Saturday, July 14, 2007

I suddenly find myself in a very good mood. I didn't start out that way today, by any means. But looking back on the past few weeks is making me feel very satisfied at the moment. First of all, I have finally managed to settle a state tax audit that has been going on and on for 19 months now. The state department of revenue just arbitrarily decided to assess my husband and myself additional taxes to the tune of almost $80K and I basically had to work like hell to get it whittled down to about 1/4 of that. Mind you, every deduction we took was legal and above board, but when they decide to disallow them JUST BECAUSE, it is up to you to convince them that those deductions were real and allowable according to the law. Even when you do that to the best of your abilities, they still stick to their initial decision giving you small concessions along the way. This whole process has taken about as long as it takes an elephant to conceive and deliver a baby, and it felt just the same to me - like giving birth to a baby elephant. In the end, we could have paid an attorney the same amount to go to tax court to fight the thing, as we ended up settling for. It just sux!! Once they get you on the hook, you're gonna pay something Buster!!
The second thing I feel good about is that my husband and I survived a week at Disney World in the middle of July with two teenagers and neither one of us succumbed to heat stroke. Thank goodness the two of them were old enough to be able to run around on their own quite a bit, or we would never had made it. They stayed out later than us, and started out earlier, but when we were out there trudging through the parks, it felt just like my dad described boot camp to be in the late '40's - Africa hot and dehydrating! One night I woke up with a heart beating faster than I could count. I knew I hadn't had enough fluid the day before and I was even having nightmares. I quickly downed about two quarts of water and began to feel better. In fact I felt good enough to get right back out there and do it again by evening. It is amazing how much you appreciate every cloud and every little breeze when you are in that kind of heat. If we weren't such softies, maybe we could turn our granddaughter down when she bats those long eyelashes at us and asks us to take her and her boyfriend down to Disney World, but we can't - so we have to do the next best thing - hydrate!!