"I'm just packing up." The Boss on the phone.

"How long will you be gone?" I didn't even know he was going anywhere.

"Several weeks." What? This is new. I have to chase him around California, Arizona and Nevada for several weeks, trying to give him his messages? Oh, that's going to improve my mood, isn't it

"Have you mailed me the Ex's alimony check for this month yet?" I know he hasn't, and how I got to be the middle man in these transactions is a long-forgotten mystery. Who knows what I agreed to under duress (or possibly hypnosis)? You want the job, you handle the personal stuff.

"I have some things here I should send you before I go." Glad I jogged your memory. She's going to be thrilled that it's only three weeks late this time.

"I have some things to send to you, too."

"You'd better send them to the Ex's house." So that's where he's going. He's still going to mail me her check, but he's going to stay at her house. Which, by the way, is in Rohnert Park, about five miles from where I'm sitting right now. Does that mean I'll see him while he's there? Of course not. His time is much too valuable, thank goodness.

That's just the first stage of his travels. He has married daughters (and, by coincidence, grandchildren) in three different cities up and down the coast. He has an ex-girlfriend in Arizona. If he's going to be away from his office for "several weeks," I'm sure those are just a few of the places he'll be visiting.

Everywhere he stops, he'll plug his fax machine into a phone line. Sometimes he'll remember to give me the number, but mostly it's so that he can continue to fax me notes, requests, reminders, and questions that I've answered four or five times already. The good side of all this is that while he's on the road, he's often too distracted to pepper me with trivia, and I get to get caught up on my real work.

That's a very good thing just now, because quarterly payroll and sales taxes are all due at the end of April. Having two weeks of Boss Lite is going to be helpful as I deal with the incessant barrage of forms.

While the Boss was "packing up," I spent two hours in the middle of the day straightening up. The landlord had asked me yesterday if he could bring an appraiser by today, because he's planning on refinancing. I asked him if I should do anything (like get all the weeds out, or clean up the cobwebs, or fumigate), but he said no, that wouldn't be necessary.

Well, I didn't fumigate, but I couldn't leave the place so cluttered, especially the bedroom, where I've been tossing junk mail that I want to shred and recycle (eventually) and laundry that I need to wash (soon) and magazines that I haven't read yet (and probably never will).

Mostly I just hid everything in containers of various sizes and stacked them as neatly as possible. It does look better, but now I'll never find anything. I'm sure it impressed the bejabbers out of the appraiser, so it was worth it. Right.