With all the recent flooding at Harmony Valley Farm we had a reduced box this week. They have lost a good bit of their crops and as a result we are getting less than we normally would at this time of year.

This week’s box included garlic scapes, potato onions, kohlrabi, strawberries (I left them in the fridge and didn’t snap any pictures, maybe I’ll add some later), head lettuce, broccoli, Napa cabbage, and red komatsuna. I have never eaten kohlrabi but after doing some poking around online I found out that they are excellent to eat raw or roasted. The weekly update sheet that comes with the box had an excellent and simple recipe for roasting the kohlrabi which I put into good use tonight.

Simply put, salt and pepper, oil, and the chunked vegetable along with some of the garlic scapes in the oven at 350 for 30 to 40 minutes. I put them in with some jerk pork chops that I defrosted and the house smells amazing. After cutting up the kohlrabi I took some of the raw slices for a taste and found that I really enjoyed them. As soon as I plated the roasted kohlrabi my mouth was watering — they just smelled so good and they tasted even better!

After dinner I had Kim slice up some of the CSA strawberries and throw some Splenda on top. It was definitely a nice way to enjoy a good bit from our box this week and was a tasty and sweet dessert. Yummo.

We had planned on going down to the farm this weekend to pick strawberries and camp but with all the rain that they got this week along with the 12.5″ of rain earlier this month I figured it would be better if we stayed at home and enjoyed the mostly nice weather that’s predicted for this weekend. While I was chatting with Kim about or lack of plans she mentioned that she would like to head over to Stockholm, WI for lunch at the Bogus Creek Cafe and Bakery before heading over to the Original Nelson Cheese Factory in Nelson, WI for some wine and cheese. I’m about to call up Chris and Laura and see if they’re interested in joining us. Knowing that Chris won’t pass up some good tap beer, some wine and some tasty treats I’m sure I can convince them :)

So, Kim and I owed money to George for his war effort and we paid on time. I believe that I paid, with a check, and had it in the mail the day before it was due. I know that the IRS cashed this check because on 4/24 we were suddenly missing over $800 that was, at least at some point in the recent past, used to drop part of a bomb, shoot a few bullets, or clean up some IED blast in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Now, according to the handy, dandy Stimulus Payment Schedule available through the IRS’ ever so friendly website, I was able to find out that we should have received our payment no later than May 2nd (we specified direct deposit information on the return). If the IRS didn’t really feel like using that, because we decided to delay the inevitable by paying with a check ourselves, they also had the option to mail out a check to us in return on May 16th.

Now, you would normally think that I should have received this payment, as many others have already, long ago but, alas, we have not. Beginning at the end of May I started to call the IRS and was directed through their phone tree or to use their useless online services. Their website and their automated phone tree asks for your SSN, the number of exemptions you claimed, etc and says it will be thrilled to provide you with your status. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, they are unable to tell me jack fucking shit about my return. So wonderful, since you can’t tell me electronically the least you could do would be to put me into some endless phone queue that I would be thrilled to sit on and wait to speak to a live human fucking being so that I could end up with my $1200 payment.

Any other good customer service oriented company with long wait times and terrible customer service representatives operates like that right? Well, even after all the billions of dollars that the IRS collects, they cannot staff enough people to answer the phones when people come calling for their money. I guarantee you that if I hadn’t paid my fucking taxes they’d have some asshole calling me right away for the money (well, probably not but they’d probably send the gestapo instead). I called several times over the last few weeks, including twice just moments ago, and waited for the phone tree to prompt me to pick from two options that don’t work and finally I got it to ring through to what I hoped would be the endless queue of boredom only to find that, well, the IRS is dead and no one can help me. Click.

Fuck you George, fuck you IRS, and fuck you phone tree. Where in the fuck is my $1200 (really less than $400) that you promised I could use to stimulate the economy and stop the never ending slide back to 1985? Seriously, where the fuck is it?

I guarantee I will get just as good of an answer here as I would calling those fucking retards again…