Bones the cemetery cat had kittens over the weekend. She and her three little bundles of mewling puff have settled in under the computer desk in the schoolroom. If anyone’s in the market for a cat, we’ve got some adorable ones that’ll be ready for a home in a couple months.

Last night, our next door neighbor and Jedi guitarist Grant Mazak had several of his cronies over for a rehearsal on his back porch. I took the kids over and eavesdropped for a few minutes, and later went back with Kathy to listen some more. The ensemble, which included guitar, string bass, dobro, lap slide, and harmonica, was excellent, and it was great fun to hear the music and enjoy the enthusiasm of the musicians.

After chatting with the bass player a bit, he prevailed upon me to bring over my ‘cello. I sat in with them for another hour or so until Grant begged off at 10:30pm, still needing to write a paper for the next day’s class. It was wonderful fun to play with that crew, and I hope to get to do it again soon!

The weekend before last, Kathy went to Virginia to visit her sister and brother-in-law there. (Hi Karen! Hi Jeff! Hi Kids!) Though she took Maggie with her, I had charge of the elder three while she was away. The kids and I had a conference beforehand, and decided that the one thing we should make a point of doing during our weekend was to go camping.

I researched nearby state parks, and came to the conclusion that Bastrop would be the ideal park for our adventure. Of course, I also displayed my usual procrastinatory planning, and didn’t get around to making reservations until Friday morning, with the result that Bastrop was all booked up. After much desperate last-minute calling, I secured reservations at Palmetto instead.

Now, my history with Boy Scouts was an on-again, off-again affair from which I took away more dislike for my fellow scouts than I did actual camping knowledge. (Ask me about the time I went camping in the Adirondacks for 3 days with no underwear. No, on second thought, don’t.) As a result, I was very happy when it turned out that my friend Kelly Hendrick, a former Eagle Scout, was interested in coming along. He got off work early on Friday, and we loaded up the car with canoe, kids, and gear, setting off about 5:00pm for our camping adventure.

We were checked in by a park employee with the single longest surname I’ve ever laid eyes on. Not only was it hyphenated, but it seemed an odd combination of nordic and slavic compound words that probably meant “son of him who was implicated but never convicted in the great government cheese scandal of ’83.” He was nice, though, and set us up with firewood and a map.

Thanks to Kelly’s presence and expertise, we had a fine time. Because the grocery store was out of normal-sized marshmallows, we roasted miniature ones until late in the evening. The kids managed to avoid poking each other with flaming sticks, and in spite of the temperature dropping to 35° or so during the night, we actually got some pretty good sleep.

In the morning, we went for a paddle around the lake in the canoe, which we had found at a garage sale last summer but were only now getting into the water for the first time, and took a short hike down to the river, finally wrapping up and heading home around noon. All in all, it was a fine trip with a minimum of mishap, and made missing the rest of the family a bit easier to bear.

Though home schooling Emily has been a wonderful experience in a lot of ways, it has become apparent that doing that on top of raising three other children age 5 or less requires superhuman abilities. Add that to the fact that Emily has been pining for more friends her age, and we finally made the decision to give Emily another crack at public school.

We assembled all of Emily’s shot records, TB tests, and other prerequisites, and scheduled her to begin today. I was awakened at 5:00am by a fussy Maggie, and was blearily, ruefully amused to see that Emily was already up, prowling around the house, getting herself ready for her much-anticipated first day. Two hours later, we said a quick prayer with her and sent her off.

This has been a particularly tough decision for Kathy, whose public school experience was much less positive than was my own. I’ve admired the devotion to home schooling and the energy she’s put into it, and now I find myself admiring even more the good judgement and humility she’s showing in realizing that ever SuperMom has her limits.

My company, Saguaro Studios, has just released v1.5 of Oratorio, the presentation package for church music. There are a ton of improvements to this version, making it a much stronger product than the orginal release. We’ve got a maintenance release of Faust’s Friend, a ticker application we inherited from Stimpsoft, close to ready as well. Busy time!

Though I rarely feel like I really get caught up on rest, I’ve also started sleeping pretty lightly since we’ve had kids. A few nights ago, I was sleeping away when I was awakened by a sound that, in my sleep-addled state, I thought was the doorbell. I looked at the bedside clock: 3:00am. I went to investigate, thinking that perhaps there was a friend in dire need or that one of the kids’ toys had sprung spontanously to life.

I went into the front room and noticed Emily sleeping on the couch, which she sometimes likes to do. She was still completely unconscious, though considering that she often sleeps through Maggie’s caterwauling, that didn’t mean much. I peeked out the front door, and saw a burly, shadowy figure lurking on our front porch. He evidently saw me too, as he immediately called out “Police!” in a voice that, in my barely-awake state, sounded as though it was calculated not only to raise the somnolent, but also the deceased.

I turned on the porch light and peeked out the door. (I was, at this point, still wearing only boxer shorts.) “I was passing by and noticed that your car was completely opened up. I wanted to check in and make sure nothing was wrong,” bellowed Officer Lungpower. I muttered something about checking on it, and went to put on some pants.

We met out at the driveway, and looked over the van, which had the hatch and the driver’s door open. Apparently nobody had gotten around to closing it up when we had brought in groceries earlier in the evening, thus setting the stage for the late-night visit. And, in a way, it was comforting to know that the police are alert enough to notice something like this. But, for future reference, if I’ve been robbed during the night, I’d rather not know about it until 8:30am.

Last weekend was my birthday. (March 10, for those of you playing along at home.) Though I’ve been pretty wiped out lately, and didn’t feel up to a large party, we had a couple people over after church for pizza and enchiladas. It was a good time.
Upon hearing me lament the march of years, Lori Hendrick and Anna Larue got me a pile of candy and the Nerf Powerclip, one of the finest Nerf weapons available today. It’s a 10 dart, fully automatic, air powered blaster than can unload all of its ammo in about a second, and is highly recommended for a-bit-over-30 year olds who, though they haven’t hit a midlife crisis yet, feel it starting to loom.

Another favorite gift, this one from Dad McMains and Lana, was a recently released CD of jazz performed on ‘cello and guitar. The ‘cello player is none other than Ken Ishii, my old instructor from high school who has been broadening his musical horizons in recent years. Ken is accomplished both as an instrument builder and a performer, and the disc is great fun.

Kathy gave me two things that were wonderful: a Zoom acoustic guitar processor, and a Raleigh SC30 bicycle. I was a bit dubious about the guitar effects at first, but was quickly won over after plugging it in. “Hey, listen to this! I’m Boston! Hey, now I’m BB King! Now I’m George Harrison! Now I’m Extreme! Now I’m Don Ho! Hahahahaha….” This was a bold gift for Kathy, since she doesn’t know much about guitar gear, and had to consult with Grant, our next-door neighbor and Jedi guitarist.

The bike, however, is probably what I’ve been enjoying the very most. It’s been a couple of decades since I used anything two-wheeled as a serious mode of transportation, and I’ve been having a delightful time scooting around by the river, going out riding with Emily, and pedaling off to a nearby park for some quiet reading time. I brought my friend Kelly, whose parents used to own a bike shop, along for the selection process, and he was very impressed with the quality work Raleigh is doing these days. My posterior is still hardening to the task a bit, but I think this will be a great way to get around town. I already want to buy Kathy one!

A few other notables: some beautiful dress shoes from Chris, which have convinced me that I need to get some of my friends married so I’ll have a good reason to wear them, and Rails Across America, which panders both to my fondness for computer games and for trains, from Mom McMains. Thanks, everyone, for a better-than-expected birthday!

We’ve got a new resident in the house. Emily, after signing the “I promise to take good care of my pet” contract, picked out a rat at the local critter mart. It’s brown and white, quite gentle, still mouse sized, and has gone 16 hours without suffering a fatal mishap — possibly a new record for small animals at our house.

Star Wars Guitars? C’mon, folks. George Lucas has enough money, and you have enough Star Wars junk already.

As promised, here’s the photo of the much-reviled latest revision of bowling shoe fashion. Bask in the flimsy synthetic uppers! Delight in the velcro fasteners, because laces are “too hard!” Admire the traditional racing livery of the Ukranian Peasant Bowling Shoe Manufacturing Team!

In an interesting coincidence, it turns out that this is message #666 on this website, which probably proves that the antichrist will come wearing these bowling shoes. Be on guard.