My scariest IRS moment was having actual agents in suits show up at my door one morning. They weren't there about me though, just had some questions about one of my neighbors.

Not long after we moved to Colorado and finally sold the house in Alameda, the IRS tried to hit my ex up for taxes on the full sale price of the house. Since I used to handle his taxes, I responded with the documentation and new calculations to show that there were no taxes due.

The IRS then sent back a recalculation that was flat out wrong and contradictory, so I wrote another response, breaking down the math into math for dummies level - show you work with narratives for each step. They finally sent back an - oh, ok, no taxes due.

I really should have charged for the work I did on that. I felt rather brilliant to get through that mess.

Laughing. I was searching my inbox for something and came across a newsletter from one of our business units that I obviously never read when it came out a year or so ago. The header on the newsletter:

[BUSINESS UNIT] NEWS

better than nothing

I had them try to come after me for money I didn't get. And I had to point out that the state of Washington said on the form that they dont/won't update the form even if it's wrong. Sigh

I am having joyous times at work. I hate this new project. And several of the people on it. Two we are trying to get replaced with better people but in the meantime I just hit a snag that requires BOTH of those people to do work on something. That they've previously done wrong. Ugh.

And that meeting ran over an hour late, most of which was my coworker and another person playing their game of "I am more stubborn than you."

My manager should have cut it off after half an hour, but she's not a great manager.

Well, I found out I'm gonna have to make subscripts in a Keynote by hand. When I bring subscripted content in from another source, it keeps the smaller size of the characters, but it doesn't keep their baseline shift. So that's an hour or so of clicking on letters, clicking on a gear icon, and tapping a down arrow three times--one character at a time. Le sigh. Not so bad as dealing with the IRS (which I had to do a couple of years ago) or liver scan requirements, but still tedious.

Ugh to all of that.

Timelies all!

There's this one puzzle Mr. S has with animals that makes the appropriate noise when you put the puzzle piece in. Unfortunately, it also is movement and light sensitive, so it goes off at random times. Life with a toddler...

Home safe! We took the risk of hopping on the highway even though it was officially closed, and we got to drive for about 40 miles at 20 mph with NO OTHER CARS. The road was snowy but not too slick, and the visibility was ok. Turned out all right, and now I'm home on the couch with a cup of tea. I have to go pick up my dry-cleaning, though, and I don't wanna leave the house...

Unfortunately, it also is movement and light sensitive, so it goes off at random times. Life with a toddler...

There's a special Parenting Achievement for when you've got a toy somewhere in the house, beeping or otherwise making noise, and you can't find it OR figure out how to make it stop.