Snow globe

While I was up in Ely for two nights I slept quite well. Home for two nights and just getting my usual three hour stretches. Aside from the cats, the difference is the absolute blackness of the north woods, so dark, and the street and security light pollution that I thought I've learned to live with. Time to do some serious shopping for blackout curtains.

So many thoughts swirling around me as I lay there trying to fall back asleep. It was almost like being in a snow globe with partial essays falling down like glitter. What to write about? Spirit cards? Breaking the rules? Hibbing? Driving? Anniversaries? Politics? Indignation? Gratitude? Helplessness? Art? Literature? Friendship? Diabetes? Diet? Television? Electronics? Electricity? My daughters? Compassion? They are all interesting to me. And as my sister once pointed out to me in a card she sent, "Everybody is entitled to my opinion."

One thing that is getting my goat and I can't seem to let go of is taxes. My dad used to say he never minded paying taxes because it meant he was working and making an income. In 2010 I was fifty-eight years old and unemployed. I had to withdraw ten thousand dollars from an IRA to get by until I got a job. The penalty was about thirty percent or a little above three thousand dollars. Those are the rules of retirement accounts and there was no getting around it. What killed me was having to withdraw another three thousand to pay the taxes.

Then I find out that the Romney's were able to deduct $77,000.00, yes, seventy-seven thousand dollars, approximately twenty-five times the amount I was taxed on a measly ten thousand, for a horse.  Mrs Romney has MS and riding a horse is good therapy. Not taking Old Brownie from the livery stables for a ride, no these are the expenses for maintaining an Olympic calibre dressage horse. I have a friend with MS and she is having a terrible time getting approved for physical therapy. Not only is dressage an "alternative" therapy, they are able to deduct it on their taxes.

My last boss said I did not think rules applied to me. Oh yeah, they apply. But why don't those same rules apply to the privileged? Now, now, Carol... the rules for early withdrawal of funds from an IRA is not the same as a legitimate medical expense such as training fees for a thoroughbred horse used for therapy. And then, this arrogant man has the nerve to insult me. I am the 99% and I am the 47% and I am angry. How can I insult him in public the way he has insulted me? (Yeah, that would show him!)

I try to live my life by the Golden Rule. I want to treat others as I want to be treated and just can't wrap my mind around mean-spiritedness. I remember asking one of my little girls where she learned to be selfish? She didn't get it from her father or me. (Of course she was only five or so and outgrew it and is now a fine, generous, human being.) Driving home from Ely on back roads I was struck with the emptiness of the land. It was very green with Simpson's type of fluffy white clouds on a blue sky. Why do people have to live in shanty towns all over the world when there is so much abundance here? But what would they do here? Damned if I know. I drove through Hibbing, MN, Bob Dylan's home town and saw why he would want to leave at the first available minute. So truly, I have no answers. 

The glitter has settled, the globe is almost still. Those other thoughts will have to wait for another day.