Mallory's Camera

Things are as bad as they could possibly be— Well, that's not true. My cats could be dead. My kids could be dead. I could be living under a totalitarian dictatorship. (Oh, wait... 😀)

The biggest source of anxiety today: A client is late with the hefty, multi-thousand-dollar check, which I need to pay off accumulated life expenses & debts. This is ever the bane of the freelancer's existence, of course.

I have a long-term relationship with this particular client, and I am 90% certain they will pay. In moods like this, though, that 10% uncertainty sprouts a phantom zero.

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Also, Sue turns out to be completely undoable. Just out of control when we went to tour the house together. The house itself... In some ways, it is wonderful with the original pinewood flooring intact—



—and even a few of the 19th century fixtures:



If you've ever wondered how they managed to light those big old houses with candles in the 18th & 19th centuries (though, of course, they also used oil lamps), they put those candles behind a kind of convex glass to amplify their light and lessen the drafts. This is a detail most period movies overlook, by the way.

But there were only one and a half bathrooms for all four bedrooms. And the kitchen counters' formica was covered in singe marks. And there are indentured servants living in a walled-off portion of the basement, right where the slave quarters used to be! (The owners of the house also operate New Paltz's only Indian restaurant! The indentured servants work in that Indian restaurant. They do not drive, and they do not speak English, and since I only saw one electric meter for the whole house, presumably its renters pay the indentured servants' utility bills.)

So, you know: Definite drawbacks.

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But even if the house was perfect, Sue is just a mess.

Kept badgering me to sign a lease in April. After the 20th time I told her, No, began texting me, What date in March do we tell Assief [the landlord] we have know we’re accepted in May to give our landlords notice?

WTF??

Why would Assief care? I texted. He wants to rent it out in April. We have no leverage, and we're not negotiating.

It's not about Assief! she texted back furiously, and I thought, Then why are you bringing his name up?

But this morning was just the worst.

Apparently, she tried friending me on FB under the name "Elaine Skye"—

WTF 2.0

—and began instant-messaging me long, incomprehensible screeds that I did not answer & that she then got mixed up with my phone texts, so that at six o'clock this morning, she started barraging me with phone texts, I’d rather not hop back and forth unless you prefer Messenger for some reason—

I have NEVER communicated with you on Messenger, I texted back.

Again—she texted—do you have THIS thread—look at my contact name. Pat how did you find THIS thread?

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Maybe the coffin nail was when she called me "Pat."

I hate being called "Pat."

I like to think, though, though, that my self-preservation instincts finally came out the victor in that Jacob's-ladder wrestling match with desperation.

This woman may not be crazy in the true psychiatric sense, but she is functionally crazy.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO.

Sue, this isn't going to work out, I texted. I wish you well in your housing search.

So, now I am back to Square 1.

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And Icky just returned for his five-days-on with the Spawn.

Two-faced little ingratiator that I am, I listened sympathetically for half an hour while he complained about all his problems with the Spawn and how horrible the Spawn's mother is. (She isn't.)

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And I haven't even begun to write about how every single electronic device I own began acting funny yesterday, forgetting their passwords & otherwise malfunctioning & requiring many, many hours of workaround—both before & after TaxBwana where I had the nastiest, snarliest clients ever.

Did you get HACKED? RTT asked.

Hmmm, I said. That didn't even occur to me. I assumed it was all due to Mercury in retrograde.

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This would all be a comic novel except it is happening to me-ee-eee.

Just to document how truly awful the citizenry of Wallkill hamlet are...

There is a FB group that everyone in Wallkill reads. I started reading it when Molly Cat decamped last September in case somebody found her.

In addition to lost pet notices, the group is filled with postings like: A strange man was walking down the street & stopped for THREE WHOLE SECONDS in front of my house! I dialed 911!

Yesterday, somebody posted this to the group:



Now it happens the Wallkill postal service is very bad, and that is because all mail to Wallkill is now routed out of Newburgh, which is not even in the same county as Wallkill.

In an effort to be helpful, I posted a link to an article that explained this:



And got the following reply:



WHAT the fucking fuck?

Did I mention Trump? Did the original poster mention Trump?

These Trump cultists are fucking morons.

It is utterly depressing to live in close proximity to them.

If I had a stronger personality, I could just ignore them.

But, you know. I'm porous.

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In other news, I spent yesterday finishing off six tax returns for friends & family, going to the gym, fielding texts from Sue, and feeling stressed.

I would very much like the fabulous New Paltz house to work out, but there is no way I can jump on it in April despite Sue's feverish promptings, & that's just the way it is.

I will say this for Sue: She has an uncanny ability to read my mind despite never having met me in person, so just at the point where I was wondering, Hmmmm. Finding a new place to live or assisted suicide? Which is the better option?, she texted, Are you sick of all this yet?

Not sick, I texted back. But definitely overwhelmed.

Really, all I want to do is curl up in bed with the kiskas and two pounds of hazelnut truffles and watch endless episodes of The Empress, the German TV show about Empress Elisabeth of Austria.

But that ain't happening any time soon.

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Shortly, I must scamper off to TaxBwana.

It dawns on me that Elon Musk is very likely to cut the grant that funds TaxBwana. We tax preparers are all volunteers, but there is an IRS grant that pays for our Chromebooks & the software we use.