Okay, Maybe It's Just Me...

I've been seeing this study popping up in a lot of blogoports lately: confused Americans, who confusedly thinking that 25% of America is gaygaygay, when the actual percentage of Americans who are gayoramic is 3.5%, or thereabouts.

Explanations for confusions? Maybe people can't count. Maybe people don't know what 25% means. Maybe those gay folk are just so sassy and flamboyant, you know, and in your face, that one of them SEEMS like several of them, and SO... well, we get confused. Whereas nice quiet straight people who don't make a fuss, who notices them?

Whatever. All I know is I started counting gay, lesbian, and bisexuals I am acquainted with, and while it is true it is probably not 25% of everyone I know, it is a pile more than 3.5% of people I know.

And it's not like I live in San Francisco, either.

Is what I'm saying.

In April When The Showers Are Sweet...

...I spend one weekend doing taxes and cleaning house and boxing up excess toys, books, and clothing to give to the poor.  The weather at this point in Arkansas is usually sunny and cool, so the work can be done with windows open, and when I am done, everything is so dustless and spare and with the doom of how much we will have to send the Feds and the State coffers no longer hanging like a axe over my head (we never have a nickel to spare, ever, so that is always a giant axe) confirmed, a clean house is immensely helpful.

Not to mention the sunshine and clear breeze.

This year with all the pollen it is not such a clear breeze -- BUT!

President Obama's tax cuts came through for us!

Well, probably our poverty helped some.  We made two thousand (actual, not adjusted) dollars and change less this year than we did last year; that and the tax cuts meant we got a sizable refund this year, rather than (as was true every single year under Mr. Bush) having to make a  sizable (and I am talking in the 2000/dollar range, when you add state and federal payments together) payment -- and yes, that was a sizable payment in addition to what had already been always deducted from our paychecks.

So!  Good news!

I have to say the relief is enormous, as we have utterly no savings left, and have been, for the past several months, doing the balancing act to get through the last ten days of each month.  (You know that act:  which bill can we put off paying?  Which utility company won't cut us off if we don't pay the full amount and which will?  Is there anything in the cupboard we can eat so that we don't have to go to the store for another two days?  Ooo, look, what's this?  Grits from two years ago?  Do you think those are still good?  What if we cook them up and mix them with an egg, will that count as dinner?)  I've already raided the kid's piggy bank, back when the washing machine broke down, and both of the emergency credit cards are topped off.  What we were going to do if we owed money on our taxes, we had no idea.

Now?  Money coming in the mail!  Hot damn!

We can buy shoes!

Book Re-Ordering

In a fit of pique over being rejected one more time, I decided the the time had finally come to put the books in the house in order. (They had been stacked all over the place, on top of other bookshelves, in front of books on the bookshelves, along walls, piled on windowsills, in baskets in corners, heaped up in boxes, anywhere that was level and many places that were not.) So: Saturday afternoon we bought a new bookshelf and six storage boxes and all weekend long we have been weeding and sorting and reshelving books.

(Any book we are not going to read or consult in the next year or two, we are committed to putting in a box and storing in the back closet. It is the only way to live in thise house. We have decided! Unfortunately so far Herr Dr. Delagar only wants to store my books and I only want to store his. Sigh.)

We are up to the H's. This is going to take awhile.

I am hoping, though, that eventually we will have a house we can vaccuum and dust and mop, and one where we can find books again. Wouldn't that be splendid?