On Christmas Day, 2007, with the aid of driving instructor and mom Leslie, Kyle took advantage of the empty Costco parking lot to get in some driving practice. Luke reluctantly agreed to go along to film the proceedings when he realized he could bring and play his fiddle while Kyle was practicing. The result? A mildly entertaining video, I suppose…

A few days ago, we were without power for a day. Since most of the family is on the ‘puter much of the time (doing important business stuff, mind you) it was quite a change. Not that we didn’t have anything to do with the power off…

After taking a walk through the storm, we went home and pretty much spent the whole day in the living room. Papa read his backlogged supply of Science News. Mama read and played her fiddle. Luke read, played, and poured through a hard copy of a new songbook looking for errors. Me, I was constructing a frame to stretch shamisen skins on. Funny, throughout the whole shamisen construction, I never needed to use a power tool (save for a drill a few times). This was the only time where a jigsaw and sander would have been sooo nice to be able to use. But that’s another story.

The next morning we were in the living room again, talking about something relating to our classes. I was carving a bit of the frame (in the same room) when I looked up and I saw that the lamp was on. It was pointing in the direction of the window so, of course, before I even noticed that the power was back on, I thought: “Gee! Who left the light on and aimed at the window?” I reached to turn it off and then Mama exclaimed, “Oh! The power’s back.” Then it hit me.

D’oh…