I spent more than twelve hours behind the wheel this weekend. I have been from one end of Virgina to the other a couple of times, and my back is killing me, even if I did get a chance to catch up on my friends’ podcasts.

I’ve been from Richmond to Amherst twice (two hours or so each way) to retrieve and return the eldest, who was home for the Feis and grade exams this weekend along with her mother and siblings (yes, siblings. all of them – they’ve got the boy competing now!). The Feis went well for the kids and the school in general – all the ladies nailed at least one first place, and both girl children bumped a level in a category (that’s a first place ahead of a certain number of competitors), and the boy child did not come in last in his group, which is something.

I was not present for the competition on Saturday, as I said previously, as I had to head two hours in the other direction for the Humdingers gig, at the party, which is always a good time; plus we got to play most of the new stuff that’s going to be on the new record, and I got to hear the first public performance of “Kiss in the Rain” (I need to write a bass part eventually; it’s going with some different instrumentation on the record and doesn’t need me), which is gorgeous, and has a neat Decembrists vibe – I can’t wait for the world at large to hear it; in fact, I can’t wait for the whole world to get their hands on the entirety of Fantastic Geeks and Where To Find Them, becuase it’s going to be really, reaslly awesome; we’re all very excited.

To wrap the weekend,after hanging for the first part of grade exams with the HOI crew and running the kid back to school on Sunday, I got part of the grocery shopping done, put in some laundry, and settled down to watch a couple of episodes of The Punisher on Netflix, which I’ve been slow to engage with;I’m not a huge fan of the character (there’s honestly only so much you can do before he’s basically the villian with a code he started out as), and let’s face it, he’s troubling given the current american climate (at least before it became wall-to-wall sex offenders in terms of zeitgeist recently). I’m five episodes in, and while it’s not Jessica Jones or Luke Cage, it’s engaging me a bit, although not a hell of a lot has happened yet. My biggest problem is the fact that it’s kind of just retreading his (well done) arc in Daredevil season two of working to knock down the conspiracy (yeah – it’s a whole dark government conspiracy now rather than just a random mafia encounter) that got his family killed, adding more evidence to my thesis that there’s only so much you can do with the guy.

So yeah, that’s the weekend. The coming week will largely involve working to close down the work year and putting out the last few fires, and again, keeping an eye on the news to see if I get to take my class the week of the 11th, or get furloughed again. Yay.