![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_camera
Impossible to capture with an iPhone camera how dazzling and magical Frozen World looks. You begin to understand the origins of Christmas tree tinsel.
Temps have not risen much above 20°F since the storm itself two days ago, so everything remains encapsulated in a glittering exoskeleton of crystal ice.
Storm apparently wreaked havoc throughout Ulster County where thousands of people have been without electricity for 48 hours+ and the county government has opened dozens of “warming centers”—although, of course, many beleagured Ulster County residents cannot get to them since their front doors have apparently frozen shut and back roads are still covered with an inch or so of tractionless ice.
I don’t know what those people are doing. If power isn’t restored soon, I suspect we may see a significant death toll since many of those people are elderly or infirm.
We are very lucky: The power never went off, the roads are clear.
Though it took me an hour to get into my car yesterday. Doors were frozen shut! Entire vehicle was encased in a four-inch carapace of ice! Finally, I managed to jimmy open the passenger door. Turned the heat on full-blast. Still took Neighbor Ed and I half an hour to chisel enough ice off its windows to make it drivable.
Yesterday was the first official TaxBwana Day:
Since the doors of many of the worthy organizations TaxBwana depends upon to donate space remain closed in the wake of the ongoing COVID crisis, TaxBwana Central is renting a space at the local mall for $2,500 a month.
I wasn’t there, of course, but I kinda suspect the TaxBwana politburo are lousy negotiators. Like, hello? TaxBwana is a destination, and while clients are waiting for us to do their taxes, they’re gonna shop, right? Plus the $2,500 a month would have been a tax write-off, and I can’t imagine the Poughkeepsie Galleria wouldn’t benefit from a tax benefit. Seems to me that rent could have been finessed or even disappeared.
But, hey!
Not my problem.
###
One issue with TaxBwana for me has always been that while I enjoy interacting with clients and the work itself—it’s a bit like being an interpreter of the Talmud—I don’t much like the other TaxBwanas who are the types of folk you are likely to run into at a Dwight D. Eisenhower impersonators convention.
I mean, not a single person of color.
I am like the marginal person there!
I particularly don’t like the person who is site supervisor at the Galleria on Saturdays, an efficient suburban matron called Mary Anne who likes to have half-hour conversations about whether or not she should set up another tabling space. “We’ve got the table and we’ve got the chairs! And, you know, we might get extra tax preparers some weekend, and this way, they’ll have a place to work. If they come. Some weekends.”
Who fucking cares? I want to scream, out of all proportion to the intensity of the provoking stimulus.
But, honestly?
I deeply loathe people who turn every minor decision into an elaborate bureaucratic process that they are helming. And that because of their great commitment to fairness, they are seeking your input into.
They have no great commitment to fairness.
They just want you to register: I’m important.
Do it! Don’t do it!
I don’t fucking care! It’s not important!
Having to be around Mary Anne and her ilk turned me quite surly.
Also, this year, TaxBwana has this bizarre biphasic intake/preparation process in place that I suppose was designed to protect us against the coronavirus-teeming, tax-preparation-seeking hoardes except that it’s not really working, plus it adds several additional layers of logistical difficulty to the tax preparation process itself.
###
My sole client was a young man named Larenz who'd been dragged in by his mother.
He wanted to have returns done for 2019, 2020, and 2021.
On the knuckles of his right hand, Larenz had the letters L-O-V-E tattooed right over the letters L-U-S-T.
How I longed for the fast-forward to Larenz as a withered geezer, raising that tatooed hand at the Old Folks Home: “Gimme more of that green jello!”
###
Once home, I was too weary for useful endeavor so I watched Pam and Tommy—which is surprisingly good.
The Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee is one of the few videos flating around in the porn-o-verse that’s actually erotic.
The producers didn’t try to recreate the video.
But they do have multiple scenes starring the bionic penis they manufactured for Tommy Lee. Tommy has conversations with the bionic penis! The bionic penis talks back! So, that was pretty hilarious.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-06 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-06 04:42 pm (UTC)Hulu.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-06 06:54 pm (UTC)I do love that coat of yours.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-06 10:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 10:07 am (UTC)Uh, I hear you. Four inches is probably too much for my favourite recipe (douse it with freshly-boiled water from an electric teapot). Even remote start probably won't help by itself, the ice'd have to be broken from outside.
>> Tommy has conversations with the bionic penis
One has to wonder, did they already make sex toys with built-in Alexa etc. voice AIs? That would have amused late Ray Bradburry.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 01:49 pm (UTC)Boiling water was next on my list if rocking the car back and forth and pulling hadn't worked, but fortunately, it did.
did they already make sex toys with built-in Alexa etc. voice AIs?
I'd be really surprised if they aren't doing this in Japan or S. Korea. Replacing the Alexa voice with your favorite celebrity's voice.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-08 07:49 am (UTC)Who needs to pay for gym in a world like that! :)
no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 10:27 am (UTC)and me! and me! (Sorry, grammatical pet peeve of mine. I tend to shout at the TV too when someone says this.)
no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 01:35 pm (UTC)"...Neighbor Ed AND ME..." 😀
no subject
Date: 2022-02-07 03:36 pm (UTC)