In which I go through my list of local LinkedIn connections to find someone who might know a CPA who specializes in estates and trusts so Primo can have the estate pay a professional to do the estate taxes instead of spending days doing it himself for free and discover that the only CPA in my local connections is the guy Primo is running against

Yes, that is correct. I am connected on LinkedIn to the legislator Primo is running against. We met a few years ago the first time Primo was running. Primo and I both liked him. We connected.

But I think it would be weird to ask him now if he knows anyone.

In which I try to explain the plot of a TV show to Primo and he wants to argue about how they are breaking the law

Me: I found this show "Younger" that you can watch online. I watched a few episodes. The premise is that this 40 year old woman is pretending to be 26 so she can get a job.

Primo: Why can't she get a job as a forty year old?

Me: Because she has been out of the workforce for 15 years, raising her daughter. But her husband had an affair and gambled away all their money, so she has to go back to work.

Primo: Why can't she get a job?

Me: Because she was in publishing and when she interviews, they tell her that she's too old - that the world has changed too much since she was working.

Primo: But that's illegal!

Me: I know. But --

Primo: They can't do that!

Me: I know, but --

Primo: Can't she sue somebody?

Me: Could we please just accept that this is the premise of the show and not argue about what should be, please?

Primo: OK.

In which I attend the political BBQ with Primo and have a good time, even though I have to roll my eyes at some of the things that are said

Primo spoke for five minutes, which is four minutes longer than I recommended, but he was good! He has gotten a lot better at public speaking. When we met, he was an occasional reader in church. He would clutch the lectern, sway side to side, and never lift his eyes from the text.

Now he looks at the crowd, smiles, and takes cues - when they clapped, he stopped talking rather than forging on because you know - that was THE SPEECH and he had to KEEP TALKING.

Do you guys know how amazing this is for an engineer who hates scope creep and STICKS TO THE PLAN NO MATTER WHAT?

(As in, when he was looking through the boxes in the basement for his electric shaver, we came across some tapered-leg jeans - I know, I know - and I suggested that he put them in the Goodwill box and he was horrified at the suggestion that he deviate from the plan of finding the shaver because that was not the mission.

However, when I define the mission, as in Let's Leave Now So We Are Not Late For Whatever, he thinks it's absolutely required - that part of the mission - is doing dishes before we leave.)

Where was I?

Our friend J was there. J has run for office. I like him. We agree on some things, don't agree on other things. K from the ACLU was there. Again, I like her a lot. We agree on a lot of things - she thought the 8th grade trip to Denmark was as ridiculous as I do - and we had a good time.

Primo gave his speech. People liked it. He was a million times better than the field organizer the party sent out. This kid was boring boring boring and would not shut up. He was talking about administrative and policy stuff. I was texting Primo that this guy was talking too long and this is what I meant by keeping it short, but Primo was a million times better than the field organizer.

Then the guy who is running for Congress (the seat Primo ran for two years ago) spoke and he was fabulous. He is an accomplished public speaker - he is a small business owner who has been doing political advocacy for years, so he is very experienced. I was glad Primo did not have to go after this guy.

I ate. The food was good because it was all homemade and not the usual Costco tray crap people usually serve. (Although having cooked for one fundraiser, I will never do it again because it is just way too much work, so I get it.) I met people and chatted politely and was the good Candidate's Wife. And then I went home - it was only a mile from our house, so I walked - and Primo stayed and that was fine. The end.

Thank you everyone who told me about your re-direct problem with this blog, especially The Cosmic Avenger, who spent a lot of time with me yesterday trying to fix it

I think it is fixed. I hope.

PS The problem appeared to be that the word "toolator" (I spit upon you, toolator) appeared in the code for one of my widgets. I have killed the widget.

PPS Have I ever told you my widget story? I should.

In which Primo is leaving for the BBQ and I ask him how long his speech is and he tells me it's five minutes

and I say, "That's awfully long."

He says, "I have a lot to say."

I say, "That doesn't mean that people want to hear it."

In which Primo and I speculate that the lead pipes in our house might be the reason for his descent into madness and politics

Primo: Are you concerned that the pipes in our house are lead?

Me: No.

Primo: But they are lead!

Me: I have not thought about it. Should I?

Primo: It can cause mental problems. Hmm. And it has been since we moved into the house that I have become involved in politics.

Me: There could be a connection.

Primo: There could! It would explain a lot.

In which Primo and I disagree about how long he should speak at a BBQ tonight

Primo: I have to work on my speech.

Me: Your speech?

Primo: Yes. I will have to speak tonight at the BBQ.

Me: Keep it short.

Primo: Yeah, I am thinking five minutes.

Me: What? No! Five minutes is wayyyyy too long. One minute. One. One hundred fifty words.

Primo: That is too short.

Me: You are going to piss people off. It's a BBQ - they want to socialize, not listen to long speeches.

Primo: This is a political event!

Me: Remember at our reunion at the party Leebron's house and he gave that speech and would not shut up? Nobody wanted to hear him! Nobody wanted to listen to a speech! We wanted to talk to our friends!

Primo: This is politics, not a reunion.

Me: I don't know. I don't think anyone ever wants to listen to speeches. I don't.

In which Primo and I disagree about whether to buy candy from a kid raising money for his eighth-grade class trip to Denmark

1. We live in an affluent area. Not a Mercedes or a BMW in every garage area, but a mostly new cars, kids who can get braces, and families who go on vacation to a place, like Disney or the beach, for spring break rather than the kids just not going to school for a week, which is how spring break worked when I was a kid.

2. Other proof of affluence: We have lived in this house for eight years. Not once - not ONCE - has a kid knocked on my door and offered to shovel my sidewalk or cut my grass for money. I sold handmade doll clothes door to door when I was 11. When I was nine, a friend and I went door to door offering to sweep peoples' stoops and sidewalks for a dime. In my day (Hey! You! Get off my lawn!), that was how kids got money - by working.

3. We already pay pretty high property taxes, which I guess I can live with because we get great services in our town (I love our library and get way more out of it than I have ever spent in property taxes) and the school district is one of the best in the state. Even though Primo and I do not have children, we care about the quality of the schools because someday, we will need to sell our house and because someday, we need these kids to get good jobs and pay into social security so we can retire.

4. I am usually very reluctant to buy overpriced product for a school fundraiser anyhow, although I will make exceptions for things like new band uniforms or books for the library for a school in a poor district. Also, I will buy Girl Scout cookies from any girl who has the guts to come to my door, ring the bell, and ask me to buy. I will not, however, buy from their parents. Parents! Let your kids sell their own cookies! Or, better yet, rebel against the tyranny of that kind of fundraiser and have a car wash instead.

5. Eighth grade trip? An eighth-grade trip? When did that become a Thing?

6. TO DENMARK?

No. Just - no.

Primo: But I wanted a Kit Kat bar. If they had had only Reese's Peanut Butter cups, I would not have bought anything.

In which some random guy emails, messages, and then calls Primo to ask him what he is doing on his campaign and we wonder if Ted has moved here to haunt us

Primo: This is weird. There's this guy who's really into politics. I've only met him once or twice.

Me: OK.

Primo: He emailed me this long email asking really detailed questions, like how many doors I've done and how much money I've raised.

Me: Why?

Primo: I don't know.

Me: Has he donated to your campaign?

Primo: No. If he had given money, I might feel a little more like sharing information, but he has not donated or asked to volunteer or anything.

Me: Then that's just weird.

Primo: It gets weirder. He sent me that long email and then just a few minutes later, sent me a facebook message asking if I had read his email!

Me: What!? Is he Ted? Is it Ted demanding money?

Primo: I know! The message was just minutes after the email!

Me: Why does he think he can demand information? He doesn't even know you!

Primo: I know! That was yesterday. I didn't answer so he called me and left a voicemail today!

Me: That is obnoxious.

Primo: I know.

Me: It's like he is going to the Ted School of Negotiation.

In which we are reminded that engineers hate scope creep

This is how the conversation went:

Me: Did you wash the basil, too?

Primo: No. Just the tomatoes.

Me: Why didn't you wash the basil?

Primo: Because you only asked me to wash the tomatoes.

Me: But the basil is for your salad. I brought in the tomatoes then went out to the garden to get the basil and then I put the basil next to the tomatoes and you didn't think to wash the basil, too?

Primo: You only asked me to wash the tomatoes!

In which a friend Primo has known longer than he has known me and who is a mutual facebook friend asks if I make up the dialogs I post and Primo says Yes, some, and I say, Nope they are all true

Which they are.

This was the post that inspired the question.

I do not make stuff up. Ever.

1. I don't need to.
2. I don't have enough imagination to.*

Me: Are you going to finish the laundry?
Primo: What do you mean?
Me: There are still clothes on the drying racks.
Primo: I've been bringing them up bit by bit.
Me: If only there were a device that would allow a person to transport multiple items of clothing in one trip. We could get rich inventing something like that.


* Could I have made up Sly and Doris?

No.

I don't think so.

Along those lines - at the church festival where we saw Jon, the friend in question, last night - we went  to see his band perform, I met another bar friend of Primo's. I heard his life story (I asked) and people, I could not make this up. It was so sad and made me hope that life gets better for him.

This guy - let's call him Job - is 60 years old. His wife died eight years ago at the age of 42 from early-onset Alzeheimer's, which they diagnosed when she was 35.

They diagnosed it because suddenly, they had no money in the bank and the bills had not been paid and the credit cards had been run up because their 14 year old daughter had stolen money from her mom to fuel her heroin addiction. Job had to figure out what was going on and that's when he discovered his wife had not been paying the bills.

Job has no money to put his wife in a nursing home. He cares for her, including changing her diapers. She is still strong and frequently violent. After she tears the toilet tank out, he finally tries to put her in a home, which costs, btw, $6,000 a month, an amount that should come as no surprise to any of you who have dealt with any of these kinds of issues.

She kicks out the window of the ambulance transporting her to the home and then assaults an attendant at the home. So they return her to Job.

In the meantime, his daughter is hanging out with gang members. Job goes to her school and calls the police but there is nothing anyone can or will do. He tells her to stay away and she says she will do what she wants. He gets frustrated and slaps her, trying to literally slap some sense into her, and she calls the police. The police come and investigate and make him leave the house for the night but do not press charges because, according to Job, there is no sign of abuse.

"I'm a big guy," he says. "If I had wanted to hurt my child, I could have. I just wanted to get her attention."

Daughter continues to defy dad. Prostitutes herself for heroin. Gets pregnant. He calls police to have her arrested so they will put her into a rehab program.

"'You're killing your own baby,' I told her," Job says.

Other daughter has a five-gallon jar in which she has been saving pennies. Pregnant daughter has the baby and then steals her sister's jar of pennies.

And on and on and on. "I don't know if my daughter is alive or dead," Job says.

In which Primo claims that his clutter is OK because other people are far, far worse, which is true, but it does not make me any happier, as I think the only acceptable status is no clutter

Primo messaged this photo to me and said, "See? Other people are a lot worse than I am. So my clutter is not so bad. It's OK."

To which I said, "Nope. There is no acceptable level of clutter."

Primo: Yes, there is. You grew up with no clutter and I grew up with almost hoarders. The happy medium is between those two.

Me: No. There is no such thing as a happy medium in this case. There is right and there is wrong and your way is just wrong. No clutter is the only way.

Primo: But I am so much better than my parents!

Me: But you are still wrong.

My house in Memphis where I lived a happy, clutter-free life.

In which Primo has to adjust the windows at the cottage where we go on vacation

Only we are not on vacation any more, so we are very, very sad. I wish we were the kind of people who can be on vacation all the time. We are not. We are people who have to work.

I think I would be such a better rich trust fund brat than the ones who get hooked on cocaine or make sex tapes that become public. If I didn't have to work for a living and could do whatever I wanted, I would stay totally under the radar. Nobody would know my name, not even for Good Works. Any Good Works I did would be anonymous. Well, donations of money. Good Works done in person are hard to keep anonymous, but I would try. I really hate having my photo taken and can't imagine I would feel any differently about it if I were rich.

The other thing I would do if I were rich would be to spend a lot of time at this cottage, the place we have been going on vacation for several years now. I think I could spend every day of the rest of my life sitting in that sunroom, reading and listening to the waves crash on the shore.

Of course every day, Primo would have to come in after me to adjust the windows. Do you see the difference between the first and second photos?

In which I get Primo to concede that my brother using Too Many Paper Towels! is not the worst thing in the world and I remind him that his parents stayed in our house for nine days in our bedroom and I had to suck it up

Primo was ultra cranky when my brother was here, as I mentioned, but I wanted him to get the heck over it. But, sadly, Primo had already reached Bitch Eating Crackers stage and was not to be reasoned with.

However, he saved his crank for me. He did not show it to my brother. Instead, he whispered to me, when my brother was out of the room, "He's using too many paper towels!"

This was after he had complained that Greg had merely rinsed the spoon he used for adding sugar to his tea instead of scrubbing it with soap and water until he finished singing "Happy Birthday" and that Greg had covered his food with a paper towel instead of using the piece of wax paper that we leave in the microwave and that my brother had no way of knowing about.

Cranky, cranky, cranky.

Let me give you some background.

Greg has not always been a good houseguest. At my mom's, he used to leave his stuff all over and sleep until noon and then make himself something to eat but not get his dishes to the sink. He didn't help make dinner, didn't make his bed, etc., etc., etc. My sister and I would fume, but what are you going to do?

Since then, my brother has gone through an amazing transformation and has become The Best Houseguest In The World.

1. He conformed to our schedule
2. He offered to go to the store to buy milk - with his money - when it looked like we were almost out. We weren't - Primo and I don't go through milk that fast but we love a bargain, so we buy a whole gallon and then freeze it in quart containers. My brother did not know there were frozen quarts in the freezer.
3. He kept all of his stuff out of the guest bathroom.
4. He kept his room (relatively) tidy. (Compared to when he was a kid.)
5. He hung up his towels, which he has always done, but we have had houseguests who left their wet towels on the floor, which made me wonder what on earth? Who does that? In someone else's house?
6. He tried to wash his own dishes but Primo hates how anyone else does dishes.
7. He covered the food he put in the microwave.
8. He offered to take us out to dinner and then he did so.
9. When he and I went to the state fair, he bought half the food we ate.

More background: My mother, God love her, is as much of a control freak as Primo is and likes her dishes washed a certain way, a way that is not how either Primo or I do dishes. If I do dishes at my mom's, I do it her way if she is watching and my way if she is not.

My mom gets anxious if someone else is doing stuff in her kitchen and will correct a person.

I don't like that kind of correction - that feeling that someone's paper towels are more important than I am, so I make a conscious effort in my house to let people do as they will, even if it's not how I like it.

So when Primo complained about the paper towels, I said, "Even if Greg is using too many paper towels - let's say he uses four paper towels a day, that's a total of 16 paper towels for four days. I can live with that."

Primo made grumpy noises.

I continued, "Besides, when your mom and dad were here, they were horrible guests. They stayed nine days in our bedroom and you were working and I was stuck with them! You do not get to complain about my brother, who is an excellent houseguest!"

"You can't talk about my parents! You can't bring them into the discussion! The statute of limitations is done on them," he replied.

"No it isn't!" I said. "They were awful!"

"But they're dead," he answered. "So what they did doesn't count any more."

"It does," I muttered under my breath.

"But I am sorry I have been cranky about your brother," he said. "I am cranky about the election, not about him."

And then he was cordial and chatty with Greg and we all lived happily ever after until Greg left on Tuesday.

In which my brother visits and it is stressful for Primo because - I think - he has never had a normal adult relationship with a sibling

My brother is here on his way back home after my uncle's memorial fish fry last week. Greg rode up from Texas and is visiting us on the way back.

It is fine with me - but it is an unscheduled, surprise visit.

Which is hard for Primo.

1. Primo hates surprises +
2. He really doesn't like houseguests because he likes doing things His Way and really, so do I - we are both cranky old people who don't want anyone on our lawn +
3. It is the weekend before the primary election. A lot of Primo's friends are running. The primary is what matters because most of these races are in districts where the opposition doesn't even bother to run. If the candidate wins the primary, she runs unopposed in November.

=

Cranky husband.

Plus Primo is annoyed that Greg is getting his own food. "When T visited," Primo said, "I asked him if he wanted breakfast or lunch and then I made him something."

"Yeah," I said, "but I am not interested in orchestrating or preparing meals for three people. If it's breakfast time and Greg wants something to eat, I am quite happy for him to get what he wants out of the fridge and prepare it himself."

Primo is totally uncomfortable with this and I have been trying to figure out why. I told Greg to help himself to what he wants. I say that to all of our houseguests. But usually, people don't do it. Your siblings, though, will do it.

Primo thinks this is odd.

I do not.

But then I realized that Primo has never had what I consider a normal adult relationship with a sibling. His sister died almost a decade ago and even when she was alive, it was not what anyone would consider a healthy, normal relationship: she would expect Primo to drive her to a bar or someplace where she could buy drugs and then want him to sit in her room with her and listen to heavy metal and get high. He felt guilty about being the healthy, employed child and about living far away from his parents and his sister, so he would grit his teeth and do what she wanted.

He has never stayed with either of his two half brothers, either at their homes or together at Sly and Doris'.

I have stayed with my siblings, both at their homes and at my mom's. Siblings can do things other people can't and you don't think it's weird. I got pissy when Primo's friend from high school started going through our cupboards, but it would not bother me (much) if my brother or sister did it. If they did it, I would just ask what they were looking for so I could help. When Primo's friend did it, I was seething with his violating a boundary that I had not invited him to cross.

BTW, my brother has covered his food before he puts it in the microwave. He has washed his own dishes. He has kept the guest bath tidy and is not leaving his stuff all over the place. He is a good houseguest.

What about you guys? Are the rules different for siblings from regular houseguests?