it's been a rainy summer.  it seems every time erica and i make a trip somewhere it is monsooning out.  last night we went down to wallingford to eat with our paris missionary friends the riddells and it poured and poured.  but enough talk about the weather.

the other night erica and i went to bed bath and beyond just to kinda look around and get some ideas for the chance of future bridal registries.  there was a shower curtain that said in a very flashy design, "it's all about me!  not you!  ME!"  i wanted to register for that, i thought it would be a good way to start out a marriage.

and another night not too long ago erica and i went the coopersburg diner for cooperbuns.  the booth behind me was occupied by two older women (probably in their sixties.)  first off, they were talking incredibly loud.  i was giggling from the start just because of how loud they were talking.  you would have thought these ladies were in their nineties without their hearing aides in.  so that was funny to begin with.  but then they started talking about a script.  this whole experience was a scene straight out of the extra footage of waiting for guffman.  the one lady was talking about this script, the story was about a boy and his love of crickets.  he loved crickets.  and we're talking about a really big love of crickets.  he reeeeally liked em.  and something about his dad, and there's a town cricket hunt, and it brings the dad and the son together, so on and so forth, and i think a beloved cricket dies somewhere in there too.  the lady said the word 'cricket' i think about 142 times in 10 sentences.  but then we found out she wrote the script.  and then we found out it was  PUPPET SHOW.  and then she went on to say "but there are happy parts and sad parts and funny parts and angry parts...it's a story...there's a whole range of emotions"...and this is all about a boy and his infatuation with crickets.  erica and i were giggling so hard.  the lady kept going.  i honestly was laughing at the top of my lungs, i was beyond the point of trying to contain myself.  you probably had to be there, but trust me, it was FUNNY.

well, after many years of being unccupied,the historic cooper mansion has been purchased and the family has moved in.  this mansion sits on a corner on main street in coopersburg.  it was built and owned by mr. cooper himself when he started his little cattle-trading town.  so it's quite a historic building.  it was recently restored and put back on the market.  well, according to the town rumor mill, it was bought by an 18-year-old girl who won lots of money through an injury settlement.  by the looks of it, she has moved her entire hispanic family into this mansion.  it is quite a funny sight.  they sit on this fancy porch in the evenings in their camping chairs.  they have put tacky lawn ornaments up.  i went by earlier today and they were playing loud music and break-dancing on the porch.  it's just funny because this is the most historic and most elegant house in the town, and it is now occupied by a family straight out of the ghetto.  it reminds me of the beverly hillbillies.  and, to be honest, it kind of upsets me.  why?  i'm not sure.  is it plain jealousy?  is it a the honest coopersburgian protectiveness of a beloved landmark?  is it racism?  is it a brilliant and real-life picture of the unfairness of grace that i'm not ready to accept?  probably all of the above.

i'm realizing tonight how much time is left in the summer and i'm getting naseous.