Fashion Friday - One Day Late Cause I Was Dealing With the IRS

I know it is Saturday and I've already missed my chance at doing a "Fashion Friday" post, but I'm going to do one anyway and just pretend it's still Friday. That way we get an extra weekend day. Wouldn't that be great?

Since it's a day late and I've had the dress and the shoes for a while, I'm not going to include links. I've found that to be a useless way to monetize my blog anyway and it is extremely time consuming. Also there's not a lot of new fashion for me these days with a son in college and a cat on chemo. The dress is BeBe, the bracelets are Free People (on the right) and unknown (on the left) and the shoes are Zigi Soho.

I also don't have that much time to blog lately because I'm down to the last two months before my big race - the half ironman.

Last week was a good training week with lots of biking and a couple of really good swims along with the usual running. This week my training dropped off because I spent some marathon training times on hold with the IRS trying to get them to send me a copy of my 2012 Income tax return transcript so I could give it to the Boy's college financial aid office. Those IRS people are the most paranoid people ever! Trying to convince them that I am who I say I am and that I'm am indeed standing next to a fax machine for hours because that's the only way they will send it to me, was a challenge.

After signing up for faxburner.com and getting a fax number that I could pull up by email, I stayed on the phone 40 minutes only to be told they couldn't send it this way because of hackers. I had a back up fax number to the fax machine at our condo's real estate office not far away. I told them no problem, send it to that fax and my husband would run down and get it. They said, "NO", I have to be standing by the fax machine since I'm the one who called so I would have to call back. There was no way I could run over to the real estate office without losing cell phone signal in the elevator and would therefore have to call back and start over anyway.

I ended up going over to the real estate office, waiting on hold for an hour, getting a very paranoid IRS worker on the line who wanted to make sure I was next to a fax machine and where exactly was this fax machine and then proceeded to ask me questions about the last three years of my life to prove that I was who I said I was. I am really surprised she didn't ask for a picture of me standing next to the fax machine for proof as well as blood samples and finger prints. It took 30 minutes on the phone with her before she finally sent the transcript!

In a few days I will be getting another transcript in the mail from when I was on hold for 45 minutes on Wednesday. I wasn't near a fax machine that day. Unfortunately, it won't get here in time to help the Boy. That's why I spent over an hour and a half yesterday getting friendly with a fax machine.

It would have been so much better if the retrieval tool had worked and then I could do it all online with a few clicks and about 5 minutes. Not my luck!

It was down to the last minute this week because the final balance in the Boy's account has to be paid or all his classes will be dropped. The financial aid office will not process his financial aid until I gave them this "transcript". This is the Boy's third year at that college - same financial aid, same process (I assumed) only this year they are asking for this transcript thing that I have never had to send in before. Last year I didn't file income tax because I had no income. This year, since the Murph and I got married in Oct. 2012, we filed jointly.

I guess this is why they want the transcript now. Who knows!  I sent them a copy of our return and thought that was it because I never heard from them. Only the Boy was getting emails from them. When I found out about these emails, I thought they must not have received the return I originally sent so I resent it.

Wrong!

That was when they FINALLY told me that what I sent wasn't what they needed. They just assumed I knew what they were talking about. Big mistake! After 21 years raising a child on the spectrum and having to deal with an ex who's an ass, I'm practically brain dead. As a matter of fact, after three days and approximately 4 hours of being on hold with the IRS and a dozen emails and phone calls going back and forth to the college, I'm numb.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon staring blankly into space. The Murph asked me what I was thinking about. Thinking? Nothing. Blank! I was zoned out! It's a coping mechanism I adopted to keep me from going completely insane.

Pomegranate martinis help the zoning out process!

Imported Beer is the Murph's zone out drink of choice. He was hanging in right there beside me as we made our way to the IRS office only to be told we had to wait 2 hours just to get a number Wednesday. That's when I decided being on hold on the phone may be the best poison of choice. The fax machine became the issue at that point. We don't have one.

Barbecue shrimp with grits helps too because as the Murpy says - I'm an eater.

We should get stickers or t shirts that say "I Survived the IRS".

Only now we have to deal with the school. I have a feeling the financial aid is not going to be processed fast enough and somebody is going to get classes dropped again. I've already called the accounting office to get them to flag his account and not drop classes but they said he would have to come down there yesterday by 5 pm. Of course he was at work until 5 pm and he called and they, of course couldn't do anything unless he came to the office in person. Of course. Why make things easy? Nobody has to work or go to school or have a life. Everybody can just drop everything to come by an office at anytime or stay on hold for hours. (sarcasm here)

Now I remember why I never had a real job while I was raising the Boy. Only the part time, part pay flexible ones, that weren't always flexible enough.

It seems this is just what is going to happen every single Fall semester while the Boy's in college.

Sigh.

Asperger's From My New Husband's Perspective

I tried to convince my husband to do a guest blog post for me on his perspective of Asperger's and what it's like to marry someone who has a child on the autism spectrum.  He had never even heard of Asperger's or been around an autistic individual until he met my son.  I felt he could give some advice or pointers or something to help other step-parents coming into a situation with an autistic child.

The Murph didn't think it was such a good idea.  The conversation went something like this:

Me:  I want you to do a blog post about how you feel about Asperger's and how you've learned to deal with the Boy and his Asperger's and any pointers or advice you may have to contribute to help others.

Murph:  I have no advice or pointers to give anybody.  I don't even know how to deal with the Boy myself.  I STRUGGLE to deal with the Boy.  His personality is not so pleasant most of the time and I don't know how much of that is Asperger's.

Me:   I've told you most of it is because of his Asperger's and he's really NOT that bad!

Murph:  Yes, but I don't know how much of the meowing and biting and pulling your hair and following you around is Asperger's.  I don't think all Asperger's kids do that.  Not to mention at the wedding when we were trying to take pictures before the ceremony and he decided he was hungry and wouldn't leave you alone.

Me:  That was Asperger's.  He has no filter.  I should have made sure he ate something before I left to get my make up done.  (The Murph cringes at this because it was my wedding and the Boy is old enough and able to feed himself)

Murph:  I do see that there are varying degrees of Asperger's and autism and not everybody is the same.   Some are different than others.  I do see that.  When I first met you and you told me your son had Asperger's I didn't know what that was.  I told my sister-in-law that your son had Hamburgers or something and she said "Oh no!  You mean Asperger's!  That's what so and so has! ( so and so is a son of a cousin)"   All I could think was, oh no, because so and so was a strange, weird kid and I wouldn't even let the Girl get around him alone.  But like I said, he was different from the Boy.  Maybe the difference is medication or parenting or just other things he has besides Asperger's.  I will also say that whenever the Boy is around you that you change and not in a good way.  You change whenever he's around.    My only advice to people is that you really have to love the mother and then you will be able to put up with just about anything.  And I do mean ANYTHING!

Me:  I guess  I do change a little bit when he's around.   Just like you did on the wedding day the first time you had to deal with getting the Boy moving since I had already gone to get my make up done.  You looked stressed.

Murph:  I was just frustrated because I told him to get his tux on and we had to leave and he still wasn't ready to go and I had to get to the country club to get pictures and only had 15 minutes left.  Then he kept asking "Where's my mother?" over and over and when he finally saw you, he attached himself to you and decided he was starving to death and we were trying to get pictures done.

Me:  Well, that's me.  I get frustrated.  And he's in my personal space and I've been trying to teach him about personal space since he was about 4 or 5, but it still hasn't sunken in.  I get stressed when he's meowing and biting me and pulling my hair in my personal space.  When he has appointments that I have to get him to then it gets even more stressful.  I think you get it now.

And that's how the conversation went and that's about as close to a blog post as I can get from the Murph!

I will say that when I first met the Murph, I had very low expectations of his acceptance of the Boy.    I warned him more than once that he should think twice before he started dating me (he disagrees with this).

 I tried to explain to him that my son had Asperger's.  I tried to explain what life was like with a child who had Asperger's.  Even though at that point, the Boy was finishing up his Junior year of high school and things had become increasingly easier over the years, it was still stressful.

I didn't know if the Boy would be going away to college or staying home and going to a two year college.  I didn't know if he would even get into a four year college.  Heck, I didn't know if he was going to graduate from high school the next year.  I thought if he did go to a four year college that I might have to move with him because he would need me close by.

Things could have gone any number of ways.  That's the thing with autism.  You just don't know.  Things will get better, but then worse and then better again (you hope).  You think you've conquered something and then there's a backward slide.

I'm tough so I can handle it.  I didn't know how tough the Murph was though.

I've been happily surprised.

Back then the Murph assured me that he could handle whatever came our way.  That he would be there to back me up with whatever I had to do to help the Boy.  So far, we've been lucky and the Boy has taken off on his own and is doing well in a four year college and is living on campus.  He's doing better than I could ever have imagined.

I have the Murph to thank for that.  I could do it all on my own if I had to, but I'm glad I don't.   I did do it all on my own for several years as a single mom, but it sure is good to have a partner that is supportive.  I wish he could have been there with me through all the IEP meetings at the school and all those times I had to deal with the Boy's dad who seemed to be against me instead of for the Boy.

Or that time when the Boy was 10 and called me a "bitch" because I was trying to make him clean his room so I "threw" all his toys away and he didn't even care because he had paper clips and other random office supplies to play with.

I'm glad the Murph doesn't think the Boy is as weird as so and so, whoever so and so is!  And that he cares enough to know it's Asperger's not Hamburger's and that everyone on the spectrum is different and unique.

I did warn the Murph that I have a weird kid, bad cats and an obsessive triathlon habit, so he came in with his eyes wide open.  I even included that line in my wedding vows, although I changed "weird" to "teen-age" because I didn't want to give the Boy an excuse to act weirder than his normal weird.  He would've taken that and run with it.

Weird is the new normal for the Murph and personally I think he likes it better.