Paris, Providence and Don's DNA is Zero percent

It's the last day of February; March will arrive tomorrow and so, it seems, will the lion. While temps were springlike yesterday and remain somewhat balmy today, Sunday is supposed to bring with it a snowstorm of some significance. (photo: Dad's high school graduation, Bement, Illinois, 1928.)

With March also comes Susie's departure for Paris on the 14th. I'll follow three weeks later. I'm ready to start packing a ton of chili for the freezer and get the Japanese movies in my queue on Netflix. That and working with Adobe's Creative Suite 4 set of programs -- I'm as near to heaven as I can get.

Well, OK, I won't really be in heaven until I join Susan Nell in Paris on April 4, that's true. And the cool thing is I can work from Paris. My job is shifting more toward image asset management and I'm pumped. It's more experience with Adobe software and images to boot. Not a bad thing at all. Anyway, I'm planning on getting a few hours of work every morning -- before the Parisians come to life and Pere Lachaise opens its doors.

Susie is prepping the staff at Gracie's, particularly Danielle and Mike who will be covering desserts while she's gone. She's working up a collection of recipes to make their lives a bit easier but these kids are pretty savvy and will have little trouble carrying the ball for seven weeks or so.

Aside from the gloom and doom in the world of high (and low) finance, aside from the abominable condition of our infrastructure here in Providence, problems which won't go away no matter how much stimulus money is thrown into the Ocean State, aside from the blinkered foolishness of so many of our compatriots who simply don't get it, that this world is changing mighty fast, aside from these things, life is pretty good.

Oh, about my dad. It seems my brother's DNA test came back yesterday as "0.00% probability of paternity." Just like mine. No surprise here.

No, the real surprise came last weekend. I was contacted by a man in Illinois whose family, it turned out, has experienced a similar problem in the misidentification of their father's remains. And yes, the same culprit is at the center of that at well. We hope to shed more light on this soon.

Of course, we now wonder just how widespread the problem is in Illinois. Only God knows. Well, OK, Him and maybe two or three others.

Take care, stay calm, keep warm and drop by here sometime; anytime but April, of course.

Hey, and no matter what happens, keep yours fixed on the prize, like the one below: