Willa's Journal

Today was my normal marathan errand-running day. I work 9:00 to 6:00 normally, so it's usually 7:00 before I get home, and I never feel much like stopping anywhere on the way. Also, Bob has usually made my dinner, and wants me to come home, and that's never a hardship. So I save everything up to do on Saturday.

Bank, post office, drugstore, grocery store, hardware store, library. I went to the hardware store for birdseed because Target didn't have any, or at least I couldn't find it, and I was tired of walking from one end of the store to the other. I also got a nice new finch feeder; the old one had lost its top, and it was kind of gross anyway, so it was time for a new one. Only $4.99. I put it together and filled it with seed and put it out on a hanger in a tree in the backyard, and filled the other feeders, too, and filled the birdbath. I know they don't really need seed this time of year, but I like to see them, especially the finches.

This morning I finished up the taxes and e-filed them; the only reason I e-filed was that it would save me from having to install the program at work just to print them out, since I don't have a printer connected to my iMac (I'm almost totally paperless--when I need to print something out, I usually just email it to myself at work, or to my webmail account, then go up to Bob's computer and sign on and print it out there). However, since I work in Missouri and live in Kansas, I have to file in both states, and you're only allowed to e-file one state return.

I don't know whose rule that is, maybe it's not a rule at all, it's probably just some kind of limitation with the software I used--Kiplinger's TaxCut--but it's totally annoying, because now I have to re-install the software just to print out that one stupid return.

And the software was misleading, because the literature, in giving the e-filing price, says: "State: $9.95/return," which would lead you to believe you could file as many as you wanted or needed. And of course, now it's practically the last minute. I'm not anticipating any problems, but it's annoying. I wrote and complained about it, for all the good that will do. And another thing, the only Mac version of the software is the "Platinum" version, which costs almost twice what the regular old normal PC version costs, and comes with a ton of stuff that I neither want nor need.

I suppose I should look into some other software, but I've used this for several years, and, annoying as it is, I'm used to it.

While I was at Target this afternoon, I walked down a home furnishings aisle, and there was a young couple there looking at something--I didn't really pay attention to what--and the girl said, "I don't know that I'm really down with the rattan, but whatever."

And after that, I felt kind of like I was a researcher visiting another planet, because everything seemed to strike me as odd and strange. The teenage girls, for one thing. Oh man. Bob reminds me that I wore hip hugger jeans when I was a teenager, too, and I agree, I did, but when we wore them (or at least when I did), we wore shirts that were tucked in, and we never wore them as low as the girls are wearing them now. And it doesn't seem to matter if you're slim or not, I see just as many chubby girls wearing them, with rolls of baby fat hanging out between the jeans and the skintight little shirts.

I guess it means I'm getting old when I start complaining about the way the kids dress . . .

Then, in the checkout line, there were three girls in the lane next to the one I was in, every one of them talking on a cell phone, and they could hardly be bothered to pay for whatever they were buying. They certainly didn't stop talking.

Oh, and I saw someone I knew, although I have absolutely no idea from where, or who he, in fact, might be. He was standing behind the girls, and as I looked over at them, he caught my eye, and he seemed to recognize me, too, and he said hi, how are you? and I said fine, how are you? I assume it's someone I used to work with somewhere, but he could just as easily be someone from my hometown, or . . . No idea. And I don't think it's going to come to me, either, I think it's going to remain a mystery, because even though he looked familiar, he didn't look that familiar. Not a friend, anyway, just an acquaintance.