I have not been writing frequently, my desires to the contrary notwithstanding. There has not been a lot going on in my life, although there has been too much going on in the world at large.

As I wrote earlier, work ended on January 31.  The first week was “Hey, I don’t have to go to work!”  Subsequent weeks have been “Damn, I don’t have work to go to.” There is a possibility of work coming up later in the spring, and I did have an interview with a Manpower representative, but things are still slow.

There was a car accident in my family.  I can’t write about it because, as corporations often say when controversy arises, it will probably entail litigation, but Vincent the black Mustang was totaled. I keep thinking I should write a memorial for him.  It is odd to write a memorial for a car, but then Vincent was  unusual car.  He was not Kit (for one thing he broke down too often), but he had history and personality.

We have survived the college application process with the Red-Headed Menace.  We are now in the awful waiting for results stage.  It is not as bad as it might have been, as he has already been admitted to a relatively highly-ranked engineering program. It is not one of his dream schools (we realize all of them are unlikely to admit him), but on the other hand, he got in somewhere, so we don’t have rejection after rejection coming in.  (He actually got into another school, but only in the school of humanities, not in engineering. So that one is out of the running.  While RHM plans on a double major of bioengineering and philosophy (go figure), he realizes that philosophers have poor job prospects.  Bioethicists, his favorite job possibility, have poor job prospects as well, but a boy can dream, can’t he?) With the Not-So-Little Drummer Boy, his admission letter came after a lot of rejections.  That was a terrible time.

So we are in March.  Spring begins in March.  We are getting a little rain now, but it will not be enough to affect the drought.  It is going to be a long, dry, dusty summer. We are not in a region likely to face fire, but we are sometimes subject to smoke from grass-fires.  It is the worst scenario: just enough rain to cause some growth, but not enough to ease the fire-danger.

“Let it Go” has replaced “Defying Gravity” as my go-to Idina Menzel empowerment ballad. “Defying Gravity” was sightly problematic for me for various reasons, and I like the “go-to-hell” vibe of “Let It Go” better anyway. That, Sarah Bareilles “Brave,” Pink’s “Raise Your Glass,” Lorde’s “Royals, and Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” are in heavy rotation on my iTunes these days. (Speaking of Pharrell, I’ve also started listening to Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” as well.  It’s disco, albeit very well done disco.)

Well, time to go back to job searching.  Blech.