Today 30Dec2022: Last Friday 2022

I was up late as I had trouble sleeping. I am starting to get my nights and days mixed up. Again, I wrote a long blog. This time I included some thoughts and many asides in the blog. I had a bagel, an NYC bagel, plus a banana for breakfast. To this, I added liberal coffee, the Equal Exchange brand. I also wrote a bunch of medical bills–I write medical bills using a physical check in case I have to prove the expenses to the IRS. I plan to write off medical bills for my 2022 taxes, which could attract an audit. I closed the morning with a lunch of ham (there seems to be an infinite supply of ham) and a cup of yogurt with fruit.

I plan on Sunday to file all the papers for 2022 and start on my taxes for 2022. I am hopeful to have a pile of money returned to me. The tax efficiency will be determined by my income, which unfortunately increased considerably by all the stock I sold to cover the unplanned medical expenses. I have thus paid massive withholdings already and will have to exclude a significant amount of my medical spending from the write-off, as 20% of your income is the exclusion now from write-offs. Plus, President Trump’s SALT changes limit, part of his so-called tax cuts, limit my tax write-off for local taxes to $10,000, which means I may still not be able to write off my medical expenses–it will be close.

I have revised withholding and started to borrow money, which I could quickly pay off by selling stock, against my 401K to prevent a repeat of the inefficiencies. I have maxed out my medical reimbursement account at Nike. I have increased my deferred compensation and my 401K payments. I can reduce the 401K number if I find I pulled too much money away. I have reduced my expenses by focusing on repeated costs.

After this tax thinking and paying bills, I head out to see Susie. I stopped by the post office and mailed Cat’s Lamp Black comics for Christmas. Cat will not have to pack this in her luggage. Traffic was not heavy for a Sunday, and I had no issues and saw no extra-legal driving.

Susie was “so happy” to see me (her words), and we moved to the social room to watch a movie. Susie picked the violent John Wick 1 movie (John Wick 4 will be out in early 2023). We got settled in the chairs, and Susie was moved to a recliner by Jennifer (she is the live-in nurse aide). We called Leta, Susie’s mother, before the movie. Leta was home, and we chatted about a few things before ringing off.

The movie is one of our favorites and is a crime-spy kind of movie. It has the assassin hotel, The Continental, in NYC and establishes all the themes that become the movie’s background for the following films in the series. In addition, I read a new spin-off movie with a new assassin, the ballerina, starting to film soon with the same theme and support cast.

Susie stayed awake for most of the film. After that, I found a playlist of old 80s and earlier rock videos and played those for Susie. She sang along for some. More than two hours of sitting is enough, and Susie was looking to lie down for a bit before her dinner at hummingbird house. So I headed out at 4:30ish with a kiss.

I stopped by Beaverton for dinner. I went to the cart lot near city hall and got a waffle sandwich and fries from the fry people. I took my bounty of freshly made cart food to Central Taps and had my feast with a beer. I brought my computer and the solo board game Nemo’s War with me. Unfortunately, the lighting was low, making it impossible to play a game.

I purchased some small kits of laser-cut thin plywood on Esty to make some spelljammer ships (swords and sorcery in space!). I plan to build my own ship, but these small ones were not expensive and would be interesting to assemble.

I was tired and took Air Volvo home. I did the dishes, rested for a bit, and had some trouble with my knees after working on them in physical therapy–stiff and painful now. I slept too long again in the evening, having nodded off reading. I got up and watched the new movie on HBOMax, Black Adam. The Rock is the star, and he tries to do the DC superhero routine, but, as often happens in DC movies, disbelief is never entirely dispelled, and I just saw The Rock trying to be DC. The movie was good for DC, but as usual, it was not as good as a Marvel TV show.

I went to bed just after midnight. However, I could not sleep and was back up at 2AM, took some pain killer to help me sleep, and finally fell asleep.

I am enjoying the book Nameless Serenade (The Commissario Ricciardi Mysteries). The series is recommended. When I could not sleep, I just read more. Each book is long, 408 pages for this one, so the story lasts for days or a week for me.

Thanks for reading.

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