First, we try to get the taxes off, which reminds us that before we can do that, there’s a question of IRAs, which means—go to the bank and talk with our account guy. All fine with Jane’s. Then we find out the IRA funds I wanted moved into my account didn’t arrive. They’d sent us paperwork last fall to get it out of an investment firm. It hadn’t arrived. Took us 5 calls and 4 departments of the investment firm to find out, yes, they’d had it, but,oh, it had been moved—in November—but it wasn’t here. Or there. It’s only like, half my retirement account. No big worry. Right? So we tracked it to the previous broker. Yep, the investment firm had sent it back to them, instead of to the firm that had filed the paperwork to get it sent to them. The other broker didn’t know what to do with it. So we are moving it one more time. Meanwhile it had, of course, taken a big hit on the market. Bummer.

And, after getting home from her shopping run, having found a marvelous deal for replacement of our back door that has a hole in it—Jane lowers the doublewide garage door while I’m putting a new plant into our little sun-box-shelter. Sound of bending steel and wreckage, as the thing not only jumps the track, it torques itself into wreckage and jams with a one foot opening at the bottom. While Jane calls the Overhead Door company, I get busy with a mallet and try to free the release-arm of the chain drive, which will not disengage because it’s hooked into the wreckage. One cotter pin would free it, but the torque has jammed it. I hammer away at it, and with Jane’s help we get the pressure off it so we can pull it out. Which frees the door. So we can step on the bottom of it and at least get it down: we live on a thoroughfare where you just don’t want doors to your garage open to public view all night. So…we’re going to have a nice bill for a total door replacement. But not the door we were planning.

All’s well that ends well: Broker 1 is talking to broker 2, they’ve located the account, and they’re going to replace our garage door so we can get the car out…