Finally, health seems have to returned to my household. The Infected One has returned to college and assures me he feels great. The Puking One ate a good breakfast and emoted about the Florida Gulf Coast basketball team before tromping down the driveway. In other promising news, daffodil shoots are poking through the snow, my onion seeds have sprouted, the dog has not yet become overwhelmingly muddy, I managed to edit another chapter of a for-hire manuscript and also make progress on my new book's table of contents, and String Field Theory is getting ready to play its first four-person show after almost nine months of hiatus.

We are a different band than we used to be . . . a sadder one, of course, having undergone the suffering and loss of a child. But while Craig was gone, I was forced to step into a more prominent singing and lead-playing role; and now that he's back, we've discovered that this has turned us into a more interesting and flexible ensemble. We sing much more confidently together; our harmonies are more complex; my fiddle playing is more relaxed but also more experimental. It feels really good to be playing music right now.