Subject: Weekend Update: December 1-3
Date: Mon, 04 Dec 2000 12:05:40 -0500

It took the entire week but the house is festively decorated for
the Advent season and will remain so throughout the Twelve Days
of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day; maybe longer, depending
on Joy's mood to carry Christmas into the New Year.  Joy has a
few one- and two-foot Christmas trees, especially in the rooms
of the college women who took their four-foot trees to their
dorm to decorate their rooms.  That is to augment her seven
other trees around the house, ranging from four feet to nine feet.
Someone at work suggested we erect one in the main bathroom and
decorate it with toilet paper garland.  I'll pass their suggestion
onto Joy.

On Thursday night, Joy and I went grocery shopping for our
first holiday party, hosting an unknown quantity of college
kids that Miranda and Jessica were inviting from Eastern Nazarene
College.  It isn't that they didn't try to get an accurate count
for us, but getting college kids to commit to something is a lot
like herding kittens.  Despite these incoveniences, Mandy and
Jessie managed to pull together a number of cars for transportation
and about 40 (!) college kids turned up.

Joy and I kept shoveling the food onto the countertops and tables,
barely keeping the supply up to the demand. The pinball machines
hummed, while another group sat around the big screen watching White
Christmas, while still others played Taboo in the dining room, and
more chatted away in the living room.  Later some of them went out in
sub-freezing cold to play a sort of hide-and-seek in the dark game.
Emily and Andrew seemed to really enjoy mingling with the older
set.  The "really old folks" enjoyed it all too, except the part
about getting to bed after 1AM.  Five students stayed overnight and
we provided a nice brunch (at 10:30; no way any of us were getting
up earlier - except the paperboy).

The rest of the weekend came and went at a much more relaxed pace,
except for Emily who went out Saturday night to a school semi-formal,
which some may choose to characterize as a "dance" but Emily assured
us that both of her feet were always on the ground.  It is my
understanding that most "dances" are merely congregational
conversational socializations with loud and contemporary noises
that some consider music.  By Sunday, she was ready and eager to
turn in early after a weekend of raucus revelry.

News of upcoming events:

  December 8  - Teen Christmas party
  December 14 - My 41st birthday
                College break begins; girls come home
  December 15 - Dad's  70th birthday
                Church Christmas Musical in Lowell
  December 16 - Christmas party at Metcalfe Manor
  December 17 - Church Christmas Musical in Lowell

Hmmm... I guess I had better start thinking about squeezing in
some shopping time this month, too.  (I think I'll buy Joy another
Christmas tree!  Shhh!  Don't tell her!)  ;-)

Mark
--
+---_-----------+ Mark Metcalfe, metcalfe@cadence.com
| c a d e n c e | Cadence Design Systems, Inc.    Phone: (978) 446-6451
+---------------+ PCB Systems Division, Technical Communications Manager