i had a swell time baby sitting this weekend. on friday i went home to allow my presence to give bethany a little reprieve from her child duties. mom, evan and courtney were all off at some sort of a speech and debate tournament. quite fascinating i'm sure. what's really fascinating is the psychology of children. bethany made soup for dinner. one of the main ingredients was an assortment of beans, which she had soaked the day before. i mean, really soaked these guys. she put them in the water early in the evening, let them sit, rewatered them, boiled them for ten minutes, let them sit over night in the water, allowed them to sit all the next day, and then we finally cooked them in the soup. don't ask me why they were hard. there's no explanation. wow, i'm really losing my train of thought. so we start eating, right? and i gave everyone some bread and butter to make it go down smoothly. it wasn't long before i heard the inevitable..."i don' wike dis." i munched my bread and butter and pondered the situation for a moment. "mmmmmm. MMMMMMM....mmmMMMMMMmmm!!!" i took a huge bite of beans, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. stephen and owen were amazed, staring with disbelief at my blissful enjoyment. i opened one eye and looked at stephen. he picked up his spoon, took a manly scoop of beans and dug in, "mmmMMMMMM!!!!" then i'm like, "hey, owen... want another piece of bread and butter?" "yeah!" "then you better hurry! see how much you can eat before it's ready! oh my gosh, it's already half buttered! eat it quick! hurry, one more bite!!!" he was a little harder, but hey, he ate a great deal. and in good humor as well. was i that gullible when i was a small tike? i know i was. i think my face still twitches and my mouth hangs open when i see someone make a funny face. not that that has anything to do with anything. the opera was great tonight. i saw the abts too. woot, fun times! hi abts! kbye!!!