28 Oct 96 
 
So it's the weekly duty of stirring 50 pounds of beef with a large wooden  
paddle and other related activities.  This morning I got to wash the cans.   
I hate doing that.  I hate doing any of the clean-up detail.  I've had my  
sauna treatment for the day; the range cooking the two large pans of beef  
was hot and huge.  All those poisons just flowed right out of my pores and  
onto my shirt.  I also got all the butt-ends of the bread they were  
cutting.  I'm encouraging the demise of the air rats some call pigeons by  
overfeeding them. 
 
So I've gotten back from Ohio in one piece.  It turns out there was no  
baby bird to share the back seat with me -- it died last week.  But the  
human baby made quite enough noise on the way to Ohio; the consensus was  
he must have been going through a growth spurt.  For almost the entire 12  
hour trip back, Ian did a good imitation of dead baby; that was a very  
sound sleep.  Babies are strange creatures. 
 
We arrived in Ohio in time to go to a "welcome dinner" hosted by Mark's  
parents at the Olive Garden.  There was much conversation regarding math,  
computers, England, the Brontes, and the like.  The wedding the next day  
was held in a Lutheran Chapel; a very nice, traditional service (I never  
thought I'd ever think of Mark involved in something traditional).  I  
liked the passage chosen: it was from Song of Solomon, the "many waters  
cannot drown love" passage.  Much nicer than anything written by Paul:  
"Wives, you are subject to your husbands, and I wish there never were such  
a thing as women, etc. etc."  Then we went to another Lutheran church for  
a luncheon spread. 
 
I spent the evening playing cards and talking with Mark's older brother  
Wayne and looking after Ian while Trevor and Lori got one of their few  
chances in 11 weeks to go out without him.  That's got to be rough.  I got  
a good upper body workout doing baby curls.  It was nice to sleep in a  
double bed in a room by myself watching CNN.  I should do it again  
sometime, such as when I go home. 
 
I must say I don't like getting rid of Daylight Savings Time.  It was  
total night by 6 pm last night; the early dark depresses me.  It's got a  
lonely, claustrophobic quality to it.