Thanks Barry....!

Day; 84. Windy, sunny but changing. Winter is on it's way back...?! All my plants, trees, shrubs have leafed out and now I hear there will be solid freeze the next two nights, damn!! Temperature on outside kiln; 52 degrees.

Ever since I read Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, and learned that he was know as "Barry" for all of his young life, I have come to think of him as such. I just can't think of him in any other way, he will always be Barry to me now. So when I wrote him an e-mail last year with Dear Barry as a heading, I guess he wasn't offended because I got a nice replay back from the White House. Of course he probably never saw my e-mail, I'm sure some very low-level aid did that for him, but nonetheless you could tell from the reply that someone had read it. Basically I wanted to thank him for pushing through Obamacare when all the nutcase Republicans were giving him hell for it. I really wanted him to know that someone out there appreciated all of his efforts.
The point of this particular rambling is that I had real cause to think of Barry again today and to thank him quietly for being willing to basically take on the most difficult job on the planet. I mean Leader of the Free World cannot be easy.... I think of him and Michelle sometimes at night when I am worried about stuff. Then I think, you gotta be kidding Maggie Mae, you're worried about the next kiln firing, how to pay your taxes, whether to go to California again  so soon, 3 dogs or 4? New windows or a new roof... comparing this to what he is shouldering always calms me down, it seems so pathetically minuscule  when held up to what's on his plate.
So today I was worried about our taxes, but  what's new?, every April 15th is the same, you would think I would be a pro at this by now. And most years I am, but this year was different;  2015 was the first year that Obamacare was in the mix and it was very much an unknown for us here at Magpie Pottery and David Yard Guitar Studio. We took a rather huge subsidy from the federal government this past year  in order to go out and buy some decent health insurance for ourselves, the first in our lives really. Insurance that actually paid for something other than being hit by a truck. And as it is paid out as a tax credit, today was the day that our guesstimate on how much income we had last year, and therefore how subsidy we qualified for, came home to roost. Either we guessed right and we owed about the same as we always do, or we f*cked up and have a much larger tax bill than anticipated. And as I was the one who went  on-line, dealt with Healthcare.gov, bought the insurance and input all the data, I was a little nervous that marital discord would be the theme for this evening..
I am happy to report that our  taxes remain about the same, we still have a large subsidy and no one is in the doghouse, except well, the dogs.
So, a big Thank You Barry!, we now have good health insurance and it is all because of you.!

(cc.thewhitehouse.gov)