Ah, February!

A month of highs and lows, peaks and valleys, zenith of zeniths and nadir of nadirs!

Actually, the twenty eight days went by in a blur.

The tax thing isn’t going that well. The 2018 Tax Cut and Job Act is affecting a lot of people negatively. My informal estimate is that eighty percent of my clients – four out of five – are getting lower refunds than the prior year or have to owe instead of repeating a refund. Some of this is explainable, i.e., with the lowering of the tax brackets many have gotten their “refund” spread out in an extra $20 or $40 dollars a paycheck to spend. But the loss of itemizing due to the standard deduction doubling as well as the loss of personal exemptions are really hurting people out there.

A small consolation is that my tax company has lowered their prices. However, that hurts me commission-wise. Also, I’ve done about 55 returns YTD whereas last year I was at around 70 by February’s end. This has us worried either A) clients are not coming in and seeking to have their taxes done elsewhere, or B) clients are putting off coming in because they’ve heard how painful Tax Season 2019 is, but there will be a late rush and the last week in March and the first half of April will be insane.

Physically, I had a set-back, too. Here in northern New Jersey we’ve had a couple of snowstorms that’ve quickly transformed into icestorms. Last Wednesday I stepped on fresh snow camouflaging a sheet of ice. In a nanosecond my legs flew outwards and I slammed down hard on my tailbone, slid forward, smashing my head hard against the car door. I momentarily blacked out and woke up with bloody knuckles. The wife feared I might have to go to the hospital but I demurred; she gave me the concussion protocol (I passed four of the six points) and dosed me up on Advil. Today, eight days later, my neck and lower back are still achy.

The Beatles biography has gotten me bogged down, only hitting the half-way point of the 856-page encyclopedic work. That’s really a function of having little time to just wall off the world and read. Other than that I haven’t been reading much of anything else. Once I’m through with the Fab Four, however, I want to burn through about ten 180-page paperbacks to get that feeling of caught-up-ness back.

Been playing a lot of Beatles, naturally, on the guitar these past weeks: Dear Prudence, Mean Mister Mustard, Revolution, A Day in the Life, I Dig a Pony. Once tax season’s finished I want to clean and clear out the basement. There’s an eight by twelve section covered by clothes bins and piles of grammar school artwork that’s covering up a nice makeshift rehearsal studio for me, my Epiphone, and my Fender amp. Also, my weights. Six more weeks …

The girls and I were fascinated with the incredibly bad Stephen King adaptation Under the Dome, and spend the first half of the month burning through all three seasons – 39 episodes – of it. We have a healthy repertoire now of Big Jim, Junior, Barbie, Julia, Joe, and Noory impressions that only half a percent of the population would understand. But it cracks us up. We’re looking for a new series to check out. The wife wants to introduce them to the original 24 with Jack Bauer, and I think that’s a good go. Right now the family has been sustaining itself with re-runs of The Office, still the funniest show on TV (Impractical Jokers excepted – when do I get a new season of episodes?)

The little ones are advancing in leaps and bounds. Little One has been busy raising her grades into the 90s, continues to master the clarinet, and is working on an essay for Seton Hall in the hopes of winning a cash prize. Patch plays three sports and just played in her first All-Star basketball game. She scores a handful of baskets every time on the court and as an All-Star sunk two foul shots. She continues to draw, paint, read and write. I have a couple of artists on my hands, an emotional introverted one and an extroverted dynamo in the other.

So February’s in the can. My goal for March? Survival, unfortunately. It’ll be just as hectic, if not more so. Than – glorious April. There’s our Easter ritual: Mass, a nice lunch, and the Ten Commandments. The younglings go away to their grandparents for a week, the Mrs. and I will take a long weekend in Cape May, and I get my evenings and weekends back to myself. When I’m not chauffeuring the girls around, that is.