Well, incredible as it may seem, Emil is back down in Youngstown this weekend. He and Kathy went back to begin to sort through the items in their house, and also to check on the uncles. Things are worrisome over there, too; Uncle Joe (age 91) went to the hospital today (this is the third time since Christmas) with fluid on his lungs. Uncle Carl and Aunt Betty are pretty frayed, as you might imagine.

So I'm holding the fort down up here. Luckily, the fort feels pretty stable these days . . . Emma and I have climbed through our recent rough patch, I think. Things are pretty well on hold regarding her school situation, which has been chaotic for the past couple of months; right now the plan is for her to be home-schooled by her father, but since he's in Youngstown not much will happen on that front for a while. So she is "on the beach," as they say. (They say that about computer programmers who are between jobs.)

And speaking of programmers between jobs . . . Emil's unemployment situation is moving rapidly from background noise to front burner . . . he's doing what he can about that, but jobs aren't jumping out at him and he hasn't had much of a chance to think about alternate job-hunting strategies.

I've got some cool things going on at work right now, which helps. I'm looking forward to a conference in Chicago at the end of March (I'm giving a panel with 3 of my colleagues), and I'm working on the syllabus for a class (on multimedia rhetoric) that may be piloted as early as this summer. The classes are going well, but I've gotten a little bit behind in the grading and I'm sick to death of typing, alas. Oh, well, I knew both those things would happen sooner or later . . . nothing for it but to catch up.

Better get to it . . .