sueeeus

I need to write a will.  I’ve been meaning to for years, but I still haven’t done it.  I also need to establish a trust for my kids.  I want to minimize any burden my loved ones will have to endure in order to wrap up matters regarding my physical remains. In the event that I don’t get to it before my demise, let it hereby be known that these are my wishes:

• Estate. I leave everything to my children, to be divided equally between them, with my sister C’s oversight, should they not be of age.
• Body. I want to be cremated, via the budget route.  Waste no money on my remains, because I am not there.  It’s just a vessel and I’m done with it.  Enough.  I don’t want to be pumped full of nasty weird embalming fluids, and I don’t want worms and creepy crawly things creeping and crawling through my spent vessel, buried who knows where.  Don’t be duped into an emotional purchase of a cheesy urn, either.   Take my pulverized ashes in the generic plastic container and do with them what you will.  At that point, it’s your sentimental journey with the memory of me, and I embrace whatever that journey may be.   (If I’m wealthy enough or have set aside enough funds for things of this nature, I commission objects d’art be made from my pulverized remains, to be distributed as keepsakes for my loved ones.)
• Obit.  Oh, it’s a stressful thing to be tasked with preparing worthwhile and substantive words when you are traumatized or in shock or barely have your wits about you.  I could write my own, ready to be used in a pinch if my loved ones were in such a state.  Of course they are welcome to write what they want, but I could have something ready for them, in the case that they weren’t up to it.  I don’t really care if an obit is published, but maybe someone else does.  If they do, go for it.  It could go something like this:
  Suueeeus Maximus, 28 Mar 1965 – tbd
  Mother, sister, friend, working fool.  She loved everyone, she loved life, she worked hard, she did her best.  The end.
• Funeral.  I don’t want a dreary sad funeral.  If my loved ones gather, let them celebrate.  Let it be fun, with happy music, good food, drinks and much laughter.  Sing show tunes.  Laugh until your cheeks hurt.  Be together in the sphere of love and rejoice in each others’ company.
• Flowers.  Please don’t waste any money on those wretched stuffy and expensive flower arrangements that you see decorating caskets or propped against podiums at traditional funerals.  You know the ones, with sprays of gladioli arranged in ominous fans.  They mean nothing to me.  Simple happy farmer’s market type flowers are okay — daffodils, lilacs, tulips, lilies.  That sort of thing.

I just found out that I have to pay somewhere around 10k in state taxes to a state in which I don’t live, for property I sold five years ago, and for which I already paid nearly 20k to the federal government.

Boo.

Ignorance is not always bliss.

CRAP.

*~*~*~*~*

Updated to say that, in addition to owing tax, there is interest added on top of that.  I am seriously sick to my stomach.

After thinking a bit more about that last post, the words that come to mind are vulture and predator.

I think I will leave the foreclosures and defaults to some other opportunistic people.  It’s not for me.

Those late night infomercials can be so captivating.  You, yes you, could be rich, with NO MONEY DOWN!  You, yes you, could buy a house like this for less than ten thousand dollars.  You!  People JUST LIKE YOU.

It all seems too good to be true, but they certainly do spark one’s imagination.  Think of it, being able to buy a home for so little, and not being mortgaged to the gills from now until eternity.  Such fodder for dreamland.  If only.

If it’s so easy, why isn’t everyone doing it?

One can do some research and learn that the information being sold by these infomercial services is generally public information, and to be very wary of those behind the infomercials.  That being said, I’ve been looking, the old-fashioned way, without subscribing to one of the fanciful web sites, and I’ve found a few properties that I’m interested in.  These are properties in which the owners have failed to pay their real-estate taxes, and if the money isn’t coughed up by the prescribed date, the homes go to auction.  The FAQs state that it is actually rare for a home to go to auction, and that the owners most often find a way to scrounge up the funds at the eleventh hour.  There are also plenty of ‘buyer beware’ warnings, and all sales are final.

While part of me is giddy with the thought of the possibility of buying a house for as little as the back-taxes owed, another part of me is suspicious of the whole scenario.  It just doesn’t seem right.  Who would let a multi-hundred thousand dollar investment go for less than ten or twenty thousand dollars?  There is an unpleasant smell to this mix.  The hidden expense which is the cost of exploitation.  Exploitation of  imaginary sweet and elderly non-English speaking people.

I say this because I noticed that the owners of the properties I’m interested in have Asian names.  This then begs the question as to whether they actually know they are in default.  I picture sweet little elderly people who don’t read or speak English, not knowing how to tell the tax bill from all the other junk mail that arrives on a daily basis.

This isn’t to say that Asian people are not savvy.  I myself am part Asian.  A BADASS [squared, even].

A+B*A*D+(A*S*S)^2

• A-American
• B-Born
• A-Asian
• D-Descent
• A-Always
• S-Soul
• S-Searching
• A-Also
• S-Self
• S-Serving

And most of the Asian or Asian-descent people I know are sharp as tacks, to say the least.  Even so, what is the story behind these tax negligencies?

It feels like maybe there’s bad juju in pursuing this avenue.  Personal gain at another’s expense.  Is that the bottom line?  If so, I’m not comfortable with that.  But then again, does that make me a fool, to throw away a perfectly good and incredible opportunity?

I don’t swim well with sharks.  But I’d love to own a home, outright, in a better school district.

Torn.  Do I waste any further time and energy on this possibility, or listen to the nagging suspicious voice in the back of my head and scrap it here and now.

I’ve been feeling stressed out lately.  Like that’s anything new.  But this is a bit more so than the usual level of stressed outedness.  I’m seeing a tax accountant for the first time in my life, and the appointment is Sunday.  In order to prepare for this, I’ve spent hours and hours trying to capture expenditures, itemize deductions, find old receipts, figure out the basis for some property that I sold, and with that the slew of emotions that swirl to the surface when that whole chapter in my life gets revisited.  It’s a chapter that I don’t like to revisit, what with the ex, the lies, the deceit, the violations, the traumas, the shattered hopes and dreams.  There is that.  And there is the -deleted whinge on more financial matters-.  And another -deleted whinge on another financial matter-.  It’s our wedding anniversary tomorrow.  Not that that is stressful, but it’s one more thing in the current window.  He wanted to go visit his mother in the morning, two hours away, and we have a dinner reservation in the evening, and any time we go visit her, we never get back at any kind of a reasonable hour, no matter how hard we try.  I told him “No!  Absolutely no!”  This particular dinner is on a train, and there is no leeway for being late.  Also this weekend is daylight savings time.  Normally no big deal, but if I forget, then the appointment with the tax accountant will be impacted, and that would not be good for me at all, as it would add to everything else that I’ve already blown way out of proportion.  Then.  Monday.  Two doctor appointments.  One for the gp regarding a lump in one side of my throat, and no other symptoms.  What causes asymmetrical lumps   It’s been nearly three weeks and it’s getting better, or else I’m getting used to it.  The other appointment is with the ob-gyn.  That’s always fun.  This one will be even more so.  But I won’t go into detail.  Suffice it to say that I’m fairly certain there will be more than a little discomfort involved.  Oh yes.  I nearly forgot.  I am also resigned to the mortification that accompanies the process of standing on that damned scale at the doctor’s office, to which I will be subjected twice in close succession. I guess that’s about it.  My weekend forecast.