Week in Review

[kate_nepveu]

I finally steeled myself to double-check our New York State income tax returns tonight, being quite surprised to see that it was the 12th today (somehow I'd thought I had more time). I'd struggled through the damn things a few weeks ago, and thought we owed New York a fair amount of money, so I was in no hurry to write that check. Well, I will never again do our taxes without a paper copy of the instructions in front of me: in going back and forth between the PDF instructions, the PDF form, and the Excel file with my calculations, I somehow overlooked that the standard NY deduction is actually larger than our itemized deduction. We still owe New York money, mind, but I'd much rather owe four dollars than four hundred.

Suddenly I'm in a much better mood.

Last week I had emergency duty at work, meaning if anything came in with a short fuse, it was mine. Got off very lightly: there was one potential situation involving medical consent, which would have been very interesting in a messy kind of way, but fortunately it appears to have been resolved without the need for legal intervention. Otherwise I slogged through mounds of uninspiring paperwork and fought to stay awake. I hate the transition to Daylight Saving Time, even as I like the effect.

Being a blah week, we saw a silly movie and had dinner out Saturday night. Hellboy was pretty well what I expected, though somehow I missed that the menace was Lovecraftian in nature. Ugh. I have not dreamt of Cthulhus, however, so I suppose no harm was done. The ending doesn't hold up when thought about, but I enjoyed the characters a lot and didn't much object to the story while it was on the screen.

Trailers: Spider-Man 2 looks really good. I, Robot looks really, really dreadful. Something less Asimov-like I can hardly imagine; it's beyond me why they even bothered to keep the title.

We took a day trip down to Chad's parents yesterday for Easter. It's a little over four hours round-trip, meaning that if we leave the dog at home, we can spent just barely more time visiting than in transit. (We can't bring the dog with because she goes insane being in the same zip code as R.D., Chad's parents' Labrador Retriever.) It was a nice visit, but we were pretty well wiped from the travel, so last night we just loafed around watching Nero Wolfe episodes on DVD. ("Disguise for Murder"? Would have been much more interesting with a more straightforward motive.) It's really a pity that the role of Saul Panzer was miscast for the series proper; in the Golden Spiders movie, the role was played by the actor who plays Lon Cohen in the series, and he was a much better Saul. (Note to self: the second season remains discounted through the end of June. Order it later.)

In house news, we had some lawn-care companies come by and give estimates. It was cheaper than we'd expected, so we're going to have a local company do fertilizing and weed-killing and all that, and then in the fall have them aerate and seed the back, which is patchy and rock-hard when dry and a veritable swamp when damp. I love our backyard, so I'm really looking forward to getting it into a nice, low-maintenance, liveable state.

Comments

[sloanesomething.livejournal.com]

It was something like, "Uh, bad guys, what good will this actually DO you?" It seemed like a lose/lose situation.

But then Ron Perlman was there, and I was happy!

[kate_nepveu]

All I can say is their idea of a new Eden sure isn't the same as mine.