The weather is clear and sunny and 62˚. Flowers and bees abound. I finally got my bike repaired and went on two short rides this week. I’ve also spend time on the final project, due last Saturday, and the final presentation, due this Saturday, for my docent course. Mostly, though, I’ve been working on our taxes.

With a move, 3 jobs in two states, and a primary residence sale, we were planning to have someone else do them, and we paid for private advice last fall and again in February. But as the rest of you may know, when someone else does your taxes you still have to figure out all the numbers and put them into categories for that person. Finding the numbers is the main work, so it only made sense for me to put the numbers directly into the tax program, which I had to purchase anyway for my mother’s and son’s taxes. I had the accountant review it and look for improvements, then I incorporated those and finished it myself, with a couple of calls to the program vendor, H&R Block. During the second call, the representative–who had already answered a question and found an issue–said of my remaining question, I’ve never done this before and it sounds like you know more about it than I do. Maybe my new job should be tax preparer. Next year.

Today while I was putting up the groceries, I heard a Splat. I looked down and saw two pieces of broken plastic at my feet. I picked them up. I examined them. I did not recognize them. I started to return to the groceries, but thought, These must have come from something. I took a walk, and found that my 128-ounce bottle of laundry detergent had fallen from the chair under the dining table and split its cap, and was pouring a perfect circle of liquid onto the floor. Such a classic math problem!–but instead of calculating r of t, I grabbed all the towels hanging by the hot tub and used them to clean it up. This is what I get for not Stowing Things Properly. First rule of sailing. Yes, well, I aspire to sail more.

Quote of the day, a paraphrase of Socrates from Plato’s dialogs, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: The mantle of glorified greatness belongs to no society by right or by might, or by revered tradition…Exceptionalism has to be earned again and again, generation after generation, by citizens committed, together, to the endlessly hard work of sustaining a polity that strives to serve the good of all.