Normalcy and Its Return

 Sort of an odd couple of weeks coming to an end tonight; not much work!  I took some off days, then the holidays, then the funeral... been at the home office very minimally over the past two weeks, and tomorrow it will be back to the old five days (unless I take one of my 28 off days or so).  Not that I am opposed to it -- cash is good, and working from home is hardly a slog -- but it will take some mental discipline to get back to the same old.  At least the weather is fairly good (for this time of year).

Got started on the new crop of entries to the National Film Registry today by watching "The Devil Never Sleeps."  It was written by a Mexican-American woman, and it is about her investigation of her uncle's death.  It was...not exactly scintillating.  Alas.  750 though... I ordered some from the library, and between that and the usual suspects... I expect to make heady progress (if not steady).  Even cleared away a couple of links this afternoon...though, honestly, I had expected to do more.

One thing I did do is make steady progres on The Great Pestilence, a book that is about a century old, but a look at the Black Death in England, mainly through an examination of the clerical records; i.e., you can tell who died by the records of vacancies.  It's interesting (if not timely) in how people are trying to survive and function in the pandemic of the day, even as death and worse stormed about you.  I think we tend to underestimate human resilience, no matter the circumstance...