come on down to the Mermaid Cafe

I was so sad to learn that Pope Francis died early this morning. I'm not a Catholic, or even religious, but I think he was very good for the Catholic church and for humanity as a whole. He believed in and championed the basics of Christianity, which are all but forgotten by many (at least in the U.S.) who claim to follow the faith.

Kindness, compassion, caring for the less fortunate, and treating each other well... for some, that message is still too radical even now.

I had really hoped he would recover from his recent illness. The signs were not good, especially give his age, but the world needed more of him. There is no question that he gave all he had, and was surely grateful to at least have celebrated one last Easter. I wish he could have seen many more.

I almost had to file an extension this year (first time ever) because we never got HalfshellHusband's 1099SSA form from Social Security. But they re-sent it, and it actually got here in time. I'm truly surprised, with the havoc Felon 47 has wreaked on government agencies (and everything else).

Taxes were also slightly easier this year, because I transferred all but one chunk of my splintered stock to the same institution, which meant two sources for 1099DIV/1099INT info instead of (at the worst)... six? Seven? Basically, I've been with this company for more than 30 years now, and I used to buy stock with the employee discount program. The stock split a couple of times, the company forked off another company (which then split into two companies), and then the main company forked off another company yet again and that new company forked off three more. G.A.H! Reporting income from all those sources was a major PITA. I regret the whole thing! And who knows if I can ever sell any of it, since figuring out the cost bases (and what to do about reinvestments used for buying new shares) would be next to impossible. \o?

On my last post, I talked about TV shows and movies we've enjoyed. I forgot to add Nailed It! to the list. I get a kick out of Nichole Byer, and I adore Jacques Torres. I DO wish they'd kept the format from the first couple of seasons, when they allowed the bakers a little more time to attempt their creations. Now, it's so ridiculously brief that no one has a hope in hell of getting anything decent-looking out. What, the incompetence wasn't incompetent enough before? There used to be more creativity in trying to emulate the original decoration (which resulted in some fun uses of candy from the show's pantry), but now it's mostly flailing. OTOH, the "stalling techniques" the worst baker can employ against the others are utter genius.

We also saw The Amateur in the theater, which was really good. And? Amazon had a good offer on AppleTV for three months, so I'm watching S2 of Severance now and trying really hard not to binge through the whole thing in just a few days. Season 3 can't come soon enough! We're also looking forward to watching George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Wolfs. Maybe after we've finished watching True Detective: Night Country (which has also been really good)?

Still biking, with fluctuating weather. We hit 88^o around the beginning of April (nightmare implications for the summer) but yesterday was 63^o, so... I have three seasons worth of biking clothes out right now. There has also been lots of wind, to speed the schizophrenic temperatures along. Spring and fall are such crapshoots in this climate. But at least it's not summer yet. \o?