A Valid Excuse

"The ultimate inspiration is the deadline."

-Nolan Bushnell

A warming trend out there in the valley of the Chemung this morning, rocketing from nine below zero at sunrise to seven degrees right now.

Yesterday I failed to post, not out of sloth but because there wasn't a moment to sit in front of a computer and write something.

My most difficult class falls on midday Thursdays, Tax Planning for Real Estate Transactions. The syllabus is a nonspecific mess, with 200 pages of reading a week of materials we may or may not discuss, depending on what's on the prof's mind. He assumes we've had partnership taxation, the most difficult course in the tax law curriculum. I haven't but am taking it right now, where we're just getting our arms around the question of what is a partnership. It's all a little overwhelming.

So yesterday morning before class was spent on the last of the readings, and trying to fashion answers to the questions for the week on how to avoid having a real estate venture be treated as a separate entity under the IRC, and the tax consequences of the result of that effort. As happened at the last session, I walked into the class with hope, and left in a state of confusion and despair. Not great.

We stopped on the walk home long enough to purchase a knish at a little Jewish bakery on Houston that's been there for a century. Neither of us had ever eaten a knish. I don't plan to do so ever again. Think mashed potato wrapped in a fried dough blob.

Then we immediately loaded cats, grabbed the snow-covered Caddy out of the parking structure, and started the trek through the Holland Tunnel and Jersey City on our way home to Corning. I fielded a couple work calls on the way, but mostly we just talked, a continuation of that conversation of a lifetime with P that began on a long drive together years and years ago.

So here I am, hopelessly behind with work and school assignments, knee throbbing a week post surgery--I don't take that as a good sign at all. I'll hump through responding to emails, drafting some discovery responses, and fielding a couple phone calls before we drive up to the lake for the weekend, where it's forecast to snow continuously from early this afternoon through tomorrow. I'm looking forward to curling up in front of the fire with a good book that has nothing to do with tax law.

Then Sunday I drive down the hill alone for a week of school. Peg's working Tuesday through Friday, and I'll come back Thursday night. I'm not looking forward to the time apart, but figure I'll do what I always do when we're separated--get up early and work continuously until a bedtime call with P, then rinse and repeat the next day. It makes the time go by a little faster.

Happy Friday.