Was that the phone? It's almost ten o'clock Friday night, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit to get one more call from the Boss. We spent the whole day tweaking the financial spreadsheets one last time (okay, fifteen "last" times) before sending them to the accountant. I'm not sure, but I think he faxed off the version we came up with a little after six. If so, there's a good chance I'm off the hook until the accountant starts coming up with his own questions.

The Boss found some mistakes that I made, and I took my lumps. I could have given a few back, because his thinking gets muddled by the objective, which is to produce financial statements that are accurate, conservative and optimistic, all at the same time. If he knew about the "goal seek" function of Excel, he'd probably tell me to plug in the final profit and back into all the other numbers. Luckily, he's computer illiterate, so we're stuck with whatever the real numbers actually say.

That doesn't mean we can't go over and over all the possible combinations and find new ways to define liabilities, for example, that make them seem like assets. I don't understand it myself, but as long as I'm convinced we're not doing anything illegal, I'll go along. By the end of today, my goal was simply to get it over with. All I wanted was for the phone not to ring again until Monday morning. If it could hold off until Tuesday, so much the better.

That's pretty much how my day went. I managed to get out in the rain to run my most important errands this morning, but I really wanted to get to Office Depot for paper and ink before I ran out. The fax/printer has been burning through those cartridges like September weeds, and I'm on my last half ream of paper. If the worst is really over, I can probably get by until Monday. That's good, because I don't plan to spend my weekend doing much company business. For once.

Somehow, TiVo managed to record seven and a half hours of telenovelas today. I think that's a little excessive, don't you? I like them and all, but I don't have quite that much time to devote to watching them.

It might be easier if I actually knew Spanish. Then I could have them on in the background and follow what's happening. Since I have to listen to every word, just so I'll understand about half of what's going on, there aren't enough hours in the day to watch all that TiVo so generously offers (plus two hours of figure skating and a half hour of baseball).

But I'm learning more of the language all the time, and I'd be halfway fluent in the right situation. I'd probably know what to say if, for example, my long lost identical twin sister, whom I'd blackmailed into taking my place while I jetted around Europe with a rich playboy, fell in love with my husband but then was falsely accused of kidnapping his child and thrown in jail.

Okay, that's maybe not the best example, but the women have all the best roles. According to these shows, every man in Mexico is a tool, in one way or another. He'll always believe an improbable lie before the simple truth. He's jealous and possessive to the point of abuse. But he loves his mamá, which makes up for all his faults.

The women fall into two extreme categories. She's either a selfless saint who would gladly sacrifice her own life for the good of the familia, or she's a wicked bruja who would lock a little girl in the closet out of pure meanness. (¡Pobrecita!) Each one has either a misguided plan to make the world better, or a manipulative scheme to make everyone else miserable.

Obviously, I've learned a lot of things from watching the novelas, even if fluent Spanish isn't one of them.

David dropped by for a minute this afternoon, so we vented to each other about our respective jobs. The difference is that my problems are with management and his are with customers. We're both frustrated, but I think it helped to have someone listen to our complaints, even if listening was all we could do for each other. One of the disadvantages of working at home alone is that I don't have anyone to share the madness with. I have a water cooler but usually no one to talk to but myself.