busy Sunday

[cellio]

Sunday lunch with Ralph and Lori was fun. Deanna and Eli were in town for Carnival, and Carl came, and two new people, and all of the regulars. We had 14 people in all, with a huge bowl of pasta with veggies and chicken and a truly massive strawberry-rhubarb pie. Everything was yummy and the company was good.

We had to leave a little early because we had errands to run. First up was a trip to Home Depot, where we stared at things in the plumbing aisle and tried to guess what part we needed to replace in a broken toilet. A helpful employee suggested a 99-cent part, which turned out to be right. Dani tried to pattern-match from the other two toilets in the house, but the innards of all of them are different. Meanwhile, I tried to apply logic, which only gets you so far. (My logic appears to have been correct if we were willing to set aside a part. But finishing a repair job with parts left over, other than the ones you replaced, is always a little suspicious.) Eventually we made what turned out to be a simple repair and all was fine. Yay us -- not completely repair-impaired. :-)

Then it was on to the taxes. Dani had already done most of the data entry, so this consisted of stepping through the interview in TurboTax so I could check his work and we could both see each question one more time. This caught another $1500 in deductions; I'm more anal-retentive than he is about such things. We ended up owing an acceptable amount of money, which means our withholdings are fine and we don't need to muck with them. (I don't want a tax refund; I want to owe. A refund means I made an interest-free loan to the government.)

We needed a few things from the grocery store. We had tried to stop on the way home from Home Depot, but the lot was completely full and we decided that was a bad sign. Later was much better. This is not the store I usually go to, so after picking up a bag of apples I began looking around for walnuts (which are near the produce in my regular store). Dani pointed to the rack immediately above the bags of apples, which was full of bags of walnuts. I guess the Squirrel Hill Giant Eagle knows its customer base. :-) (Apples and walnuts are the main ingredients in charoset, which is a food needed for the seder. This is, in fact, exactly why we were buying these particular ingredients.)

In around all of this was getting the kitchen ready for Pesach. In the morning I had cleared out most of the remaining chametz that wasn't going to be in closed cabinets for the week. I brought the tubs of other dishes and utensils up from the basement, but won't open them until the rest of the cleaning is done. I kashered the things I need to switch over; I think next year I will buy Pesach flatware, because this is a nuissance and you can get flatware pretty cheaply these days. I've cleaned some of the relevant surfaces; the cleaning lady is coming today to do the rest, including scrubbing the oven and stove-top. Then tonight I can finish up. (The cleaning lady will also take care of the dining room and living room. We don't bring food into other rooms, so I don't have to do anything there. And since I would never eat crumbs off my floors or out of the spaces under the stove burners, I do not feel a burning need to do more than ordinary levels of cleaning there.)

On Wednesday we drive to Toronto. First seder is at Dani's mother's apartment. The second is at Debby and Tucker's, where we're staying. (Debby is Dani's sister.) So I imagine that we'll spend a chunk of Thursday helping with cooking, which is good -- I can feel useful, as opposed to just showing up in time for the food. :-) We're supposed to bring charoset for both seders, so I guess we'll make that Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. It doesn't take long, but I don't want to try to make it at the other end lest we get held up in traffic or something.

Comments

[rectangularcat]

Out of curiosity - how long of a drive is it to Toronto from where you live? Have good trip by the way!

[rani23.livejournal.com]

(I don't want a tax refund; I want to owe. A refund means I made an interest-free loan to the government.)

Here here! I'm with you on that one. I actually got a $22 refund this time -- and it annoyed me greatly. *mutter* Actually, I should go talk to a tax professional about the new mortgage and my other finances so I won't get a refund next year either. :)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I don't want a tax refund; I want to owe.

Me, too. The thing that screws me up each year (from a tax perspective) is that we've been given bonuses, which are taxed at a much higher rate than usual income. But I can't assume I'll get a bonus, since it's tied to market performance. (Before we got bonuses, I usually got a small refund, which doesn't bother me, if it's under $100.)

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

Do apples natively grow in Israel?
Possibly my estimation of either the aridity of that region or the amount of water required by apple trees is skewed from reality, but I thought that apples were a European thing.