Last Thursday, the church parsonage (home of David and Paula Bickom)
was burglared.  Thankfully, Paula and Brandon were not at home at the
time; David was off at teen camp.  Just about everything of [street]
value was taken, especially all the electronic equipment.  I told
Paula that she got the first taste of the Y2K problem.  But seriously,
it is a traumatic thing to have your place ransacked and your space
violated.  Again, we're thankful that *things* were the only issue in
this incident.

On Friday evening, our church held its final farewell gathering for
the Reilly family who have already assumed the Pastorate in Keene, NH.
There were many well-wishers and a few boo-hooers.  That family has a
lot of change to deal with with a new job, new church, new town, new
home, and new family composition as their firstborn daughter heads off
to ENC in a couple of weeks.  (They'll be "three plus one" soon.)

On Saturday morning, I arose early to go turkey hunting with Phonesay
Xayachack (pon'-sigh zi'-a-chak).  However, Phonesay pulled a late
night shift the night before and was unable to rouse himself.  ("Hold
the phone," I can hear you say.  "Turkey hunt?")  Well, there is a
turkey that has made my workplace his (or her) home.  Animal control
won't do anything about it because it has become "tame" and the
facilities department wants the bird removed because it pecks at shiny
new cars, not to mention the occasional sidewalk landmines.  Phonesay
has agreed to feed the turkey and give it a good home, but we need to
capture the bird during non-working hours to ruffle as few feathers as
possible.

Joy and I set about the daunting task of cleaning the barn basement.
If you read last week's email, you may remember that we cleaned the
house basement then, so yes, we have two basements - it is kind of
like cows having several stomachs.  Without going into the details
about the mold and the spiders, we discovered a softball-sized hole
under our woodpile just outside the basement door.  We hoped it was a
furry brown woodland creature as I set the "Hav-a-hart" live animal
trap with peanut butter and bread that evening.

Miranda and Emily went to Boston on Saturday; a day trip for a bunch
of teenagers and young college students.  It was a lovely day until
some or most of them agreed it was a good idea to extend their
shoreleave until way after dark.  "Let's wait and catch the 10 o'clock
train back to Billerica!"  It turns out, that was a very bad idea
because (a) young, unchaperoned teenagers should not be in the city
after dark and (b) they were not careful to get to the 10 PM train on
time!  We, as parents, take part of the blame for not giving our
children more explicit instructions about our expectations, such as
knowing what the plans were in Boston (there were none), a phone call
when plans changed (they decided to go to Quincy after a few hours in
Boston), a phone call when the decision was made to catch the 10 PM
train (instead of an earlier one) which would mean they wouldn't get
home until at least 11:30PM; beyond my expectations for a 13-year old,
two 15-year olds, and a 17-year old.  The group of teenagers got
separated - I'll leave out the details. The parents of one group
picked their kids up in Quincy and were misinformed that my kids were
already gone with another ride, so they left without them.  They
arrived home at 1AM; my children were driven home by another "Good
Samaritan" and arrived at 2AM.  And I am skipping the bulk of this
fiasco.

On Sunday morning, I checked the trap and instead of a furry brown
woodland creature, there was a black and white "kitty" in the cage.
Many of you might call it a skunk.  I was scheduled to sing "In the
Garden" that morning in church and I thought how ironic it would be to
sing "I come to the garden alone" if I smelled like skunk musk.  I
couldn't leave the thing there till evening - we had an invitation to
dinner Sunday afternoon... (Thalia-Marie and Katia-Lee Gonzalez were
dedicated Sunday morning and we had the privilege of standing with
them as God-parents) - so I got an old towel and draped it over the
cage so the kitty couldn't see me or target me.  (I remembered Dennis
Scott telling me how he dealt with a similar situation.)  Carefully
lifting the cage, I moved to the pond where the Hav-a-hart cage became
a Hav-a-swim cage while I went and dug a hole near the compost pile.
Andrew seemed fascinated by the whole thing.  Over in minutes, I
wasn't sprayed and one critter wouldn't be invading my basement
anymore.

Preparations at the Manor continue as the S&S wedding day approaches.
I think Joy has really gotten into the preparations as we expect more
than 100 people (way up from earlier estimates, but I could have told
you that people were going to come to this event if they were invited
- its the uninvited guests we're worried about).  If the weather
cooperates, we'll handle the reception well I think; otherwise, we'll
be elbow to elbow in the house.  Meanwhile, Joy is also participating
in Vacation Bible School every night this week.  How does she do it?

Jessica turns 17 on Thursday (8/19).  Mom and Dad celebrate their 45th
anniversary next Friday (8/27).  And just think, when September comes,
we pick up the pace a notch!

Mark
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      ____|978-| |--|   Mark Metcalfe   ||       | | | | | | | | |_|,__0_/
      ||/ |446-|--------------------------       |\ C|a|d|e|n|c|e /|   M
   | |||--|6451| |  | | | | | | | | | | ||| |    | | | | | | | | |_| ./|.
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   |-|()--()--()|______________|()--()--()|-|      O-O  \/ \/  O-O      
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