computer speakers and clean teeth

WELL. If you ever want a fun time at home with the family, go out and buy yourself two different sets of computer speakers. Set them up with your laptop at the kitchen table and have everybody stand or sit in the living room while you swap back and forth between the speakers. They can't know which speakers you've got plugged in at any given moment. Say, "Do you like Speaker A?....[while Ladysmith Black Mambazo sings, 'rain, rain, rain, rain, beautiful rain']...or do you like Speaker B? A..........or B?" Good conversation will ensue, including people being paranoid that they're selecting the cheapies over the nice speakers. Turns out that people choose Bose speakers over Philips five to one.

In other household news, Molly had her teeth cleaned today. She's Mom's Schnauzer that Luke lovingly calls "Little Gray Turd." No amount of insults can stop Molly from yipping day and night, which is how she has earned her nickname. Jason just emerged from the bathroom with a newly-tamed beard. I guess everyone is going for improvements lately. Other than Mom, who got her toenail ripped off a couple days ago. And Gunther, another of the dogs who is currently eating dirt out of a planter.

So I guess we're all at different points along our journeys.

A bird's eye view

of my folks' place today would've had Jason on the driveway making a plug for the engine of our little VW rabbit pickup (surrounded by the oddest assortment of vehicles ever), Dad out in the corral shoeing horses, me in the lawn trying to collect Beth's pee in a baggie, a confused Beth trying to go pee with a little bit of privacy around here, and Mom inside on the phone, listening to Brother Dave tell about his first run-in with school authorities for living there unauthorized.

We were probably thinking about the fact that Rachel, Cameron, and their friends Bryan and Lisa are on the drive here from Portland to spend the long weekend, thinking about Beth's age-related incontinence, about the coming dark storm clouds, and about dinner, which turned out to be creamed tuna made to the music of Johnny Cash. Oh, and about kicking some Epworth tail in softball last night (which means, and this does not qualify as bragging since this is so much to the surprise of everyone involved, that next week we'll be playing for the championship title!!) .

One of my favorite parts of the day was when those storm clouds had the horses running wildly about the meadow, up to the barn, back down to the meadow, separating into mini-herds and then swirling around to come together.