Who knew?

We are one week away from the tax deadline - a week in which I will be mostly out of the country - and I have not started our taxes. Well, the accountant did the business taxes, thank heavens, but I've done nothing whatsoever about our household taxes. I opened TurboTax today to find that I can't just update the version I bought last year, I have to go out and buy a WHOLE NEW VERSION. I just assumped you could download an update - who knew TurboTax is a disposable product? I am crossing my fingers that this year's version is still available in stores, because I can't go back to the paper and pencil method, I just can't!

(Why am I in charge of the taxes, you might reasonably ask, given that Enrico crunches numbers for a living? Well, the ways in which couples divide up life's chores are mysterious. Suffice to say that I handle all matters financial, and Enrico handles all matters that involve dust, mold, the attic, and getting out of bed at 6 am. Even now, staring down the barrel of the tax deadline, I'm pretty sure I got the better end of the bargain.)

Second thing I learned this week: Did you know you can buy an external 10-key number pad for laptops? Plugs right into the USB port. Isn't that cool? See, I'm typing with it right now: 123456789. This will come in very handy for the whack of survey data entry that I have to do sometime between now and when I leave the country. Along with the taxes. No pressure.

Third thing I learned this week: There is no Hindi for Dummies or Complete Idiot's Guide to Hindi. These well-known (and actually fairly good, despite the titles) language instruction books can be found for Latin, Yiddish, and the languages of Middle Earth - but not for the official language of the second most populous country on Earth. It turns out that Hindi is the native langauge for less than half of the population, and there are over 20 official languages under the Indian constitution. So why does Hindi seem to be the de facto language for Bollywood movies? The more I learn about India, the more confused I get.