I am taxed beyond words.

There has been entirely too much calculation of income taxes going on in my house, and I simply had to escape. As I�ve already mentioned, I got mine all done yesterday, and Little Princess did too. However, my husband, her father, the major breadwinner in this house, has extremely complicated taxes. He makes a lot of money at the university and deductions are taken off at source. He also makes money from his composition commissions, although not enough to support a family on, which is why composers generally have day jobs, like teaching at universities. Every spring he is bogged down by the things that mire university professors--exams, marking assignments--except that it is worse for teachers in music departments because he has also had to attend a bazillion student recitals and jury final performance exams. Added to this, he is finishing up his two years as chair of the department, and has had to deal with all the crapola (his word, not mine) that goes along with that. For this reason (and I would like to believe it is for this reason alone, but I think procrastination plays a large part in this matter) he never gets to his taxes until just prior to the April 30 deadline.

He has spent the past several days sorting through receipts, counting every possible penny that can be pared from his taxable income in order to lower the amount. The idea is that he shouldn�t have to pay more on top of what has already been deducted. It�s a good idea; it doesn�t always work out that way though. There was much crying and frustration in the house today as he tried to get Little Princess and me to transfer our tuition and education amounts to him. Theoretically this should have been possible. In practice, it turned out that both she and I earned too much money. I don�t understand how this is possible. If I�m not going to claim the amount, my spouse should be able to, no? Little Princess earned next to nothing, and it was still too much. I mean, she doesn�t actually pay tuition, since her dad is a full-time prof at the institution she attends, but he gets taxed as though it were extra income, so shouldn�t he be able to claim that much at least? You�d think so, but the government has made things so complicated that it is impossible.

(As I am sitting here proofreading this, Hubby has just handed me two envelopes containing statements of trust income which he found in his papers, information slips that should have been appended to last year�s income tax return. Fortunately, the amounts are paltry [I really must take our mutual fund investments and turn them into regular GICs; we make next to nothing on them] and I guess the government didn�t notice their absence. Sheesh!)

So, I told Little Princess that we were going out, except that never happened. She got distracted by something else, then her BF came over, and finally I couldn�t stand it any more and put on my coat and left the house at just after 4 p.m., headed into town where I treated myself to a latt� at the Java and had some civilized conversation with Sam. He had been to a yard sale at one of the convents in town and bought a slide projector with a carousel of slides for the princely sum of $1.00 which he was looking at when I got there. Many of them were from the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

I was there. Well, I mean, I wasn�t at the Olympic games, but the T0ront0 Mendelss0hn Ch0ir, of which I was a member, sang at the solemn opening ceremonies. I remember it well. Security was very tight for all the rehearsals at PIace des Arts, and at the performance itself we saw Pierre Elli0t Trudeau, the then prime minister of Canada, as well as all the big wigs on the Olympic committee. CIaire Brigst0cke (whatever became of her, I wonder) and I walked all over the city (she was a great person to travel with, she did her homework beforehand) and I remember the trip home was by rail in my very own sleeping compartment. If it hadn�t been for Grav0l, I would have been awake all night barfing from motion sickness.

The weather was glorious today, bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky, although rather cool. I had a bit of a shock, though, as I observed that my Siberian apricot tree which I planted at least 10 years ago and which has never flowered or fruited is covered, and I mean covered with flower buds. When it is in full bloom I shall take a picture. I had given up hope and figured that it was a dud. This will be amazing.

I leave you with a photo taken in Cuba (I scanned the ones I just had developed) at the piano bar of yours truly singing into the microphone, Guillermo toiling away at the ivories.

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