Kathy has been sick for about two weeks now with an ear infection and a cold. I have my first cold of the season, but I can’t blame it on her. I just spent too much time walking around in the cold wind on Friday. I know—that’s not how people get sick, but it’s how I get sick. Kathy never calls in sick, though she was tempted this past week. Turns out someone else called off on Friday, so she wound up doing a lot more work and feeling crummy the whole time.

Daughter Ann flew back to her little piece of heaven (Peter or Ballingeary—I’m not sure) on Thursday after what she characterized as her best visit home ever. She and I went to the outlet mall on Wednesday where she bought armloads of jeans and shirts. I spent a little at the Bass shoe store and the Jockey store, though I hadn’t planned on spending anything. Shopping eased the pain of failing her driver’s test. She lost points on the dreaded maneuverability test trying to move our clunky Camry through its paces. Her learner’s permit is good for a year, so if she wants to take it again, we’ll rent the smallest Ford Festiva or something that we can find, in order to improve her chances.

A few days ago Max got upset in school and threw his glasses to the ground, breaking them. When he got home, he said to his mom, “There was an accident at school…” Jessica told him that the teacher had already called her to tell her what had happened. Max parried, saying, “Maybe it wasn’t an accident after all. I just get confused sometimes.” I’m not sure the “confusion defense” will take him very far.

This week I will be in Washington DC with my boss Paul. I was waiting for him to set up appointments or something for us, but then I just decided to do it myself. So, we have a couple of places where they expect us, and there are others where we will probably just show up and see what happens. On Friday, Yolanda, the other assistant director in the office, is appearing in a panel discussion with the governor of Virginia and some other VIP’s in Washington, so we will go to see that as well. The boss wants to come back on Saturday, (yuk!) but maybe I can convince him to steam out of there on Friday afternoon.

This is a busy time for me at church, with Social Justice projects like the Angel Tree and Christmas food and present packing, and working up the readers schedule for the Christmas Masses. Fortunately, I have lots of good people in both groups who are willing to help out with whatever I ask of them. Did I tell you? A few weeks ago I told Kathy I was going to join the “Education Commission” at church. Her eyebrows shot up but she didn’t say anything. Sure enough, after one meeting, I realized I was overcommitted, and so I immediately resigned. She was very smart not to remark on the whole thing, since I probably would have bulled ahead, trying to show I could do it all. I’m learning!