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That #&%(*@* royal wedding is finally over. Only downside, we've still got to go through the royal divorce in a year or two.

John, you're just like me. A chronic grump. Have to say though that that funny line you put at the end of your posts for a while still gives me smiles whenever I think of it. It was (remember) "Despite the high cost of living; it remains popular." Yuk-yuk-yuk!

Good States 1. Happiness 2. Positive 3. Blissful 4. Confident 5. Alcohol Induced Bad States 1. Dilemma 2. Poor State 3. Desperate Straits 4. Predicament 5. Alcohol Induced And of course the State of Affairs can be anything.

Me too. I once said this to a client who couldn't pay me in full: "Well, if you're short, Mr. Short, you can pay me next month."

But for the present, just one more addition to the most expensive welfare family in the world.

Haven't you misspelled misspelling? According to an unimpeachable source (Wikipedia), there's no dash in there. If this is correct, consider yourself reprimanded, but not chastised, banished, or anything drastic.

I prepared the mother's old return and then I amended. That gave me child tax credit for 593 on 1040X. It gave me the amount for EIC for $3,200ish and the additional child tax credit for $1407. I printed out that 1040X and deleted that 1040X while leaving the mother on top on the 1040 that was not deleted. I added husband on the second line and I added his W-2. Then I clicked "amend return" one more time and I made sure that the correct amount (column C) was $2,000 for child tax credit, and 0 for EIC and 0 for additional child tax credit. While copying Column A from the 1040X printed before. I also added on 1040X on column $18K for standard deduction (he itemized) and that the correct amount was $12600, and the software entered automatically $5,400 on column B: The last thing was to adjust the refund and the payments made. On page two, on column A, said that only one exception was claimed on filers and I entered 2 on column C. The software automatically entered 1 on column B, which indicated that I was adding 1 more exemption (should I have put 2 on column A?) I also stated that I was changing HOH status. If I amended the husbands, I would have to enter the children info on form 1040X and more entries would be required. So for the amended return the wife is on top which might cause me some issues with DC but se la vie. By the way, he called me at 10AM and his appointment was for 9, so I told him next week... meaning I still have more time to correct anything else.

One of my husband's friends says what we really need is not caller ID, but call IQ. To see if it's worth bothering to answer. Of course, I got not one, not two, but three "Windows Technical Support" calls yesterday. Kept two of them going for a bit by playing stupid. It was funny.

But in the snow it's smart to wrap some barbed wire around your bare feet, just to get a little traction.

Some days I just open my mouth to change feet.

It was easier to screen my calls long before caller ID by the way people would pronounce my name. Home or work, I and my colleagues knew who was a real call I wanted/needed to take and who was just marketing or worse. I do miss that, but I have caller ID now on all our phones.

I grew up with an unusual Italian name and was thrilled to bits to change it as soon as I could (after my dad died, too). I knew which lists where ALL my junk mail was purchased from, by the way the name was mis-spelled. They got real creative at times. Now with White, the only weird one was when someone thought it was Hoyt. Now I say "like the color" and yes don't go all physics-technical on me, people call it a color!

Oh yeah, the IRS claims my cell phone is not in my name. AT&T says it IS in my name. So, that avenue is closed to me. Very frustrating.

I'm not sure that of why they can't verify my identity. My cell phone is in my name, I've had the same freaking name for 25 years and it worked fine until they updated their system. I was involved in the Equifax debacle, but did not freeze my credit. It's really annoying the heck out of me, because they can't seem to give me any solutions to fix it on their end. They have not even told me that I could go to the IRS office here to verify myself. They just told me that I could go with my client to verify his identity, but he can do that without me going with him and charging him for that trip.

I took my first husband's name, but I also took my second's -- so my name no longer matches my first husband, but they still mix us up. I blame it on him using my address after our divorce for applying for credit, because Weston, CT, has a much better average credit rating than Syracuse where he moved. And, I blame it on the dummies at the agencies that compare the address and not the SSN. It's caused problems in other ways, but those I can explain to a real person who has authority, such as the banker when applying for a HELOC. The IRS just follows their rubrics. I get some wrong things off my credit reports from time to time, but new errors do pop up again. My credit reports are pretty accurate now, it's just some dummy pulling Teri's by her "address" instead of mine by my SSN, so I flunk answering "her" questions. My maiden name was Brown, so although I was married in the feminist 60's when my friends were keeping their names, I wanted to lose Brown. I wanted something like Anderson that people could pronounce and spell, and not Franciose (rhymes with grandiose and not the French Francois) that I took. I kept that after the divorce, because I was job hunting and because I had a young son. But, I was very happy to take Lewis with my second husband a decade later. Other than some Spanish speaking areas around here that want to spell it Louis or Luis, I have no problem -- other than the credit agencies and, therefore, the IRS -- with Lewis. (Well, there is another Rita Lewis in CT who owes a car rental company, so I get nasty calls. And, there was the time in the emergency room when they pulled the chart of a much younger Rita Lewis.) I guess Lewis is a bit too common, but not as blah as Brown and not as rare as Franciose. I used to hear Francois, Frances, Frankos, Frankosee (most common) and even Fricassee!