"If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun." - Katherine Hepburn

If you read here regularly you may remember that late last year we got a letter from the IRS (gulp!) saying we needed to file an amended return for 2014 because they had forms indicating we got subsidized health insurance through Obamacare. Except we didn't, and never had anything to do with Obamacare. I went to the local IRS office with that letter and the guy said I should write back and tell them they were wrong and unless they could produce the evidence I was going to ignore their request for an amended return.
In today's mail we got an envelope from the IRS (gulp!).
They need another 45 days to figure things out, then they'll get back to me.

I left here at 4:45 a.m. and was at a Denny's on the SE side of Portland two hours later to meet my brother Mark for breakfast. Between that and Pam's arrival at 9:45 I read my book in the parking lot of a Burger King (I knew I was going to need the restroom after that coffee).

We got home just a bit before noon and I was curious to see her reaction when she came into MoHo.

Back in the 40's her folks lived in a tiny apartment in Chicago that had almost no cabinets in the kitchen. Pam's dad made a small cabinet on wheels to roll under the sink. He wasn't a cabinet maker, and what he lacked in joinery skills he made up for with a liberal use of large screws and metal "L" brackets. The top was linoleum of some (weird) kind and he made a pull-out cutting board.

It was showing its age and I used it out in the garage for storing things. I'd tried to throw it out with each of our moves but Pam was too attached to it. She was pretty close to her dad, a bond made tighter because they shared the same birthday, so she had an emotional attachment to her dad's handiwork.

I decided to surprise her by restoring it while she was gone. I took off the hardware, sanded and repainted it, buffed out and reinstalled the chrome hardware, and put on a butcher block top. She was pretty happy to see it in the kitchen, all refreshed.
I think it will end up in Fred eventually as a stand for a mini-microwave and the coffee pot, but she's fine with that. Mostly she's excited to see it all cleaned up.

We went out and worked in the garden after lunch. I showed her how the new watering system works and she did some weeding. Then she helped me get the teardrop up from its spot next to Fred and parked at the end of the area next to the garden. That's a much better place for it; our view of Fred is now free of any obstruction.

I'm sure glad my helpmeet is home.