Which of the many things I can’t do anything about should I complain about first? Let’s start with the weather, because not only was it bad today, but it’s going to get worse. It’s never going to be as bad as the worst days anywhere but here, but that doesn’t make a dark, drizzly day like this one any easier for me to take. I got a serious case of the blues. The gray sky blues. (I never get blue sky blues. There’s no such thing.)

I’d love to complain about government paperwork, but I wouldn’t know where to start. This is the last day before the last day to file quarterly tax returns (not counting the weekend, which has days in it that shouldn’t count even though I’m counting on them to get me caught up). It’s not that the forms are too complicated, but that they keep changing them. Every time I have Excel programmed to give me the right information, the government changes the definitions or redesigns the form, so that I have to figure it out from scratch all over again.

My biggest problem today, though, and the one that made the blues more intense, was the usual. I wasn’t getting the kind of cooperation I needed from everyone else in the company. I’ve been asking for the kennel’s sales tax figures since the first of the month. Now it’s the end of the month, and I asked again today and got no response. Zero. Not a word, not a syllable.

So that means I’ll be stuck doing the sales tax return on Monday, which is not only Monday but also payroll day. It’s not as if I can never find enough to do on Monday. Now I get to squeeze one more task onto my crowded to-do list. And I’ll have to worry about it all weekend, not knowing if I’m going to get the figures I need, or if I’m going to have to ask again, and whether I’m going to get an answer when I do ask. How’s a guy who has sleep issues already supposed to relax and enjoy his days off when (a) nobody is cooperating, and (2) it’s miserable and wet and dark?

However, there is good news. There had better be good news. First of all, the weather is expected to improve (and by “improve,” I mean get warmer and drier). Also, I got Tim to collect some money from a client today and to take it directly to the bank and deposit it. This means the checks I mailed this morning won’t bounce when they hit the bank Monday. Now if I could only find a few more thousand to make next week’s payroll, I’ll be knee-deep in sweet cream again.