Life is a blur. I can scarcely keep track of my own comings and goings lately, let alone anyone else's. I try, but it's hard for me to know what's up with someone whose life is at least as frantically paced as mine. Probably more, in most cases, except that I'm not used to trying to keep so many plates spinning. Other people do it all the time. At least, that's how it looks to me.

The Boss is on the road again, and that's wonderful for him but one more complication for me. Every message I get for him means tracking him down, and he doesn't leave a well-marked trail. He hinted to me Tuesday that he was thinking of taking off for a few days, so after I typed his letters and faxed them to him this morning, I called to see if he was where I was sending everything.

He wasn't. He was in a hotel in Reno for a few hours, then headed over the mountains to California. Meanwhile, type this, type that, revise this, revise that, fax them all to the hotel with a cover sheet asking them to please track him down. Good luck to them; I've been trying to keep him on a leash for sixteen years and it's all I can do to locate him from one minute to the next.

The only places I can be sure he isn't are (a) where he's supposed to be, and (2) here, where I am. It's always a remote search with googly spiders, because I almost never have visual contact.

We did get the day's work done, even if it took twice as long because everything had to go through the hotel staff on its way in and on its way out. It's nothing to the Boss to add these fees to his bill. I'm the one who has to find the money to pay it when the statement comes. I doubt he even looks at the charges when he checks out.

Anyway, that's how my routine was disrupted today. It's always something, and this time it was that. Everything else on the agenda gets ratcheted down a notch, and by the time I get to it all it's after working hours. By the time I'm finished, it's after sleeping hours. Sometimes I wonder if I would sleep if I had the time, but it doesn't really matter because I don't have time.

Despite all the distractions, it was just too perfect outside this afternoon. Clouds filtered the sunlight and a breeze chilled the air. I know that doesn't fit my usual definition of "perfect" (much less the illusory "too perfect"). I like it hotter than this, but today it was just right for working in the yard.

I'd found reasons not to do much outside work since the two fellows were here last week cutting down all the high weeds. But this is the night I take the yard waste container to the curb, and it was easy to fill it up. It took no more than a few minutes to find piles of cuttings the mowers had left behind and load the container.

In a few places the dead, dry weeds were still upright, even though they weren't growing out of the ground any more. They were being held up by the bushes, just kind of dangling among the branches. I had to reach inside the bushes, grab hold and pull the dead weeds out.

It's not as easy as it sounds. (Does it sound easy? It is, but not that easy.) Only once did I lose my balance and fall backwards, but unfortunately I landed on the stem of a rosebush and tilted it to a whole new angle. It probably doesn't matter to the roses, though, since they're not producing many flowers.

Maybe if I figured out how to use my new flat hose and watered them a little more, I might have fewer dead and dying plants, and other colors other than brown in the garden. First I have to figure out how to assemble the stand that came with the hose. That's the kind of challenge I'll probably put off until the weekend, when the pace of activity around here slows down just a bit.

I can't believe how much work the Company is picking up lately. I had a call from Tim, our superintendent, and he told me he sold two more jobs last night. For years I've had to keep track of four or five ongoing projects at various stages of development. Now we have ten projects either in progress or about to start. I'm going to have to take the time to get my files in order. That's so low on my priority list that I'm about two years behind. Yeah, I know I've been in this house/office for two years. That's what I mean.