Update... Mar 15, 2007

Good afternoon friends and family,

Well, we are zooming into the weekend, and for those of you lucky enough to get paid semi-monthly… it is pay day. The Ides of March may have been a bad thing for Julius Caesar, but for Aunt Martha it means cold hard cash!!! I love payday. For the obvious reason that for at least 24 hours you feel flush with cash, of course there are bills to be paid, but for at least 24 hours before any other checks clear I feel like I could go out and buy anything… or just about anything that less than or equal to may actual take home pay.

Which brings me to our first topic of conversation, I like to think of these exchanges as a conversations although I am doing all of the talking. Many of you may know that my niece is planning on moving to Dallas in June and that she is planning on moving in with Aunt Martha. I think this is going to be a really great fresh start for Marguerite, the niece, and I am hoping that it is going to be a smooth transition for both of us… but keep your fingers and you ears to the ground… you never know what may happen. She interviewed with a company that does management consulting services… my skin just crawled… and has been somewhat offered a position there, but the position seems to 1099. Yikes, now my skin is really crawling. The unfortunate part so far is that she doesn’t really understand the implications of being 1099 versus W-2. When I told her that she would have to pay all of her own taxes, she told me that she already pays taxes… when I tried to explain that she was only paying a portion of her taxes and that the company was paying the rest, I don’t think she believed me, moreover I don’t know if she was completely listening. But she is an adult and this is her life, so I can only give her information, not advice, and see where that takes her. So, you may want to say a few prayers and start checking the looney bins around the June timeframe… I may be in one, please visit.

For those of you wondering, I am still looking for a car. Currently I am driving my old car, yes the silver Acura… that has a small blemish on the rear bumper, a strangely placed dent on the roof and top of the passenger door, a scratch on the passenger window, and enormous crack in the front windshield that looks like a mapping of the Amazon River. This car has been through a lot folks, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot. This car has been in around 7 accidents. Some of which I was driving the car, and a couple in which it was simply parked in the wrong place at the wrong time… poor thing. This car has been rear-ended at least twice, it has had big things dropped on it from high above, it is on its third (yes you read the right, third) transmission, it has been hit by bus, a BIG YELLOW SCHOOL BUS, full of second graders, and God love this car… it is still going strong. My car had recently started sputtering on startup. You can ask my niece who was in the car with me on one of the worst occasions of my car doing this, I was a complete wreck. I was terrified, terrified of the car stalling out in the middle of the road not only leaving me stranded, but leaving me dead in the path of an eighteen wheeler hauling dangerous chemicals!! I could see the headlines now, “Programmer dies in car accident, it was t he collision that killed her (she’s been through plenty of that), it wasn’t even being thrown precariously from the vehicle, it was the being bathed in Nitric Acid that finally did her in. Her remains have been packed into a Crown Royal bag, and her Mother is burying her in the backyard. Please call for directions”. Then they will simply go on and on about the dangers of Nitric Acid and how you should really keep your car maintained. It is amazing how the newspapers do that sort of thing. Gee, here is some really awful news but let’s explain how this could happen to you and you can avoid it, all the while you have simply been de-sensitized to the fact that someone has perished in all of this. Anyway… I am way subject. The point of the matter is I know that my car is old. I know that my car isn’t, shall we say, 100% anymore. I know that my car isn’t pristine. And on top of all of that, I know that my car is paid for! It is my favorite attribute of the car. So, I have been out on the internet surfing… letting my eyes and fingers do the browsing. I have really fallen in love with the Lexus GS300, model year 2006 or newer. I like the newer body style…it is sleek, it is sporty, it is muscly, it is what Aunt Martha would definitely buy if she wasn’t so afraid of having a car payment. I have to admit I am a little afraid of having a car payment. I am a little afraid of not being able to go out and have a nice dinner when I want, which is pretty much what I do now. I wont be able to buy a new outfit when I want, which is pretty much what I do now. I wouldn’t be able to just jet off to Europe when I want… which is what I aspire to do. But the time for put, slap my credit score down, and finance a car is drawing neigh. I am going to be doing this sooner rather than later, and I will be elated. I will love my new car. I will be happy. I will be broke! So, stay tuned… I could be driving by you in my new car…


The play is going really well, if you’d like to come and see it please do!!! The website is www.roverdramawerks.com. I cant believe it is already our second weekend. I have really enjoyed getting to know all of the people and just being part of a play for the second time has been just as much fun as the first.

Well, I am gonna close out this addition… need to dive back into work, and see if I cant make a difference!

Peace, love, and nitric acid,
Martha