I have finally recovered from a week of house guests. They're nice people -- in fact, family! -- but I'm more than a bit of an introvert and home is the only place where I can indulge that part of my personality, so any intrusion in that space, however welcome, is kinda disturbing. The weekend was largely about reading, interspersed with grocery shopping and cooking, while Perth County enjoyed some welcome rain.

Today I return to normal programming, with a gym workout and several loads of laundry, plus work on the Afghanistan book. I have almost reached the end of the main text, with only the Epilogue to go before I hit the appendices, which are mostly lists of jargon and abbreviations. I am eager to finish this project, as it reminds me too vividly of the tension that pervaded the operational headquarters where I worked throughout Canada's involvement in the Afghan insurgency. Sometimes I regret having read so much about the United States in Viet Nam; I rather resent the "same shit, different day" feeling I had while our task forces were deployed in Afghanistan, and I am having all over again as I work on this book.