April 15, 2009

Today I was assailed by zombie tax ducks.

It goes like this. In January I made sure that I had all of my ducks in a row for taxes. I sent out 1099s. Filed 1096s. Printed a W2. Filed a W3. I was all set. I trundled off to the accountant with all the papers necessary to file tax returns for two corporations and one household. Or so I thought. It turns out that the Household needed to wait for a K1 form from a relative on the East Coast. One Corporation needed me to look up some additional information. The other corporation needed me to look up additional information and also file a form for an amended W2 because the rules on reporting medical expenses changed. My ducks were scattering and I had to catch them all again. So I waded through all of that while simultaneously handling the first stages of XDM. Then I was done. Completely done. Hurray done. All the ducks were dispatched. No more ducks. Only then a duck appeared out of nowhere. Someone sent one corporation a tax form which momentarily had me afraid that I would have to amend the return, until I figured out that I’d already accounted for the money indicated. Whew. Nevermind, false alarm duck. And then a couple of people to whom I’d sent 1099s either lost or never received their forms. So I had to send those out again. I’d already taken care of those ducks, but they came back. Anything that comes back from the dead is a zombie. And these are tax ducks. Hence Zombie Tax Ducks. Have I mentioned that I don’t like zombies. I’m sure I have. I do like ducks though. I should probably stop abusing them in metaphors.

Anyway. If the rest of my day had been more relaxed, the tax stuff would not have been a big deal. But I was instead in an adrenaline charged emotional state where the slightest glitch felt like a major crisis. Fortunately I managed to wind myself down in the afternoon. That Darn Cat is still a fun movie. They kids all enjoyed it too. We got it because of Gleek’s plea that we find some movies where the cats were good guys instead of bad guys.

Last night I was wound up so tight and so worried about getting all the XDM stuff done, that I couldn’t fall asleep until past midnight. Laying in bed with my brain fretting over the fact that I would be much more capable of accomplishing the impossible if I could just get some sleep first, was not fun. Note the job is not impossible. It is just that I had two three-hour tasks and a one-hour task that were all supposed to be complete by approximately 9 am. It is now noon and I still have a three-hour task to go.

I would like to note that this business-stressy spring break would have been made much easier if the weather were sunny instead of blowing sheets of snow. The kids an I are all trapped indoors and I have no time to take us all someplace.

Grandpa to the rescue. Last winter he supplied our family with a copy of Animal Crossing City Folk and a microphone. Right now the kids are all playing with Grandpa over the internet. Gleek’s little electronic character is happily running around in Grandpa’s town, picking all the flowers and chopping down trees. Link and Patch are down there too and they’re all happily shouting instructions to Grandpa over the speaker system. Hurray for internet and for retired Grandparents who are happy to play with kids.