It has been two months since their wedding and they’re not wasting any time. Pictured is the front of David and Maren’s future home, with three stories, three bedrooms and two-and-a half baths. It has hardwood floors and a huge kitchen. It is in Malden, MA, which is a Boston suburb, a little further north than Cambridge, where they rent now. The place looks great, both inside and out, way better than our house, but also way more expensive.

In other family news, my brother Chris is retiring this month. He has been working remotely in the insurance industry since the pandemic began and has been talking about retiring for almost a year now. He will now have the time to devote more effort to his true passion, photography. So, watch his Flickr feed.

Finally, some bah humbug for tis the season. Yesterday, we renewed our Rav4’s license plates. This milestone means that our “new” car is now two years old, but the most important aspect of this fact was that it was accomplished online. This is a first for us and as far as I’m concerned for Missouri too, but it almost didn’t happen. I had already done the paper chase that this process always demands and assembled the needed documents, personal property tax receipts (In Missouri you have to pay property taxes on your vehicles.), emissions test receipt (Our car is not yet old enough to require a safety test receipt.), proof of insurance and the card that was sent to us through the mail.  This card had a PIN on it and instruction on how to renew online. Anne tried to renew online but kept getting error messages on the state’s website. I suggested trying Google’s Chrome, which usually works better than the Microsoft browser, but still no joy. I’m cussing and swearing at our state’s backwardness by now and Anne was already on her way out the door, headed to the DMV when I hit upon the idea of trying the iPhone and voilà, it worked. So, I’m left there peering through my readers as I navigate the bureaucratic website, but I got it done and save my spouse from an indeterminant stay in DMV purgatory, no hell. All of this begs the questions of what do people do, who only have the most common of computer platforms and who tested this online website in the first place?