"Curiouser and curiouser" is how I believe the quote goes...

although I'm certainly not in Wonderland.  I'm referring to my leg.  Yesterday the pain was all knee-related.  Today the knee feels fine, but the upper leg muscle is all spasmed.  I'll be at the VA for something else on Tuesday and when I do, I'm going to arrange to get seen over this as soon as they can get me in.

I don't even know what appointment I have on Tuesday.  I just tried calling the automated information line and it confirms I have an appointment on Tuesday but it doesn't tell me where or for what.  So now I have to get there even earlier than normal to find out where to go in that maze.

It can be confusing.  Clinics that serve one specific purpose get used to for other clinics that have no permanent homes at times.  There will be paper signs hanging outside those clinics on the day they are home to some other purpose.  Clearly they can't do that will all of their facilities.  The chairs in the Podiatry clinic don't work well with other types of treatment, as an example.

Last night I actually did my homework for class in full for Monday's class session.  I have to admit it was the first time I've done so.  And it was weird.  I ended up calling the instructor because the answer they want us to get on the tax return we were doing is wrong.  Without going into too much detail, on the California return, the fictional taxpayer is actually entitled to a credit that we haven't covered in the course yet, so the answer doesn't include it.  It makes a difference on this return, which confused me.  So I called to ask if I was right in not including the credit.

Today is the brunch I tried to organize.  I think there will be four other people there if I'm lucky.  Not the turnout I had imagined.  I think I know now why my friend who had been organizing these gave up on it.  Too much work for too little return.  It will be great to see the people who show up though.

I actually woke up at 5 a.m. this morning.  I did go to bed early, but that's way early on a Sunday morning.  So I spent a lot of the morning writing.  Since I'd finished the three film reviews I needed to write on Saturday, there wasn't anything I had to write (not that I have to do those, they are a labor of love). 

With storms and neglect having destroyed a large portion of the collection, it's mind-boggling that there are still almost 800 pairs of shoes from the collection of Imelda Marcos still surviving in pristine condition.  If you wore a different pair of shoes every day of the year, it would take more than two years to wear every pair in her collection that still survives.  Based on estimates that range from 1,800 to over 3,000 of the original collection first seized when the assets of Imelda and the late Ferdinand Marcos were taken by the government, up that figure to 6 to 8 years.  Mind-boggling.

I was shocked to learn from a recent news story that Texas still permits students in school to be paddled.  The story came to light when a woman got upset that her daughter was spanked by a male vice-principal as a female watched.  I remember getting a swat with the paddle by one of the gym teachers at Lincoln Junior High School.  My transgression had been trying to sneak out of the locker room after P.E. without taking a shower.  I still remember the sign in the coach's office on what to do when receiving a swat.  The last line on the sign, after being told to bend over and grab ankles was to "smile".  I assure you I was not smiling.

What's amusing about that is that back then I wouldn't have thought twice about doing P.E., getting all sweaty and just dressing without showering.  But now I can't imagine that.  If I get sweaty at all, I immediately feel the need to shower.  I guess our feelings on such things change as we mature.  Maybe kids don't mind smelling bad.

Interesting how the news works.  I read many stories about the guy who jumped into the tiger exhibit at the zoo and was mauled.  The stories all mentioned that he'd broken an arm and a leg.  Now there are reports that he lost a leg in the incident.  The report doesn't make it an update, it's as though it had been reported that way from the beginning.

Meanwhile CNN is supposedly using the journal of the slain ambassador to Libya, against the wishes of his family.  The concerns voiced by the slain man in his writings about the security of the embassy and his possibly being on an al-Queda hit list were discussed on CNN as though they'd been sourced elsewhere.  Terrible, just terrible.

Okay, now I'm going to rant a little about a story in the news and this rant is political, although I'm not taking a position on either candidate in the presidential race.  But I'm sick and tired of hearing all this crap about how Romney "paid so little in income taxes".  Assuming that he did nothing illegal, what did he do that was any different than anything any of you do who don't file form 1040EZ?  You take advantage of every single provision in the income tax code that allows you to lower the amount you pay in income tax.  You take credit for your charitable contributions and the mortgage interest you pay if you itemize.  If you can, you contribute on a pre-tax basis to a retirement plan or an IRA.  If you're a teacher, you take advantage of the educator expense adjustment.  Mitt Romney did NOT write the income tax code as it exists today.  Congress did that.  If you're pissed off, or have an issue with the fact that someone earning millions of dollars can pay only 14% in federal income taxes, bitch and moan at Congress, not at the man who has done nothing wrong.

Worse yet, people are moaning and groaning because he chose not to claim all of the charitable contributions he could claim.  Now I've heard person after person bitch that if Warren Buffett feels that he should pay a higher rate than his secretary, he should just write a check.  That's all that Romney did here.  He voluntarily paid a little more in income tax.  What was his transgression?  Paying more money than he had to?  Some say that he did it to make sure that this year's return conformed to the statement that he had paid at least 13% in income taxes for the past ten years.  What's the issue?  This was a new return and he didn't know the final numbers for 2011 when he made that statement.

The amount of income tax a presidential candidate has paid in income taxes shouldn't be a major issue in the campaign.  If people are angry that he's proposing tax cuts, argue against those.  That's a valid argument.  If people are bothered that his proposals might raise taxes on the middle class, argue about that.  That's a valid argument.  How much he paid or didn't pay because of laws he had nothing to with the passage of is NOT a valid argument.

If I'm going to make judgments based solely on the information in tax returns, should I therefore conclude that the Obamas are less charitable people than the Romneys, because the Romneys gave a larger percentage of their income to charity?  I didn't think so.