Well, another week of not getting anything done easily. My client’s payroll taxes are filed - and I only needed to open one of the kinds of forms I bought - it had the second one I needed included. Now we need to make a trip to the store to return the other ones.
I went to the client this past Monday. She is located in Manhattan. I drive to Queens and park in a municipal parking garage near a subway stop that is one stop from Manhattan - I only have to travel 3 stops total to the client. (For those who might not know both Manhattan and Queens are boroughs of New York City. Manhattan is what most people think of as New York City - it located on Manhattan Island. Queens is a more suburban part of New York City and is one of the two boroughs of New York City on Long Island (which also has Nassau and Suffolk Counties which are not part of New York City). Parking in Manhattan is prohibitive. Not only is the per hour rate charged by the garages and the few lots left high, but there is something like a 16% tax on parking in garages/lots. The lot in Queens costs me less than $10 for the several hours I am parked - less than an hour would cost in Manhattan. The other alternative I have is to take the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan from my home community and then switch (at additional cost) to the LIRR in Manhattan to complete my trip. This is not cheap even with the fact that I generally would be traveling off peak (cheaper than on peak) and am entitled to a senior discount (from both trains). In addition neither of these trains companies have been having a lot of luck lately - breakdowns, etc. and I can walk from the client to my car if I had to - it might take awhile, I might have to stop, I might have to leave my laptop at the client - but I would get home if for some reason (to put it politely and in a way not to scare anyone if you think about things which have happened in Manhattan in the past 20 years) something happened and the trains - both types) were not running. So I drive to Queens, park, and take the subway. It is normal for me to arrive at the garage and have to wait in a line to get in - maybe 3 or 4 cars might be waiting ahead of me. The garage is located next to a court house and normally people will leave after their business at same is finished and it is not a long wait (shorter than writing this post will be). This time when I arrived there I got on the end of a longer line than I have seen there - at least 7 cars ahead of me - and there is a second entrance which had 2 more cars waiting to squeeze into the line. It took an HOUR before I drove in. (I did let one of the two cars in the other entrance ahead of me - the other had left and, well, he was there before me.) I had arrived there on the early side - but due to this arrived at the client late.
To save time at the client - the weather was to turn bad on Tuesday and I wanted to make some stops on the way home - I not only had the forms client needed to sign, finished and printed, but had also printed out envelopes to mail them in (as opposed to printing them at the client). This was not to be. She had a form I had forgotten about for disability insurance for employees (her) and our state has added a family leave policy to this. The form was 2 weeks late (it arrived while the business was closed as she was away), there were no instructions for the new family leave premium - instructions said to go online for same - no Internet connection there. I tried calling the number on the form for help, was on hold for about 20 minutes - finally when the call was answered the person had no idea what I was talking about - he had not even heard about the type of policy I was talking about. He went away, came back and said he was transferring me to the right department. Another 15 minutes on hold - the woman was very nice, but she also was the wrong department. She also transferred me - after another 10 minutes on hold, I gave up! I filled in the form as well as I could. I told the client about this and that if there was a problem, I would straighten it out. Not only did I want to get out of there and home to my husband who was having a breakdown over the coming weather this week, but the client has a car service which picks her up at 3:30 and it was close to same. I had her sign the forms and the checks I had prepared and made my goodbyes as she packed to leave also.
I made a stop at a bank (they would all be closed by the time I was in my car). I remembered hearing a ring in my cell phone from my husband who was suppose to be running a couple of errands and buying some food items in case we were stuck in the house the rest of the week and had figured he had a question on what to buy - plus at that time I could not get to my phone as the I could was on the wrong side of the desk I use and was blocked from it by the client packing. So I checked my phone. He had not gone anywhere - when he went to leave - there were no brakes in his car! So I texted him back - almost crying over what had gone on - it was that messed up a day and asked if I should come home before running errands - he agreed.
The drive home was not too bad - about 2 hours. We got in the car I had been driving and went out to run errands. I suddenly remembered that the items I had to mail out - bill payments for us and the forms for client - were still in my brief case ... in the house. So we had to drive home to get it and then drive to the post office to mail them out (and I checked our box - still no forms from IRS). I then made the best suggestion of the day - “Wendys for dinner?” Neither of us had defrosted anything for dinner, plus we figured to be in the house most of the week, so we went.
Yesterday I filed the clients New York State forms online. I gave a deep breathe - all of the clients payroll taxes filed on time - with 2 days to spare. Then I remembered - it had never asked me for her bank account information to debit the payment. I went back in to the site - it does not seem to have anything else to do? I have an email out to the state asking about this - nothing seems to get finished on the first try any longer?
We had been able to go out yesterday - rain started late in the day and it was horribly heavy rain with much flooding around. We had the other car towed to our mechanic - about 4 - 5 blocks away. We told the tow company when we called it had to go on a flat bed - it has all wheel drive - and was glad to see that they had listened and sent same. Fellow who was towing insisted it was not needed “I HAVE been doing this for 10 years and know when a flat bed tow is needed - see the wheels are in the air in the front, no problem.” Glad he has done this for 10 years - we have had the car for 20+ years and it was not our first all or 4 wheel drive. He had to turn around (he was facing opposite to where the mechanic is) and told us to drive there and he would meet us. This mechanic (and another before him) has been at this location well over the 40 years I have lived in this area and is generally known in the area - I was surprised that the fellow did not know which mechanic and where we were talking about. We drove over and waited and waited and waited. (I could have walked there in less than half the time it took him to drive there). Our mechanic and another customer there were shocked that the driver did not know where he was. The fellow finally showed up - the wheels had locked and he - HAD TO PUT IT ON THE FLAT BED!!!
The rain was the leading edge of the weather to the west of us across the U.S. - this is that freezing temperatures and huge storm that you had first. Today we managed to get out for lunch just ahead of a “snow squall” which is apparently like a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain. Our area was lucky as it was quickly and we only got about 2 inches of snow - we went out and pushed it off the driveway and then husband salted around as it was in the teens and heading colder until late next weekend.
It is now 6F outside and still dropping. Not as bad as the -40sF I have heard about to the west of us across the country, but cold enough for husband to be in a major panic. We now have the cabinets under the kitchen and bathroom sinks open and the faucets are set to drip, as is the basement to keep the water from freezing - just in case.
I did the laundry Monday night so we would not have to worry about doing same tonight and tomorrow. I sent out my embroidery chapter’s newsletter by email tonight - and in searching for textile related exhibitions to list for them, found one of interest to some of our reenacting group members and sent it out to them also. I thought I was doing better - then my dinner (not husband’s - we had different dinners) was refrigerator cold from sitting after it was cooked and I reheated it - of course part of it then was so HOT that I burned the inside of my mouth.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Well, in 2 days there is a new month - maybe it will be better. There is an old adage - “Man makes plans, God laughs”. I sort of feel like that right now.
One has to look at the good in one’s life as even as all heck seems to be breaking loose. We are both okay. We have a place to be in the cold and food to eat. The cold will end over the weekend (even if it will be raining then).
Everything works out - some way, even if not as one planned. Hopefully I will get some work done in the house while we are keeping warm inside. Oh, and hopefully the weather will be nice enough next week for a bunch of us “old ladies” to go out to our embroidery meeting.
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