����After weeks of mutual nagging and dithering, Paul and I finally sat down this weekend and did the preparation for our income tax. Yep, the party never ends here at the world headquarters of MarnCo, the multinational corporation which brings you The Big Adventure.

����We're both self-employed, so this tax business involves A LOT of work. Endless of mountains of receipts have to be sorted and then added up.

����Being as I'm the more organized of the two of us, I have a sophisticated receipt filing system at my fingertips, as you can see in this picture.

����Oh, be quiet.

����He's even WORSE than I am, eh. The spousal unit doesn't even have a big envelope. If something were to ever happen to him, when tax time came I would be soooo up ca ca creek with no mode of locomotion.

����We have had many um er ah ... discussions, yes, THAT'S the word, discussions, about this situation, but so far he shows no signs of changing his ways.

����This is just one of many reasons why I plan to die first, eh.

����You can well imagine how ticked off I will be if he has the nerve to croak before me.

����Tax time is also the time we review our overall financial situation. You'll be pleased to know our retirement plans are continuing apace. At the current rate we are saving, we figure we can stop work in our early 80's AND look forward to a diet of consisting mostly of premium cat food.

����There was a time when it looked as if we would have to work right through our 80's AND go for the generic no name catfood in our golden years, so you can well imagine the celebratory mood here today.

����As Paul said, "Hang the expense. Put another sunflower seed in the bird feeder."

--Marn
P.S. About this time last year I wrote the entry that helped me become the world authority (as far as the search engine Google is concerned, anyhow) on massive insane barking. I'm trying not to let my Google crown go to my head, eh.
P.P.S. If you came in through the banner, there is no parrot. At least, that's the story I tell my husband, and I'm sticking to it.