Subject: Weekend Update: April 3-7, 2003
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 16:53:45 -0400

Mom and Dad came to visit on Thursday; Dad had a meeting
in Nashua on Friday.  I miss having them around each week
and I told them so.  They said that they enjoyed their gig
in Nashua, too.  I missed them by a half hour or so on
Friday.  They were keen to get out of town because of the
snow storm coming into the area.  Half way to the cape,
snow and ice turned to rain.

All the weekend plans were scrapped because of Winter's
sucker punch on New Englanders.  Jessica's wedding shower
at our church was washed out. Joy labored over the decision
but she made the right call; conditions were worsening as
the evening approached and I saw a car turned on its side
not a mile from my house.  Jessica and David arrived ahead
of the storm to spend the weekend with us anyway. =20

On Saturday morning, I took Emily and her friend Katie
(who stayed overnight Friday) attended a Mica high school
band concert on Saturday morning. Emily is not yet permitted
to drive anyone but family, so it fell upon me to roll
out of bed and put on a hat because hair just doesn't
want to be combed out in the morning.  I stopped at the
store for the makings of a very nice brunch that I made
for everyone.=20

I didn't bother shoveling the crunchy pellets from the
walk figuring that we were close enough to Spring to let
other efficiencies take their course.  However, the snow
was a wet blanket on my Saturday plans to finish the
Spring cleaning in the yard and burn the pile of tree
trash that we have accumulated.

Instead, I planned and installed a couple of speaker
shelves under the loft to put my left and right speakers
higher up.  I used a miniature pool table that was
discarded in the basement after it had passed its prime.
I disassembled the table to get to the green-rubberized
table surface from which I cut two irregular shapes for
the shelves. The rubber surface, I reasoned, would help
avoid vibration slippage. More practically speaking, it
was the right dimension of scrap lumber that I needed.
David and Andrew helped me determine the height at which
the speakers would make an appreciable difference by holding
them up against the wall.

Joy, Jessica, and Miranda huddled around the wood stove
and filled out the addresses for scores of wedding invitations.
David studied and Andrew played on his laptop.

I started turning the clocks ahead earlier in the day; a
practice that gets everyone else discombobulated, but I
find it helpful to get me to bed on time and not lose
an hour of rest. It didn't help this time around because
we were hosting "dinner and a movie" at the house for
some friends.  Vicky Clark brought dinner and we provided
the movie.  My clock maneuver panicked Vicky at the end
of the evening, but I assured her that she was okay because
the clock was showing the time it would be and not the=20
time it was, effectively giving her back the hour that
she thought she lost, but didn't... until later.

Andrew invited Michael home Sunday afternoon, and the two
of them slugged it out with Emily over a game of Risk.
I think Emily was ahead by the time we had to head back
to church.  Miranda went out with her friends to dinner;
I don't know if it had anything to do with her birthday
(April 7).  Later in the evening, Joy and I came home from
church alone while the kids stopped in at the Pape home
for some fellowship.

Miranda Joy turns 23 today.  It was a Monday, too,
as I recall.  Time flies, unless you are Kermit the
Frog who once said, "Time's fun when you're having flies."

Mark