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To answer your first question, no, I haven't seen Alex again since I held him the day he was born. Fortunately, I had enough time with him to plant a few subversive ideas in his head, so I'm sure he'll remember the secret signal next time I see him. For now, though, access is still restricted as his family gets used to their new life together. And good for them. That's as it should be.
In a way I see him every day, because he's the new wallpaper on my cell phone. He looks good (and I hear he is, in fact, good).
Anyway, I wouldn't have been good company these past weeks for a hard-boiled adult, much less a hatchling infant, as I've worked my way through the annual January Curse. This weekend went a long way toward relieving the pressure I spent most of my Saturday and Sunday getting through all (yes, all) of the quarterly and annual payroll tax returns.
And I spent one whole day last week doing the W-2s, and another whole day doing the 1099s. If you've ever had those forms as your responsibility, you know the elation of having them behind you for another year.
There's still the matter of the state sales tax return, which is kind of horrible, too. The state of California forces businesses to file that return on line, and then a few weeks later you get a request to re-file on paper. Why? Because the online form doesn't have enough boxes for all the information the state requires. Why? I think the requirements change faster than their webmaster can keep up with. Why? I have no idea. Bureaucracy trumps politics every time.
Still, I'll get past this last obstacle this week, and then I'll be on to the elaborate matrix of reports that have to be sent to the CPA so he can do our taxes and financial statements. I'm glad my part of this is only a matter of collecting data and putting it in some sort of comprehensible order. The rest is a bit beyond my capacity to do, and way beyond my capacity to care. | 