I hope that you are well and happy. (I realize that my American friends and family will find it difficult to be both ‘well and happy’ on April 15. Therefore, I have omitted the customary wishes for prosperity since this is especially unlikely on Tax Day.)

Regular readers have heard, ad nauseam, my complaints about the American practice of taxing income of non-resident citizens. I am happy to pay, for example, sales taxes on items bought in the USA, but..

“You are happy to pay taxes? You?”, Nazy interrupted.
“Poetic license, my dear. But remember, non-resident income taxes are a lamb with a different shell.”

“Lamb with a different shell, Dan? That’s a mixed metaphor.”

“Luckless leftover lambs lack lackadaisical leeches looting..”

“Alliteration?”

“I see that you get the point,” I replied.

The taxes, applied without representation, are bad enough. Now the US government is making it difficult for American citizens to get bank accounts in the places where they live. If, for example, we were just arriving in Switzerland, it would be impossible to get a Swiss bank account. (The banks are afraid that the IRS will, as they have in the past, retroactively announce fines and sanctions.)

“But, Dan,” a reader asks: “The only reason for having a foreign account is to evade taxes.”

“Unfair taxes,” I reply.

“But legal taxes.”

“How can you live and work in a place without a bank account? The new, unilaterally applied, rules make it very difficult for Americans to work abroad. This situation is welcomed by expatriates from Britain, Australia, France, The Netherlands, Hong Kong, India,..”

“Surely America is not the only country...”

“You are wrong, dear reader. America is the only country doing this kind of thing.”

As I contemplated taxes, the subject of retirement income crossed my mind.

“Crossed your mind, Dan? Short journey, eh?” Nazy observed.
“Unfortunately, Nazy,” I explained. “My careful retirement plans are in a shambles.”

“Plans?”

“By now, I expected one of our offspring to be a billionaire. And..”

“Shouldn’t you have diversified?”

“We have three kids, Nazy.”

“Still..”

“But because of uncertainty about my base plan, I did diversify. Unfortunately, my investments in the lottery did not come through.”

Last weekend, Darius, Nazy and I celebrated Nazy’s birthday with a trip to the Bernese Oberland, We stopped in Interlaken on our way back to Zurich. The town is very pretty. I took several photos before my camera malfunctioned and then died. Nazy used one of them as a model for her weekly painting:

Dan’s Photograph

Nazy’s Painting

You can see more of Nazy’s art on her website: http://paintingadventure.com/

While we are on the topic of water: Last week, I explained my problem with the aquatic nuns. As I told Nazy, swimming challenges continued this week.

“This woman was just a little faster than me and she continually impeded my progress by bumping into me from behind.”

“Why didn’t you just let her pass you?

“Let her pass me?” I thought. “Ah ha! That’s exactly what I did. I let her get ahead. But as soon as she was in front, she slowed down. So I had to pass her. Then, as soon as I did, she started swimming faster. The bumping resumed. She was a total moron.”

“Because she passed you and then slowed down?”

“Precisely.”

“But, it sounds like you were doing the same thing to her.”

“It does,” I thought. “Do not confuse me with facts!” I retorted, emulating a Presidential candidate.

Finally, I have begun work to update my personal website. I have outgrown iWeb, the ‘free’ Apple software that I have used heretofore. (And Apple has stopped supporting iWeb.) My new software, Rapidweaver, is far more..

“... powerful, Nazy.”

“That’s good.”

“And complicated. Some of the CSS..”

“CSS?”

“Cascading Style Sheets, my dear. It’s like writing a program to determine how a document will look on the web. But the language is positively medieval. The algol that I used at Georgia Tech - in the 70‘s - was more sophisticated.”

“It’s a good thing that you went to Georgia Tech..”

“... and Rapidweaver doesn’t even like names with spaces in them.”

“Really?”

“Not only is my name ‘Dan Martin’ - i.e. Dan Martin, but I’m also more of a ‘drag and drop’ kind of guy.”

“Are you hunting for lobster?”

“Say what?”

“Dropping lobster pots from a drag line?”

“That would be ‘drop and drag’, my dear. I can also change the color of anything.”

“Wow!” Nazy replied. “That sounds very dangerous,” Nazy, aware of my color-vision limitations, thought. “I can give you a hand on that,” Nazy continued pragmatically. The new site will be available very soon - in fact, I hope you’ve noticed that you’re enjoying the new website now!!