Transference

I love psychobabble. Transference is the shifting of emotions from one person or object to another. When Bulimic Cat woke me up at 3:15 this morning (second day in a row, now), I thought about the game last night. And the intensity of my feelings toward some stupid coach I'll never meet. I'm really not much of a sports fan. I don't think I've watched a complete college basketball game this season. In fact, I'm sure the last complete game I've watched was the World Series last fall. It was right after Mother died and The D and I garnered comfort from watching it together. For a few hours at a time, we forgot our grief and immersed ourselves in baseball.

I used to love sports. I even went to the Memphis State football game on my wedding night. I loved sports because my husband did. When things got bad between us, I hated sports. Because I was last on his list. During the few hours he wasn't working or sleeping, he watched whichever game was on TV. The biggies, of course - college and pro football, basketball and baseball. Then it was tennis, Little League World Series, Tour de France, hockey, NASCAR, college baseball, soccer, marathons, rugby, lacrosse, anything in the Olympics. Any and every sport at kiddo's high school. You name it, he watched it. And talk about intensity. Major tranference. It was much safer than dealing with me and the anger and resentment I so desperately wanted to remedy.

Thank god Kiddo liked sports (if he hadn't, I don't think he and his dad would've been so close). That's how I fell in love with baseball. He played just about every weekend, plus two or three times during the week from March (miserably cold and windy) to July (miserably hot and humid), plus the fall leagues. As many as 70 games in a season. This went on from the time he was 10 years old until he graduated from high school. Except for the last two years, I rarely missed a game. I kept the scorebook for all his teams until 9th grade. I learned so much about the game. I recorded every pitch, every putout and assist. I hate to admit that I was somewhat biased. I told the kids they'd better be nice to me. There are lots of plays where it's really hard to decide whether it's a hit or an error. This can have a significant effect on a player's stats. When the kids came back to the dugout every half inning, they'd ask me about the close calls.

My proudest moment during my scorekeeping career was the time I noticed a kid on the other team miss third base when we were on the verge of getting slaughtered. The umps won't call the out unless the defensive team realizes it. The pitcher has to throw the ball to the baseman, even though the runner has already crossed home plate. If the ump saw the kid miss the base and the defensive team challenges it, he'll call, very loudly, "You're out", complete with a very enthusiastic fist pump. So I told the coach the kid missed the base. He asked me more than once if I was sure. I don't think he believed me, but it didn't hurt to try. Sure enough, the ump called the kid out. I think Kiddo was proud of me. I know hub was shocked. He had to be impressed, but wasn't able to say it. Lots of parents did, though. Very affirming.

Back to the point of this post. Transference. My intense reaction to last night's Final Four game. I've had a difficult week. Besides almost unbearable pressure getting my clients ready for the tax deadline and heading into month end work, fucking with keys and utilities at the new house, worrying about all the personal financial stuff I've neglected, I've desperately missed my mother. Somehow, I've managed to let go of most of the anger and bitterness and even hatred for my older, bitch-from-hell former sister. That's why it felt so good to be hatin' on Calipari. Very cathartic. Not that he doesn't deserve it. He screwed Memphis when he left for Kentucky. Yahoo Answers put it well: Everywhere Calipari goes at the college level (UMass and Memphis) he leaves behind a program on probation, wins forfeited, championships and Final 4s vacated.

Well, I should get started with my day. The D's pill boxes are empty. So I'm gonna sit down with the huge basket of pill bottles and carefully dispense 200+ pills. Then I'm going to sift through 2000+ credit and debit card receipts and paid bills to come up with a sales tax number for my number one client. Big value add to use actual rather than the table. I'll have to add this to the list of money I've saved him. I keep threatening to give it to him and charge a contingency fee. Once I get that done, I'll feel a huge sense of relief since I completed my other client's LLC return Friday.

Then I need to work on my personal stuff. Three extensions - The D's, Kiddo's and mine. Mine's gonna be hard because I need to figure out how much tax I need to pay in. Hmmm, just had an idea. There's a safe harbor rule - if you pay in 100% of last year's tax, there's no penalty or interest if you extend and you're underpaid. Only problem is that last year, I was married and filed a joint return. So I'll have to figure out if I have a safe harbor for this year's individual return. I hope so, because I'm pretty sure I'm way underpaid and I've wiped out my cash reserves when I put 20% down on my new house.

Oh well. Better get moving. All for now...