Subject: Weekend Update: August 27-29
Date:    Mon 8/30/99  8:48am

A little over a week ago, I noticed an errant branch on a maple tree
that had begun to turn red.  How odd, I thought, becausde it was still
close to the middle of August.  Over the past week I have been seeing
other misguided branches begin to pop up here and there.  I can hardly
believe that leaves are beginning to turn three weeks ahead of
schedule.

It seems appropriate somehow because the end of summer has snuck up
upon us as we enter the shifting of gears to change the season.
Miranda is back at ENC and the other three head to school tomorrow.
Pool dips will start to be numbered on the fingers.  And I have a lot
of winter preparation to do before it gets nippy.

Five out of six of us stole away for the weekend to the home of my
wife's sister and her husband (Faith and John).  The weather
threatened but we brought a few games just in case.  Saturday cleared
up nicely so we did all that we wanted to do.  I unenthusiastically
pitched some horseshoes with John and then Joy and was unceremoniously
trounced each time.  I didn't care because the Beatles played from my
raised hatch of the van; I was smoothing out some wrinkles in my head.

In fact, the annual bragging-rights badminton competition of "the
Oldies versus the Flabbies" didn't occur.  Mom and Emily played me and
Andrew a best of three set and that was the extent of that.  (Guys won
2-1 in close games.)  Of course, the net effect of not playing against
my In-Laws is that we are still the reigning champions because we
retain our title until unseated.

Joy did manage to coax me into a walk on both days.  Today, the shin
splints are making their presence fully known.

Due to a scheduling conflict and a prior commitment, Miranda moved her
stuff back to ENC on Friday evening after we had hit the road for
Saratoga Springs.  She is there "all alone" now because my father and
mother now live on the Cape and not across the street and my brother
Stephen is moving away as well, having gotten a job farther south in
Massachusetts.  Just as you get used to being a family of six again,
we're back to five plus one.  But leaves must turn and kids go off to
college.

Tomorrow, Joy and I celebrate the anniversary of the official start of
our relationship; our fateful first kiss on the steps of the old
Wollaston church in 1977.  Twenty two years of "Usta."

Mark

                         __________________________
Cadence Design Systems  /_________________________/\   Mark Metcalfe
270 Billerica Road MS04 |  \_______,_____________|__\  metcalfe@cadence.com
Chelmsford, MA 02184    |  /       \_O__,        |  /
(978) 446-6451          | /          M           | /   Score a goal in life.
________________________|/__________.|\._________|/_________________________
       /                                                             /
      /_____________________________________________________________/