What I Did On My Winter Vacation

I cannot believe that I haven't blogged since February 23. And even that was a repost of Peggy Noonan, may she live forever.

Sorry. I was in a play.

Sounds a little cheesy for an excuse, doesn't it? But believe me, that's the reason. I was cast in Beauty and the Beast (I blogged about this) as Lumiere, and the last two weeks I have been gone from 5pm to 11pm every night in rehearsals and performances. I had forgotten how hard those things are to do, and how different they are. It is true that I have had gardening class some evenings previous to those rehearsals, but I can always duck out of class. There are breaks. Not during rehearsals, though. It's as if Chris Jones ceases to exist for six hours a day.

This necessitated my getting everything done every day before leaving the office, no answering email, no taking phone calls, no returning phone calls in the evening, which I am wont to do. That left no time at all for anything but servicing clients, even for blogging. Again, apologies.

The performances went well, thanks for asking. It was exhilarating. I'll post photos as I have them. The costuming was incredible, as you will see.

Mortgage rates are headed significantly higher. Nothing else matters but the Fed. Durable goods orders were down almost 10% this morning and bonds still fell. We've been anticipating for the last three years that we would start to see rates between 6.5% and 7% on the 30-year, and it looks very much as if this year is the year it actually happens.

More later.