Well, I really wanted the job, but I didn’t get it.  I was initially upset, but I feel better now.  Three hours of driving with the music at top volume, singing so loud that I was actually (I think) annoying the girls – my stepdaughter and my oldest daughter (nearly 6 and 7 respectively).  Let’s see – what did I have in the CD player?  The Jayhawks, Abba, Duran Duran, Robbie Williams, the Violent Femmes, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, and the Black Crowes.  I think that was all.  I owe my odd affinity for Abba to my childhood.  Mom used to play Abba records all the time, especially Saturdays when we would clean up the house.  So don’t make fun of me – it is all about being wistful.

I was tired, but the drive home, singing – I don’t know.  It somehow rejuvenated me.

I love having all the kids here.  Even if they are loud and get on my last nerve with the running, jumping, and yelling.

It has been an intense week.  My grandfather died.  I have never met the man.  Never even talked to him on the phone.  He was 80.  He had had his voice box removed a few years ago.  Then, a couple of years ago, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.  The kicker?  Then, he quit smoking those unfiltered cigarettes.  Why bother?

This morning my grandfather’s stepmother died.  She was almost 100.  She was a sweet old lady – she loved getting/writing e-mail and she loved Tiger Woods.  She tatted me a beautiful doily for a wedding gift the first time I got married.  I don’t know when it was that she married my great-grandfather.  Mom and I were trying to figure it out on the phone.  She says she thinks my dad’s grandmother died when he was about 10 or so, so it had to be after then.  My great-grandmother died in one of the most horrific car accidents I’ve ever heard about.  She drove under a semi truck and was decapitated.  Dad said he thought his world had come to an end.  So I don’t know how to feel about all these relatives dying when I didn’t know them well.  I am closer to Mom’s side of the family, mainly because Dad was abused as a child and has as little to do with his family as he possibly can.