Pope Benedict's first 100 days.
I think he is going to be (indeed, already is) another great Pope.
Personal Reflections: July 2005 Archives
Spent a good 20 minutes or more on the treadmill with a bunch of wires hooked up to me. Turns out I have a heart, and it seems to be in perfect working order.
St. Blogs server apparently died and it was impossible to blog today, even though I tried several times. It was nice to be missed. Peggy emailed me to ask what happened and even Brian went looking for me by way of his blog.
I was about to turn off the computer and go to bed when I decided to check one last time, and this time it worked. Now I do not even remember what it was I planned to say early. Maybe the new light of the morning will reveal it.
Two hours, forty-five minutes on the phone. Spoke with four people, one clueless, two who said I computed everything correctly, and one who said it was incorrect but could not tell me how.
Incompetence abounds. It is still possible I will pay more in tax than I earned. Everything is in the mail.
...with the IRS, 44 minutes and counting as I type this. It is pretty boring listening to them figure out this letter they sent me. If I am going to send them another $174, they had better be clear on where they think I made the error.
My adjusted gross income last year was $1833. The tax I paid was $1083.
My question: How does someone who is poor and does not have the resources I have deal with this?
I am on hold again, we are 50 minutes and 49 seconds into this.
... and I am still tired. Of course there was a huge pile of mail waiting for me, but I went through it all this morning and threw most of it away. Late Saturday night I saw that the mass schedule had changed. It is a good thing I had not taken that extra Mass the Youth group had wanted because then it would have been five masses. Still, they invade my backyard just as I was ready to devour barbequed chicken, because they had failed to arrange for anyone to open the sacristy for them. The maintenance man is putting a lock on my backyard gate today.
July 4th was like a war zone around here. The sound of fireworks in the neighborhood resounded until the early hours of the morning. The puppy endured it well, sleeping soundly at my feet while I devoured a book with gregorian chant playing softly in the background.
Today, it is back to normal with the regular joys and sorrows of daily life.
