Well, you addressed it to me and not the commenter. Sorry if interpreted your post in a more straightforward manner than you intended.

Who was pontificating about this?

At Lowell, the Park itself is free, meaning you can go through the mills and museum at your own pace. But you can also take a guided tour, which isn’t free and we found very good. There’s more info, plus you’re guaranteed that they’ll fire up whatever equipment they can. Typically that will include a handful of the looms out of dozens, which are loud enough for them to hand out ear plugs. I can’t imagine what having the entire floor of looms running would be or how anyone working there didn’t go deaf. There’s at least one other building on the tour where they fire up one of the water-powered wheels. Plus the tour goes on the trolley instead of having to walk.

It’s about a mile from the commuter rail station. I’ve never walked it, but imagine it’s walkable, and certainly cab/Uber/Lyft should be doable. There are also some nice restaurants in Lowell.

I forgot to mention: pay attention to the commuter rail schedules. All of these trips are opposite the usual commuter traffic, so they’re not going to be frequent and the last one of the day can be early.

Ten days is a lot for Boston.

The obvious history answer is the Freedom Trail. Most people do it in a day, but I encourage people to plan at least half day for just the USS Constitution, including the guided tour of the ship, some time in the small free museum of the visitor’s center, and some time in the larger, by donation USS Constitution Museum. You can also climb the nearby Bunker Hill Monument. That’s in addition to the full day walking the rest of the Freedom Trail and going into most of the historic buildings on the trail.

There are other historic sites within easy T distance (T being the common term for our subway, though the same authority runs the buses and commuter rail). Taking the Duck Boat tour, while touristy, can be worthwhile.

With 10 days, you could also travel outside the urban center. The commuter rail goes to Salem, where in addition to the tourist-oriented Salem witch trial places, there’s also the House of the Seven Gables and the excellent Peabody-Essex Museum. Salem is very walkable. It also goes to Lowell, where you can find the Lowell National Historical Park, which is about the Industrial Revolution era, particularly the fabric mills in New England. Finally, you can also take commuter rail to Concord, where we started a small war you may have heard of. It’s a pleasant walk from the train station to the Old North Bridge and the Minuteman National Historical Park visitor center, though having a car there would make it practical to also visit some the historic Concord homes (Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and obviously Thoreau).

There are other sites of historic interest that can be done as day trips from Boston, but they really require a car. (Battleship Cove, Old Sturbridge Village, some others). Plymouth Rock is not worthwhile, though Plimoth Patuxet (formerly Plimoth Plantation) is.

May and June are beautiful weather-wise, but bring a lightweight rain jacket and maybe a sweater (jumper?) just in case.

I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned REI. They’re a coop, so getting a lifelong membership is worthwhile. They have a store in Framingham, as well as Boston, Cambridge, and a couple of other locations in the area.

I thought they’ve stopped using fur.

Condos always have an HOA. Some entity needs to be responsible for repairing the roof.

A quick search of Google Maps for car rentals near Newburyport only turns up a Tesla rental and a “temporarily closed” enterprise.

Lowell might be a better choice.

Caution: Many people from far away will say “moving to Boston” when it’s really “moving to a suburb of Boston”. Double check whether your office is located in Boston proper. The mailing address for the office will usually be good enough to confirm that.

Also, Boston, unlike many larger cities (such as London and New York City) didn’t consolidate as much urban land. Hence adjacent cities such as Cambridge and Somerville, as well as the town of Brookline, can be good choices, depending on exactly where your job is located.

We went to Newburyport for the first time a few weeks ago, but mostly to see the Parker River Wildlife Refuge. We grabbed lunch in town, but didn’t really notice an area that looked like interesting walking. What did we miss?

The witch stuff in Salem, though sometimes informative, tends to be kitschy. The House of the Seven Gables might be more interesting to you. Also, the Peabody-Essex Museum, while having a lot of art, also has the Yin Yu Tang House, a large 18th century Chinese house that was disassembled, shipped to Salem, and reassembled there.

Personally, I prefer the Lowell National Historical Park. It’s a collection of old water-powered textile mills, some of which still operates and is demonstrated. There’s a museum with more info about that period as well as about the early labor movement. The guided tour is worth the extra expense. You can get there by commuter rail, then either a walk about a mile to the Park, or bus/Lyft/Uber. For both this and Salem, make sure you understand the commuter rail schedule.

I do mail order from Upton Teas (https://uptontea.com). They have most teas available in sample packs of between 10 to 20 grams. They also have sampler packs of four tins, each with about 35g of a different tea. Personally I’d hold out until their “Introduction to Fine Tea” sampler is in stock again, but they have other sampler packs available.

They’re on the expensive end, but I’ve never found a store front with loose leaf teas having tea as fresh as Upton’s. Many of their teas are single estate teas, but they also have blends, flavored teas, decaf teas, and herbal teas (tisanes).

Since they’re in Massachusetts (Hopkinton, I think, in spite of their name), the cheapest shipping is usually next day by mail.

I’ve just started watching The Last of Us, and they showed Fireflies in Boston.

Are you sure it’s the IRS and not Turbo Tax? It could be either.

The question is whether you itemized last year (2021 tax year). If you didn’t, then you don’t have to include the refund on your 2022 taxes.

No, I’m suggesting that you don’t understand how decisions on what to work on are made in large business environments. This is true both for government agencies and large corporations. It’s why agility in business is something business schools study, and why many businesses die because they don’t react fast enough.

Look, the IRS has no obligation to pro-actively decide every conceivable case of state law interaction with federal law. It’s not enough that they be aware of all these special cases. Some one or group of people had to make a decision that these were more important to work on than all the other things they had already committed to work on before the states started doing this. Now I don’t know what their other priorities were at the time. So I can’t argue that they should have known this was or was not important enough to preempt other work. And neither can you. Large organizations, especially those that mostly work around a fixed calendar of work, can’t be expected to make every turn on a dime decision quickly and correctly.

Which they? The IRS didn’t send out the checks, so they didn’t announce it. Massachusetts did, and I think it’s been on their web site for some time now, but the only weight that has is to show that people who relied on it were acting in good faith.

The IRS doesn’t have a team of tax lawyers sitting around with nothing to do except read press releases from states. They might have a team that reads changes to state tax laws, but this wasn’t a change to Massachusetts tax law.

SALT is capped at 10K. Mortgage interest has a different set of limits entirely. Plus there’s still charitable deductions and conceivably medical deductions.

There are 19 states with similar issues. How many tax attorneys do you think the IRS has available to draft such rulings? How much time do you think it takes for a single tax attorney to become familiar with a single state’s special provision, study it in the context of relevant federal law, draft a ruling, get it reviewed by some number of other tax attorneys, corrected, reviewed again, and then published? All while handling whatever other caseload they have?

I suggest signing up for Nextdoor and asking there, as you can get a cross section of people from nearby towns.

There’s also the House of the Seven Gables, which is worth visiting if you’re interested in that era of architecture or the link to Hawthorne. Their web site says they reopen Feb. 10, so that should work for you.

Can the dealer where you bought the car handle it? I’ve never done a lease, but the last time I bought a car, the dealer handled the transfer of registration for me. It couldn’t hurt to ask.

That’s why we get takeout.

Since when is Alewife free?

Logan Express out of Woburn.