Mon Jul 22 07:53 EDT 1996
Weekend Update: July 18-21

On Thursday we got the call.  Tom and Brenda Atkins were in the area
on vacation from Florida and so we made plans for dinner, canceling
other plans for dinner with some locals.  They were free wheeling it
for a few days up north away from their home base at her mom's in
New Jersey so we invited them to make our home their base for their
New England stay.  They accepted and spent until Sunday morning with
us.

On Friday they treated us to the Hilltop steak house after which we
treated them to the backstop at the softball game.  The home team
played valiantly, trying to make up for lost ground.  It started to
rain in the final inning so we packed it in.  They finished the game
after we left but I didn't hear the final score.  It would be
presumptious of me to report an outcome.  ;-)

On Saturday, Miranda and Andrew were coming home from camp, and our
plans were to putter around until the evening's Tonnerville Rook
Tournament.  However, we got a call around 2:30 from someone who
wanted to look at the house in 20 minutes.  Mind you, we've had
guests for the weekend and two kids just came home from camp. (!)
Mom issued an "all hands on deck" alarm and everybody went into
motion making the place presenatable for a showing.  The showing
went well (more later), we ordered pizza, wolfed it down and set
off for the Tournament.

Toonerville XXXI saw 28 players most of whom were under 30 years
old.  I was thrilled to see so many young couples.  We had two couples
from out of our locality: Tom and Brenda from Florida, and Stuart and
Lori from Quincy, MA.  Stuart (Stewart) had a title too long to
remember but he said he knew my dad.  In Round 11, we assign the
seats for the top players.  The top five players each won their table,
but we knew early that the game was down to the top two since the
second player had finished early.  But as you know, it wasn't to be.
The kicker was that Brenda Atkins from Florida won the game with a
mere 50 points.  We allowed the second place player to take the crown
home (an actual crown that we pass from winner to winner); Arlene Putnam,
who also happened to be the oldest player there (because her mom didn't
show up).

Sunday morning, the Atkins (3) headed back to home base and soon to home.
I sang in church.  We had the Landrys (3), Bickoms (2), Alina (1),
and Tim (1) at Metcalfe Party Central for an afternoon of fellowship
and swimming.  Sunday evening, we played cards with Eric and Rene Pape.

I woke up late this morning. ;-o

Mark
                                  @       Mark Metcalfe, Sr. Writer
               (__)    (__) _____/         Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
            /| (oo) _  (oo)/----/_____      270 Billerica Road MS04
  _o\______/_|\_\/_/_|__\/|____|//////== *- *  * - Chelmsford, MA 02184
 /_________   \   00 |   00 |       /== -* * -        (508) 446-6451 \_0__,
[_____/^^\_____\_____|_____/^^\_____]     *- * - metcalfe@cadence.com  M
      \__/                 \__/                                       .|\.


Mon Jul 22 09:52 EDT 1996
Weekend Update missing data (Joy and house)

Sorry.  I forgot.

We did get a call back from the person to whom we showed the house.
She asked Joy what our bottom price was and then Joy asked what
her top price was and the difference was $5000.

  Aside: I called our former realtor about picking up their
  sign which has been under our pool deck for three weeks.
  I asked to speak to his boss, since I could never get a hold
  of him.  After ragging on him for a while, we were told that
  we should get a bank appraisal of the house since a bank won't
  lend more than it thinks the house is worth, even if someone
  came and offered us $200,000 for our house, for example.  So
  it would do us good to find out what the bank says our house
  is worth to price it right.  (I'm leaving out the ragging we
  did on the realtor.)

Joy told the woman that if she (Joy) found the right house for
a bargain, then maybe we could come below our bottom price, and
so she took her name and number.  We won't be jumping at this price,
though, because we haven't found that dream place yet.  And so it goes.
But we are thankful and excited that we had a nibble!

About Joy: her appointment with the doctor has been moved up one week,
after some adjustments in understanding.  Joy has been on The Pill to
see how it will affect her condition (and it has been three months of
trial for us).  Her pills were to run out a week before her appointment
(because the office didn't realize that three months and 12 weeks are
not the same thing).  Joy didn't want to go in and find out that she
ruined their experiment by being off the pill for a week.

She experiences episodes of severe pain and episodes of less stressful
attacks... always with a stiff upper lip, you know.  Meanwhile, my
anger is seething with these doctors, whom we've called several times
but don't want to see her until the experiment is over.  I'll be
going with her next week to her appointment.

To many of you, it probably sounds like the same old thing I've been
telling you about, and perhaps it is; but that's reason for us to
covet your prayers since the same old thing is squeezing us from time
to time.  I know there is a time for everything, too.  But we're
not as stoic as we'd like to be sometimes, you know?  We do expect
something useful to come from this.  We just wish it was an easier
lesson to learn.  Ah well, they all can't be easy, can they?

Mark
  .+*+                .....Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
 ***+*+.        __..'''    270 Billerica Road             A house is made
.*+*+**.   _____[]_        Chelmsford, MA 02184           with hands.
'**++**.  /___/\___\    ^  (508) 446-6451     ,
 '*I*'.::/___/__\___\  /*\                    \_0__,      A home is made
 ..I *..: |[] [] []| .:/*\                      M         with hearts.
 ######==################### ._/__=_.          .|\.
 -------------------------- 'O====O='   metcalfe@cadence.com