Friends and Family

Well, the invasion is proceeding according to plan...our friends from Ontario, Mike and Vicki, just arrived today to close on their new house. They bought a place less than ten minutes away, so we'll be seeing a lot more of them. It's good to have like-minded people around, especially in these days of uncertainty. They don't have the room we have, so they'll be getting us to raise pigs and chickens for them. Which is totally fine. When we moved here, it took us five days and a longer route; they made it in three. They're exhausted, and they don't get the house until tomorrow, so they're sleeping here tonight. And this is one crowded house right now.

Some random thoughts that came to me today:

First, Garrett has some impressive pain tolerance for a ten-year-old. I say this because tonight, he just informed us that he had a loose tooth...then pulled it out himself with his fingers. I couldn't have done that at any age. But, he did it. This is the same kid who, when he went to the dentist's office for the first time ever today, flat-out refused to sit in the chair and even let her look at it. Autism is interesting.

Second, I often wonder what the world would look like without income taxes. Sure, I'd have to find another line of work, but still. Doing tax returns all day is not fun. But imagine what it would be like to not have to fork over money to the government every time you got paid. How much better would our economic situation look if we kept more of our money? Sure, people will argue that we need the government to do a bunch of stuff, but let's be honest; they really don't do much at all. Certainly not enough to justify the insane amount of money they collect from us. And, as we are finding out, most of it ends up in corrupt pockets anyway.

What else? I checked the score of the Montreal Canadiens game tonight, and I was excited to see they had scored three goals in the first period. Then I realized that by the end of the first period they were losing, 7-3. They gave up seven goals in one period. For the rest of the game, they tied the Panthers, 2-2. But still. That's just wrong. It looked like a first-quarter football score.

I'm still working on the manuscript for the next Cameron Vail mystery; I'm about halfway through the review copy, so I'm hoping to have it done by the end of the weekend. Tomorrow, I plan to do my review of the next Huey Lewis album, so I'll see you all then.