A few weeks ago, the last of my father's counter top appliances went kaput. It was an unnecessarily large microwave. I used it from time to time to heat up frozen dinners for him, or to reheat my own leftovers. He used it a whole lot more than I ever did, specifically to reheat coffee. He'll brew his little hotel-sized pot of coffee every morning around six-thirty, pour it into a cup, place a lid on it, then let it sit on the kitchen table. About two hours later I'm up and moving around, and that cup is still on the table. He'll reheat it before 9:30, then leave it covered on the table. Sometimes he will reheat it two or three times, thirty seconds to a minute each, in the span of an hour. I don't know what the proper temperature he desires for his coffee, but most of the time, whatever it is, is not it. So he puts a lid on it and just...walks away. My parents moved into this apartment fifteen years ago. I was living three time zones away at the time, unable to ...
I recently had to help my father organize the taxes for the past two years. Well, I did most of it, because I don't think he had to for himself in quite some time. My mother took care of it, at least according to her handwriting on most of the paperwork. And maybe my aunt helped out some as well. She was more of the math whiz than any of us. When I say organize, I use that term loosely. I don't know what the hell I'm doing with their taxes. I've never even seen their taxes until this past year. I'd say everything's secretive with things in this family but we're talking about taxes here. Not so much secretive as boring. For many years, my parents had their taxes done by a certified public accounting firm downtown. They're located in an office building they share with a few other businesses, such as law firms and a yoga place. The inside has quite a 1980's-90's industrial feel to it. Lots of steel doors, drop ceiling hallways. Very inviting....