Get Well Soon Grammy!

The kids are on their way! My time of peaceful, if tedious, recuperation is over. D stopped to see Grammy tonight -- she has been taken to the hospital with pneumonia! (That's her dancing w/ D above.) He says they've been frustrated by doctors who do rounds at 7:00 a.m. and no one stopping by to actually explain exactly how she's doing. Then, off to pick up the kids and now they're on their way home. After only a moment of telephone conference it became obvious that trying to choose Chinese food that the kids would eat and that we would want was not happening, so D offered to stop at Five Guys for cheeseburgers. I just want it noted for the record that I *tried* to get "Revolution Shrimp and Scallops" -- steamed with no sauce. Instead, I will have my usual little cheeseburger w/ the fixins. Come to think of it, that's another thing I learned while in the south -- the real appreciation of a good cheeseburger! We girls used to go to the Belk's cafeteria, order huge burgers with everything, and then cut them and only eat half. Not a bad strategy.

Anyway, prayers on you, Grammy, and for Papa too, as he waits. Worst of all? Tomorrow is Grammy's birthday. You can bet I will be pressing the kids into mandatory picture-drawing service tonight in the "get well soon" vein.

My beloved Bit and her family are off to Cancun tomorrow. Never been. Is it nice? I've actually never been to Mexico, oddly enough. A friend honeymooned in Maroma, which seemed gorgeous.

My father complained about a previous post. Dogs smell better than people, he insists. And they also lack common sense, which makes them lovable, I guess. No wonder he's always been such a loving dad to ME.

I haven't watched any news today, so I don't have the slightest idea what's going on out there that could be new. Instead, I'll speak of the old: Northern Exposure reruns are playing on the HD channel, and I just love that. What a great show. I seriously yearned to live in Cicely, Alaska. To me, it was a cultural and intellectual utopia -- and triply wonderful for the fact that (a) it was in the wild outdoors and (b) the New Yorker didn't get it. When I went to law school, I used to tell people that I planned to get a pilot's license and a JD, and move to Alaska to be a prosecutor in the traveling circuit courts they have up there. Strange thing is, I meant it.

So, we'll have from about 7:00 on to do get-well-grammy picture/cards, eat a cheeseburger and probably ice cream, bathe the children, read stories (or, in the case of my stepdaughter, S, listen to her read stories -- last weekend she read the entirety of There's a Wocket in my Pocket!), distribute the pink-eye medicine and Grandma NP's Valentine's cards, sympathize with S's disgusted response to bedtime: but i didn't get to have any fun yet! (tell me about it, honey) and then address approximately 4 "re-entries", where one or the other child appears at the very edge of a doorway like Miami Vice initiating a raid, and in a very small, whispery whine (in the case of S) says, "I just can't get to sleep," or "my legs hurt", or in a rather loud, imperious voice (in the case of my boy, R) says, "I'm HUNG-WEE." If the capacity for hunger this boy shows presages his eventual stature, I might get an NHL enforcer in the family yet.

OK, they'll be here in 5. Show time.