Is the IRS Investigating You?

Lately I've been receiving a lot of phone calls warning me that the IRS is filing a lawsuit against me.

This would be scary, except that I know it isn't true.

Fake IRS calls are a type of fraud that has become more common in the past few years. Fraudsters claim to be IRS agents, police officers, and other officials. They say that you owe back taxes and that if you do not pay immediately you will be subject to jail time, loss of your driver's license, or other penalties.

Are You Safe?

Imagine that you have gone out for dinner and drinks with someone you know. Perhaps he's someone you've met only recently, or he could be a long-time friend. Maybe he's someone you've been dating for a while. He could even be your boyfriend.

Now, imagine that something goes wrong. Without realizing it, you have too much to drink. Way too much. Maybe you got carried away and didn't pay attention to just how many drinks you'd had. (Or is it possible someone tampered with the drinks?) In any case, you start to feel woozy, and before you know what is happening, you pass out.

What do you expect your friend to do?

Mutual Support?

It isn't necessary to formally join a group to become part of a virtual community. Commenting on the blog posts that you enjoy or that make you think is a way to quickly begin connecting with others, people who have something in common or who have similar goals.

When I come across an online article that I think will be interesting or helpful to my followers, I'm eager to tweet it out, or to write about it in my blog (always with a link back to the original item, of course), so that great ideas will reach a wider audience. And I'm very appreciative of my fellow bloggers when they find something I've written worth sharing with their followers.

White Wedding?

I recently learned an interesting phrase in Italian: Matrimonio in bianco.

Literally translated, this means white wedding (or white marriage). But it does not at all mean the same thing as that phrase in English.

When we talk about a white wedding, we are talking about a formal wedding in which the bride wears a white dress, with a traditional ceremony, followed by a reception.

In Italian, a white wedding is an unconsummated marriage.