The Tax Filing Blues and an Eclipse!

<sing> I'm being followed by a moon shadow! Moon shadow, moon shadow! Happy Monday everyone! In honor of the "blood moon" and the fabulous lunar eclipse late tonight, right after the Dana St. Roasting ukulele sing-along, I'm heading over to downtown Niles to a special drum circle aka ukulele playing celebration at the park while watching the lunar eclipse! It will be magical! And indeed the regular Uke Club Silicon Valley Dana St. Roasting jam was marvelous with Diane on U-bass...and we sang lots of moon songs.

oh man...I was so happy thinking about all that ukulele playing I'm gonna do tonight at Dana St. Roasting Coffee Shop and then the eclipse celebration...complete with dancers, drum circle, moon songs played on ukes...that I forgot about that other thing. Taxes! oh NOOOOO!

But that didn't stop me from joining Margaret in Niles at the park to witness an amazing lunar eclipse -- there was a drum circle, people danced, the fire jugglers and the hula hoopers with their lit up hula hoops, the partiers and stoners and just every day people...Margaret and I sat on a bench and played moon songs such as Moon Shadow, Moondance, Bad Moon Rising, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Blue Moon...while the eclipse occurred...it was lovely. then we stood by the railroad tracks where it's dark enough to see and watched the moon turn red just as promised...

we parted ways well after midnight, me realizing that I still had to do the dreaded...TAXES!!!!!

THE TAX FILING BLUES!!

She lost her W-2 Forms and searched for them for days…

Amid packets of sheet music, endless written words and an unpaid bill.

“I’ll file an extension!” she says…

For the IRS must always get its fill.

Though the dog needs to be walked and the work police call

And ukuleles always must strum

The final day of reckoning always seems to fall

Into her life like an ever beating drum

She thinks of the swings at Children’s Playground

And of music around her all of the time

In Golden Gate Park where daisies abound

But now she must work and bring in the dime.

For she’s not much different than the old lady in a shoe

Who worked hard by day and chased kids by night

And she never really knew what to do

She simply did her best and hoped it was right.

Her coworker says she can get the W2 online.

It’s like magic! she thought, as she printed the form,

So she can still file her taxes on time

And possibly avoid another gloomy storm.

She plugged in the numbers and filled in the blanks

And found to her horrible dismay

That she no longer lives in the child tax credit ranks

For her youngest of four is over 17, the IRS people say.

Her daughter is still a dependent but a tax credit no more.

What’s wrong with this picture, this just can’t be true?

Forever it seemed that she’d always be the mother of four.

But deep within her heart this day would come, she knew.

Amid the ukuleles and music playing in her head,

She sadly reflects that the days of child tax credits have drifted by…

She owes money to the IRS yet again, and she can’t help but dread

Why can’t I claim the dog and the cat? she wishes with a sigh.

She puts a little sticky tag on the form when it’s done

That says, “Please add what I owe this year to my existing installment plan,”

Then folds up the form, seals the envelope and begins to hum…

the Beatles song, “Be thankful I don’t take it all ‘cause I’m the Tax Man!”