Packing Panic

Whenever we travel the first thing I do is panic over packing. I never want to take more than we need but it seems we always do.

It's particularly annoying now that the airlines are charging casual customers like us additional for more than one bag each. We used to get two free bags anytime we traveled overseas. I hate being nickle-and-dimed like this.

Anyway, the challenge this afternoon was trying to stuff all the things we laid out on a couple of beds into the two allotted suitcases.

Much to my surprise it looks like we'll do it, with the aid of one carry-on. The rub is we have a third bag, a duffel, stuffed with gifts for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Since we didn't go overboard for those items, we'll consider the extra bag fee a gift tax. What happens on the return flight, however, is another story. That bag will now be empty. I see two choices: spread our things into three bags and pay yet another fee or leave the bag in Israel for my grandchildren. I'm leaning toward option two.

In any case, the packing panic is over. There even may be room for another pair of socks.

It's Done!

I couldn't avoid it any longer. In a burst of ambition I completed our 2011 income tax forms and they're ready to go to the accountant.

I'm quite pleased with myself because it wasn't as complicated as I thought. Ever cautious, I've copies of everything going out. We'll finalize them when we return from our trip to Israel (we leave Tuesday).

I discovered in talking to my accountant that all returns have to be e-filed. No wonder the Post Office is losing money. Tax returns sent by mail used to cost a lot more than one stamp. (Disclosure: I'm sending my tax forms to my accountant via FEDEX.)

If the IRS is saving money by taking only e-filings, the Post Office becomes the poorer. Doesn't anyone talk to anyone else in government?

Silly question. Of course not.

Tapping the Glass

David Pogue is at it again. In his column in Thursday's NYTimes he's ecstatic about something called “OnLive Desktop Plus.” He describes it as a “radical iPad service” that puts everything I no longer need at the tap of my finger on the glass.

Read the column if you want the particulars. I think the idea is great and will probably be obsolete in a week, or more.

Speaking of tapping glass, my wife and I are getting our fingerprints all over the surface of our Nook as we play “Words with Friends” and read our respective books. We even bought a specific glass cleaner to clean the surface. How anal is that?

But everything technical today requires some sort of glass tapping. Pogue says you're better off using a stylus rather than your finger to tap some of the keys on the “OnLive Desktop Plus.” The keys are that small.

I used a stylus once with one of the first Palm devices. I can't remember the name of the product, but I still have the desktop version on my PC. I keep my calendar and names and addresses on it. Some things really do last.

I'd like to try the new “OnLine Desktop Plus” some day. But I don't have an iPad, don't need an iPad and have no use for all the apps that come with the software. It does sound great, though.

Have fun, techies.

The Man With the Bad Toupee

He was walking on the treadmill next to my wife at our gym yesterday and she had to tell me about him when she got home. He was a pleasant conversationalist as they walked and talked, but she couldn’t help staring at his toupee.

She tried to describe him to me when she got home, but all I got was “this man had a really bad toupee.” Although I had never seen him before, when I spotted him this morning I knew right away he was the man with the bad toupee.

He was a gentleman of a certain age, of medium height and somewhat on the portly side. His toupee was silver gray and swept forward to a point on his forehead. It covered his thinning hair but it's slicked condition gave it a pasted-on look. The point was like an arrowhead aimed at his nose.

He was wearing typical gym clothes, shorts and a tee shirt and was working hard on the resistance machines. His head was covered with light perspiration but the toupee was firmly in place. As it should be, I suppose.

I'm sure many men have toupee's for various reasons. “Not that there's anything wrong with that.” But, guys, you owe it to yourselves to look as natural as possible. Otherwise you're fair game for indiscriminate bloggers.

(Full disclosure: I'm bald in the middle with some hair on either side but I never thought about getting a toupee. Years ago, when I was given the ingenue’s role in an amateur stage production, the director sent me to a hair dresser for a hair piece to cover the bald spot. Instead, he gave me a comb-over which-worked for the two-day production but created much amusement afterward. I kept it for a few years and then reverted to a crew, which I still have.)

Write your own pun here.

Avoiding Taxes

No, I have not developed a new scheme for avoiding taxes. I have just been avoiding them.

They sit on my dining room table, waiting to be done. I walk past them and around them every day. Many times a day. I often glance at them and say I really should get to them. I don't.

I stall. I stare. I think about them. I move them from side to side. They're piled neatly on the table. Sometimes I move them from the dining room to kitchen and back again, undisturbed. They've been there a few weeks now.

I know I will have to do it sometime soon but I procrastinate. I have all the information required to fill out the forms to send to my accountant. I know he's waiting at his end to receive them.

My wife has done her part, adding up the deductions we can take. Now it's my turn to fill in the blanks. But that's all I do, turn – away.

I'm beginning to feel guilty but not guilty enough. Maybe writing about my guilt will motivate me. I wouldn't count on it.

This is taxing. Unavoidably.

The Limb Law

We and our next door neighbor had our trees trimmed today. Large limbs had been falling into her yard and onto our patio periodically as leftover damage caused by last Halloween's snowstorm.

The men started about 9 a.m. and finished shortly after 6 p.m. They did a good job and left both yards tidy.

We learned something from them and want to pass it on, if you don't already know it. Any limb, branch, whatever, from a neighbor’s tree that overhangs your property line is your responsibility. You may trim it, cut it down or otherwise prune whatever is on your side of the line.

If any part of a neighbor's tree overhanging your property should fall on your property and cause any damage, the neighbor is not responsible. Your homeowner's insurance may cover it. It may sound strange but that's the way it is.

A strange branch of the law, you might say.

GOP Blames President For Cloudy Day

Pursuing its relentless attacks on President Barak Obama, House Republicans today lashed at the president for bringing clouds to the Washington, D.C. skies.

“Everyone knows the President uses the weather for his evil agenda,” a House source said on condition of anonymity because if anyone knew who he was he'd be instantly institutionalized.

Another attacker accused the President of inflicting foot-in-mouth disease on Senate Republicans, which everyone knows is self-inflicted. They have yet to recover, leaving House members alone to automatically denounce any action by the White House.

DC's forecast for tomorrow is partly cloudy outside, gloomy in the House, dismal in the Senate.

Have a nice day.