A House As Quiet As A Mouse

ever wonder what it would be like to be a fly on the wall of the belew household?
well, first of all, you would have six legs with big spikes sticking out all over
and instead of one living room couch you'd see a thousand living room couches.

normally this is a scene of barely controlled chaos. the upstairs living area has 6 tv's (all on different channels), 4 telephones (ringing or occupied), and 3 computers gurgling. stevie is on the phone bursting out his loud thespian laughter so often I'm considering having an earpiece grafted to the side of his head. both ava and leah are gymnasts and rarely do they enter a room without some sort of backflip flourish. plus, they've taken to riding their Razor scooters through the house at death defying speeds. plus, they both take piano lessons which means Howard, our living room piano is frequently pluked. there is always someone working here on something (today it's the cable company re-connecting our cable for the 9th time. do these people live here?) two days a week, lisa comes by to clean the house. as she leaves through the front door the kids come in through the back trailing behind them a gaggle of more stuff to clean up. the doorbell rings, another package from UPS. martha's mother and father arrive with a bucket of Whitt's barbeque (that'll look nice on the carpet) as the garage calls to say I can pick up my car now. phew...

normally that would be a snapshot of a day in our lives.
but I've just arrived back from the maelstrom of touring with
12 men in a bus to find:
my wife martha and 9 year-old daughter ava are in L.A. this week.
ava has a small part in a made-for-Sci-Fi-tv-channel movie called
children of the grave.
my 16 year-old son (from my previous marriage) stevie is in
washington, DC touring the smithsonian with his school choir.
and our 7 year-old leah is at her grandparents farm
fishing perch out of their pond.

I'm alone
in a house as quiet as a mouse...