Subject: Weekend Update: March 4-9, 2003
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 16:46:59 -0500

Meredith DeBow has a new digital camera.  It has a lot
of bells and whistles, which like many things is both
blessing and curse.  She and Jan met Joy and me for dinner
last Tuesday night to look over the picture box and
figure out the basics of shooting, and transfering images
to her computer.  She has to become familiar with it before
their next trip in a few weeks, to Morocco.

It snowed again Thursday, postponing what was planned as a
Guy's Movie Night at our house.  Chris Chronopoulos was to
bring the flick, full of testosterone and pyrotechnic effects;
an anti-chick-flick-flick.  A few inches of snow and a late
start was a wet blanket, however. Rich came over since Wendy
was up north visiting her sister, so the evening wasn't a
loss.

Jessica and David came home Friday, but I didn't get to see
them.  They dropped off Jessica's friend, Brooke, and turned
Goliath southward towards David's home in Virginia.  Mandy,
Em, and Andrew all went out to various places leaving Brooke
home alone with Joy and me; but not for long.  Jessica's friend,
Amara (with friend in tow) arrived for her fitting.  Later,
we were joined by Rob and Susan Walker for a good time of
conversation.

My alarm awoke me at 5AM on Saturday.  As I dimly came into
consciousness, I remembered that I agreed to take Brooke to
Manchester Airport, so I fell out of bed.  Charlene (Brooke's mom)
called me the night before to thank me for caring for her girl
and I said that we enjoyed helping out, and I meant it.  When she
mentioned the departure time, I said, "Now, that's the sacrifice"
but nonetheless I was still willing to help.  I think only the
"autopilot" reported for conveyance duty, but I got her to the
airport in time.  Little did I realize that it was about that
time that Jessica and David pulling into the driveway at Harold
and Lana Young's home.  I expected that they would pull in about
2AM, so I went to bed without worries.  I wonder what took them
that much longer but I was glad to hear they arrived safely.
After dropping Brooke off, I went back to bed and might have stayed
there except that we had planned to visit some of our southern
relatives. (Southern Massachusetts, that is.) We stopped
in to see my brother Russell and Nancy and to deliver their
Christmas present a few months early; sometimes we have to
wait until July to see them!  They told us of the tragic death
of their cat.  They decided it needed a decent burial, once
the snow and ground thaw, so they stored the thing out in their
shed which is a cool as any morgue, I think.  My father called
and suggested that they hang it from its tail on a tree like a
bird feeder, but I think Russ will stick with the present
funeral arrangements.

Mom and Dad were our next stop down in Falmouth on Cape Cod.
There, I helped Dad hook his two computers up through PC-Linq
and helped him animate his powerpoint presentation.  We also
spent time going through some of the video that I transferred
to DVD, when the times were light and the hair was dark.

After dinner, we returned home to a houseful of Young Folk.
Someone discovered that our Fish that I named "Flushy" was
limply laying at the bottom of the glass vase in which it
had previously lived.  We put the fish on a paper and
photographed it before it found its way to our septic system,
fulfilling the prophecy of its name.  Joy said that she was
very glad that I didn't name our cat.

Sunday night after church, Tom and Vicky Clark joined us at
Bickford's for a Sunday night breakfast repast.  It was both
yummy and enjoyable.  I recommend it.

Mark