Flowers for Mathilde Moneybags

I pulled these flowers from our garden this morning. I put them on the dining room table because at 1pm, my newly-hired alter-ego, Mathilde Moneybags, is going to be camped out at the table doing a whole bunch of long-overdue gnarly money-related to-do's (a la taxes and worse). I'll be providing her with unlimited hot chocolate and a fully loaded iPod with speakers, while she works diligently on the large stack of papers peaking out in the lower right corner of the photo. What you cannot see is the even LARGER stack of folders and papers and receipts and such that are outside the frame of the camera's eye.

Miss Mathilde has committed to stay focused on this project until 5pm, with hourly cross-country phone check-ins to the kind and generous Renee Sopko. On the other end of the line, in frigid rural New Jersey, girlfriend Renee will be donning the alter-ego combo of drill sergeant Suze Orman, enlightened empowerer Oprah and compassionate Mother Teresa all rolled into one.

I am imagining placing a call in the morning to my ever-so-patient and understanding financial professional, announcing triumphantly, jubilantly, "YES! I am ready to schedule an appointment!" News at 11.