptness requirements as 1099s & W2s. C'est la vie. Enjoy your ~$30 windfall, Uncle Sam.

What to do with the refund? It'll be slightly larger than the balance of my sewer hookup charge – a downside of new construction. I can save $1K by paying it off ASAP, but given the state of the world, maybe I should just save it.

I got my tax refund a week ago! And I didn't even file electronically! Good Sister the CPA said what I suspected: a Democratic Congress and president meant that the Internal Revenue Service didn't get starved for funds again, so they caught up. That suits me just fine.

Another thing that suits me just fine is that I wrote a Python script to deal with the complexities of both alimony and the mortgage interest deduction. The IRS must have liked the results just fine if they sent me a refund so quickly. And I've written the script in such a way that I can basically use it as long as I have a mortgage. I have in essence slain the dragon hydra that is the US tax code.

Speaking of Good Sister, she's done her own taxes but now she needs to do Mom's. Bizarrely, she needs to treat Mom's real estate as a rental, albeit a non-profit rental, and state income & expenses for it. Yet another way in which, if karma had mass, Good Sister would have noticeable gravity.

First the good (for me) news: I've paid so much in mortgage interest and points that even with the Trumpy fuckery, the itemized deductions on my federal income tax should be about double the standard one, which means another refund in the low five figures. That's right: I get about a quarter of my mortgage payments back. Yay federal home-buying subsidy? It would be better for the country if that money went to the government instead of a lender, but I'm still going to grab that cash with both hands because that's the only way I can stay in this place.

This is contrary to what the Tickler said about their taxes, but they borrowed less than I did for sure. I'll have to ask them for details.

And as for this place, despite the techie poshness of the neighborhood, it's crawling with thieves: FM Bike got stolen, including the U-lock, cable, basket, and the stainless steel fitting for the basket that gfish made for me.

I was locking my bike under my front stairs to the railing on the steps down to the apartment, but I no longer believe that outdoor bike storage is a viable option. My foyer may be tiny, but it's about to have a stout hook in the ceiling with a bike hanging from it.

Goddamn thieves. I'm resisting the temptation to say something ugly about substance abusers.

Edited to add: Time to ask East Neighbors if their security camera got the guy. And file a police report. And maybe a homeowner's insurance claim?

In the last forty-eight hours I have

1. gotten my tax refund! It's now banked for either
   1. another maternal emergency, which I don't anticipate,
   2. buying a house, or
   3. Dr. Faceknife.
2. bought a ticket to next month's Torture Garden.
3. ordered cash £££ from my bank. Yeah, I could have done it there, but I'd rather have it ready. Also, credit card interest rates. Boy howdy, the pound sterling has taken a beating since Brexit.
4. ordered bike tubes, which I turned out not to need immediately. The leak I thought I had... went away?
5. been to see my new doctor, henceforth to be known as Dr. Funnyname. He seems like a level-headed and forthright guy. He used words that trans people dread: "You'll have to educate me" about hormones. He did, however, say he knows other doctors who have trans patients and he'd talk to them. Hey, at least he's honest and not a transphobe. The non-physicians who work in that practice give off a gay vibe, and he was recommended by Capitol Hill Medical, which is super out and proud.

Good Sister texted the other two of us to tell us that Mom's long-term care insurance finally approved our claim. An hour or two later, GS texted us to say that it's only for two hours of in-home nursing care a day. Mom's needs are far greater than that, and have been for a few months now.

I called the IRS today to ask them what was up with my amended tax return. Sheeut, they wouldn't even take my call; the robot blew me off after I spent ten minutes working through their phone maze. So I paid the not quite $660 that they say I owe because I really don't want to be in trouble with the taxman. At least it's settled for now. Pestering Uncle Sam will have to wait until next week at the earliest. I'm just glad that the United Sister Front hasn't needed the refund I'm owed just yet.

And in pandemic news, I've noticed in the last couple of weeks on my morning bike rides that the volume of traffic and the frequency of mask wearing among those exercising are both approaching pre-pandemic levels.

The City of Seattle is about a quarter of the way through painting stripes on the streets around Green Lake. They'll probably be done this time next week. As long as I've lived in Seattle, transportation improvements have tended to be completed around the time I stop needing them*. I guess that means they're going to allow bikes again on the Green Lake inner trail soon. By that logic, the opening of the new light rail stations in September means I either won't be working downtown anymore or I won't be living in my current neighborhood. I really like the neighborhood I live in.



*The 90th street bridge in Redmond? Opened on the last day of a job I had nearby, when it would have been really handy. The SR 520 floating bridge? Opened after years of construction and tools just a few months after I moved back to Seattle.

I just checked the status of my tax refund because it's supposed to be almost $11K. The web site is telling me that I'm not going to get a refund and instead owe $659.

Bullshit.

The alimony rules haven't changed since last year: it's still deductible as long as your divorce agreement was signed before 2018. Mine was signed on Dec. 30, 2015. Suing the federal government wasn't on my bingo card for 2021, but if they fuck this up I'm definitely game.

Good thing that came in the mail yesterday: that last 1099 I was expecting. So you know what I did last night after dinner: my taxes. Alimony refund, come to mama. Note that I still haven't set up electronic filing, so my guess is that it'll be about six weeks before it arrives. I notified Good Sister. She reiterated that we're unlikely to need it for Mom any time soon.

Good thing that didn't come in the mail yesterday: socks from REI, despite USPS tracking saying it had been delivered. How likely is it that my socks got swiped during a 45-minute window just before noon in the pouring rain? And those socks would probably fit in my mailbox. As I mentioned above, I got mail in my mailbox yesterday.

Mexican with the hungry Tickler Saturday night at Hecho. I've finally tried a tongue taco and found it tasty. Then boot shopping downtown for her, followed by a house night with decent music - Evil Eddie Richads - but a disappointingly small crowd, even after midnight. The Tickler uncovered evidence that the promoters hadn't quite done their jobs. But at least I looked OK in my green scale pattern dress & Fluevog Teahs.

Since the Tickler had to come up from Olympia, the new bed came in handy. There was tasty brunch at Brunswick & Hunt in Ballard. The Yelp blurb lied about which neighborhood it's in, which is weird when you consider that there's a big concentration of dense housing in Ballard now.

Electrolysis yesterday afternoon. Ms. Zappy got everything in a comfortable 45 minutes, so we decided to book that instead of an hour next time. Yes, round trip drive time for electrolysis now exceeds the time I spend on the table each session, and I'm approaching the point where one-way drive time does. And sessions these days are every six weeks; at their peak in 2010 they were twice a month if I could swing it financially, six hours per.

Chinese dinner at Ho Ho Seafood with the Tickler. Not bad, and not bad for us. Then on to the Shuga Shaq all-POC burlesque show at the Theater Off Jackson. As burlesque shows go, it was pretty good. That's an important qualification, though, and the time change kicked my butt - and is still kicking it. I confess that I never thought I'd see pop locking at a burlesque show, but I did last night because Black women.

Oh: my tax refund has been approved. I should have it in my hot little hands by EOD Wednesday.

I had a first date off of OKCupid. I must say, it was the best one I've had in a loooong time, probably since my first date with Funny Lady. What shall I call her here? I think I'll call her the Proprietress. She's awfully impressive, seeming careful and very much in charge of her own life even through mistakes that she's made, but very forthright and down to earth. And do we have things in common, boy howdy, from what we're looking for to what we're into. Yeah, there are details that I'm loath to put in a public entry, so you'll have to trust me on this: she's promising. She asked about next steps as she made a quick exit for other long-standing plans. I've got this little smirk going as I anticipate seeing her again.

Cute? Shyeah. She looks all active & wholesome. How does she dress? Hard femme. Yeah, you could say that about me too, but she's harder and not quite as femme.

And in other good news the IRS says they've gotten my tax return and are processing it. I know that they've received my payment for that extra little 1099. Come to mama!

I spent much of this evening filling out my 1040X amended tax return. If you'll recall, my lust for my refund was such that I mailed my 1040 one day before I got an unexpected 1099. (Do I have anyone reading this who doesn't know US federal income tax forms?) The G-men aren't going to get me like they got Al Capone.

Seattle is supposed to get whomped with snow on Friday. This sounds like a good weekend not to have any dates scheduled, and as luck (?) would have it, I don't. And I'll be spending tomorrow evening stocking up on grub at PCC.