The Parade Float Houses of New Orleans

[mallorys_camera]

I continue to be obsessed by New York State’s vaccine shortages:



This, despite the fact that my answer to Ichabod’s question, “What would you be doing differently if you were vaccinated?” is “Not a damn thing!”, it being winter when I am always (famously) housebound, sedentary, and depressed.

I suppose I can chalk my vaccination obsession up to my ongoing compulsion to fret endlessly about things that are not only out of my control but actually have no real effect on me—beyond my insistence upon obsessing about them, of course.

It’s a compulsion that’s taken me to some awfully weird places over the course of a lifetime.

###

(That “Dutchess County received 600 doses from New York State” is alarming, though. Dutchess County has a population of around 300,000, approximately 30% of whom are “eligible” to be vaccinated under current state guidelines.

Say it loud and say it proud: CLUSTERFUCK!!!!!)

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Meanwhile, TaxBwana Central wrote me a nasty note: Where is your certification? We told you to have your certification in by January 26!!!

And I am thinking, Stick your head up your hairy ass!

Except that TaxBwana Central does not have an ass, and the humans who act as its proxy are mere vessels of frail flesh who think and dream and get their feelings hurt much as I do.

After I finish today’s work-for-hire—when life doesn’t seem worth living, you might as well make money, right?—I guess I will take a run at the TaxBwana certification process.

If I finish it before I go to bed, I’ll volunteer again this year.

And if I don’t, tant pis.

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These photos brought a smile to my face. New Orleans cancelled its Mardi Gras parades this year, so some people in the Big Easy are fixing up their houses as parade floats:








If I still owned a house, I would definitely fix it up this way.

Comments

[johnny9fingers]

I assumed you owned your house. (That sentence is wrong in so many ways and on so many levels.)

Do you have a decent landlord? NY is rent-protected in some areas iirc. Not sure about upstate counties.

An aunt and uncle live on Long Island, and two cousins live in Brooklyn Heights; but I haven’t been over since ‘94.

(I have other cousins in RI and TX too.)

[mallorys_camera]

I have a lovely landlady. 😊

I became utterly destitute in 2009 in the wake of that financial crisis. Lost everything. Came very close to homelessness.

I have managed to claw my way back into the middle class, but not sufficiently high enough for property ownership. 😊

[johnny9fingers]

I’ve never yet been wiped out completely. I rather hope it doesn’t happen. Impressed you managed to get going again. I may have just turned my face to the wall.

Much more resilient than I am. [Tips hat and tugs forelock.]

[thisnewday]

Huh. Forgot that Mardi Gras was coming up. Must be the reason why I've had "Treme" on my mind lately. I'm guessing that 2005 was the last time it was canceled...

[thisnewday]

Huh x 2. Guess I SHOULD rewatch "Treme." Mardi Gras has previously been cancelled 14 times--twice for pandemics--but not in the aftermath of Katrina.

Which was probably the whole point of the movie. Guess my excuse could be that season 4 is still unopened on my bookshelf...

[mallorys_camera]

Seems early. I mean—Easter's not till April.

[thisnewday]

Well, you know, the lengthening light, the hopefully steady march towards the vernal equinox...

[asakiyume]

Wow, the houses done up as parade floats are *great*!

Ah, so you *are* going to do the tax bwana stuff; cool. Did you know: I had to get a new computer set-up here because last year Turbo-Tax told me that *this* year they wouldn't be supporting my OS (b/c so old?) and my computer wasn't really up for more upgrades. So I essentially got a new computer set-up just so I could keep on using Turbo Tax. They should be flattered. Apple should be sending them kickbacks.

[mallorys_camera]

I don't know if I'm gonna do the Tax Bwana stuff this year. It's certainly not gonna be fun if I do because we won't have any contact at all with our clients, which was the part of the gig I really enjoyed. Is pure altruism enough to sustain me through dreary number crunching? Frankly, I don't know. But I figured I'd put a day into getting certified. And then make the decision. 😊

I upgraded my computer last year, too. So I could play the video games I wanted to play—which is a lot less grownup than "so, I could pay my taxes." 😊

[asakiyume]

So you don't get to, like, see them in a Facetime/Zoom interview? I feel it'll be a lot harder to do the job, too, if you don't get to have that real-time give and take.

[mallorys_camera]

No f2f at all. Which I think is gonna cut into their client base—I mean, part of the appeal of TaxBwana was not just that you'd get your taxes done but also that you'd get someone to explain what was going on with your taxes to you. The f2f built trust. Without it, you might as well get your taxes done by a bot.

Plus it's no fun at all for the preparers.

I think it would have been pretty easy to set up a f2f zoom component.

But the people who run this program are absolute dinosaurs.

[asakiyume]

Wow, yeah. I *would* go (and have gone!) to in-person things, but no, just handing over info and getting results back? W/no chance to ramble on about my (to-me) peculiar circumstance (that it turns out the preparer has seen/heard about a thousand times) .... naaah.

(I haven't gone for help since being back in the US, but when we lived in Japan I got help from a you-equivalent)