Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 12:25:59 -0500
Subject: Weekend Update: January 24-27, 2002

Miranda returned from her London trip on Thursday on a turbulent,
white-knuckle plane ride.  But she is home, safe and sound, and
has regaled us with stories of the 15 theater shows (spelled theatre,
in Britain) in her 17-day trip.  She also squeezed in several other
tourist stopovers and we await the processing of her non-digital
pictures. Jessica and David Young picked Mandy up at the airport
and came home for a long weekend between the January and Spring
semesters. It was good to have them all home. 

Emily places sixteen candles on her cake this Thursday (1/31)
and we threw her a pizza party this past Friday with her friends.
Joy gave her "pedal blocks" as a gift; it is running joke in
our family because Emily is not quite 5-feet tall.  But everytime
we refer to her diminutive stature, I can't help but think of
the first-grader who told Emmily that she was too small to be
in school.  "I'm old enough to be in first grade," she said
with her hands on her hips, "You want to do something about it?"
He didn't.

Long ago, her Poppie called Emily "indominable" because she
wanted to do the things her sisters did.  It didn't matter
that her feet wouldn't reach the pedals of the bicycle, or
that the sliding pole on the playground equipment was out
of her reach; she was a determined child.

The name Emily, by the way, means "industrious" but that
didn't stop her from getting fired by her brother.  For
several months, Emily has been helping Andrew with half of
his paper route (to earn some extra cash).  Apparently, the
boss and his employee had an issue about the terms of their
contract, so Andrew told her not to bother reporting for work
on Saturday.  For a time, I did my imitation of the pill
bugs on "A Bug's Life" pointing at Em and saying "You Fired!"
One might think that this would have been an acrimonious exchange.
If there was one, I didn't see it, and that suits a Dad just fine.

Speaking of being fired, Joy got a big surprise when she lit
gas grill on Saturday night.  A mouse popped up and out,
none-too-pleased about being singed by the ignition of
the burners. Joy was none-too-pleased either as she came
dashing back in to the house.  I went out to investigate,
and sure enough, I spooked the mouse into making another
dash across the now-hot grill grates.  I saw his tail hair
light up but I am sure he scampered away alive.  (Lucky mouse.)
I scraped the grating and threw the teryaki chicken on, saving
a small, mouse-sized piece for Joy.  She was none-too-pleased.
B^)

We watched the Patriots earn a place at the Superbowl on Sunday.
I admit that I did not have faith in the Pats to defeat the Steelers,
because I felt that the Pats didn't play like they should have
in their previous two outings.  I think David Young was asserting
himself on occasion by making a point to be rooting for teams that
opposed the Patriots.  Nevertheless, the Pats are in and Joy and
I will be preparing for our fourth annual college Superbowl
party, this time with more of a keen local interest.  After next
week, perhaps we'll be able to get a few Sunday afternoon naps
to wile away the winter (thought you can't tell it is winter
in New England with the very mild weather we're having).

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