^%$#@ Drivers

Look at this car:

The Kaiser parking lot is tiny. It's usually full. The nearby streets are also clogged with parked cars. To find a place, you may have to drive around and around, waiting for somebody to leave.

Today my mother had her first post-op appointment with the wound nurse and I dropped her off at the door to the office building and then went to find a place to put the car so that I could be in the exam room with her to get all the instructions, since my mother's memory isn't all that good.

Well, look at this damn driver! I don't know if it was male or female, but whoever it was parked their damn BMW so that it took up TWO parking slots. I was so furious I left a note on the car (I wanted to actually ram the side of it, but I didn't) which said "thanks for HOGGING two parking slots."

I'm sure the driver of the vehicle had not one twinge of guilt. Driving a BMW in Marin County means never having to say you're sorry.

I was in time for the appointment because my mother had forgotten to bring her credit card and couldn't register until I got there. It had been a real comedy of errors leaving. She couldn't find the garage door opener and then realized that the thing she had in her hand that she swore was not the garage door opener was, in fact, the garage door opener.

She couldn't find her purse, which had the car keys in it. We looked everywhere and finally found it in the cupboard where she keeps linens. She says she never puts her purse there and didn't know why she put it there (though she later did remember why, and it made perfect sense--at the time).

So it was just a comedy of errors getting there and getting parked and registered, but we finally got into the exam room to see Kathy Givens, RNP.

This was the very last photo taken on my camera. The battery died right after and so I'm here for the next 3-1/2 days with NO camera. Oh! Wait a minute! My MOTHER has a digital camera! I can use HERS. He he. (Quality not as good, but it works...I just checked.)

When Kathy arrived, we learned that the vacuum had not been working for several hours. Somehow it got turned off while I was home and I didn't think to check it when I got back here yesterday. But Kathy gave me a demonstration of how to check it, what to check, cautioned about keeping the thing plugged in whenever my mother is going to be in one spot for a long time, and I now know much better what is going on, what to watch for, and how to fix things that if they don't work the way they should.

We came home after the appointment, she trounced me at canasta again (yes, my luck lasted only one day--but it was a great day!) and then I went off to the store to shop. Out of curiosity, I stopped outside Starbucks, tried logging into the internet on my iTouch and it worked. I was able to download a new Kindle book. Without entering the cafe. Take that, Starbucks!

I have also moved this laptop to a different location in the house here and the internet wifi connection seems to be holding.

We are going to be spending Easter separately. Walt is going to his brother's, I'm coming here to be with my mother, Peach and Bob (like we did last year). I asked Peach and Bob if they wanted ham or lamb for dinner and volunteered to cook. They said ham. I had my mouth all set for lamb, so I picked up a leg of lamb to cook for dinner tonight. We will have lamb and then I plan to introduce my mother to "24."

Should be an interesting night!!!

Kick 'Em When They're Down

I crushed her and I'm not even sorry about it!

My mother is extremely competitive. She was never the one to hold back to let a little kid win a game. She raised us to be competitive too. She also gets frustrated when she's not winning. She has been known to throw a deck of cards at my cousin when she's losing (more than once). It's all good natured and we laugh about it a lot.

Yesterday, since there were only two of us, she challenged me to a game of canasta. Canasta is "her" game. It's almost impossible to beat her in canasta. She's both lucky and talented. She gets good cards and she knows how to use them.

When Peach and her husband were here a week or so ago, she not only took all of Bob's money playing "65" but she also crushed Peach in Canasta.

With fear and trepidation, I agreed to play Canasta. I sent a text message to Peach after the first hand. "We're playing Canasta. Bad idea." This after she had trounced me on the first hand and an easy win for her (again) seemed inevitable.

But something happened. I got good cards the second time around. And then I got even better cards. By the last hand she was still ahead, but not by that much. And I got great cards. I actually beat her.

Thrilled, I sent a text message to Peach (who is on a camping trip): "I BEAT HER!!!" She responded "Hooray."

My mother demanded a rematch. I don't remember if it was the first or second hand of the rematch that I was able to go out leaving her with her entire hand...not a single card laid down. She said there was no point in continuing the game, that I had won. I was not very gracious about it either!

I sent another text message "I BEAT HER AGAIN." Peach responded "On my god!" Only a few people could truly appreciate the enormity of "crushing" my mother at Canasta.

Otherwise we passed a quiet afternoon. My mother's stepson, Ed, stopped by for a visit and later, after he'd left, my second cousin Denise stopped by to chat.

In the evening we watched the repeat of the ER finale (which I'd missed the first time around) and I pretty much passed out around 10, since I'd been up since about 3 a.m.

On Sunday morning I woke up with a start a 4 a.m., worried about the interviews I'd done last week. I had tried to listen to them the day before and there was so much background noise I could barely make out anything. I was wondering how I was going to get the article written. I had done the interviews in an office with a rehearsal going on nearby but I thought that my recorder would be able to handle it and was very upset that it had apparently failed me this time, especially since I had interviewed about 10 different people!

I got up to listen again. Maybe I had missed something. I fast-forwarded the recording and realized that I was not listening to the interviews at all, but something my recorder had apparently recorded in my purse when I had accidentally turned it on.

I went looking again and sure enough--there were the interviews. Not only were they clear, but even the woman who whispered so as not to bother the rehearsal had come through clearly. Crisis averted.

My mother got up around 6 a.m. so she could watch Mass on TV, since she couldn't get to church. I sat here transcribing and she was "going to Mass." I was sorry they ended before they gave out communion because I had planned to bring her an Oreo cookie when the time came.

We're calling her vacuum pump "Dracula" because it attaches to her flesh and sucks the blood out. If you look down her right leg you can see the tubing which comes out of the boot and attaches to the pack that she takes with her everywhere. There is an almost constant gurgling sound which you hear when the vacuum is sucking and transporting blood from the wound to the canister in the top of the machine.

The problem with Dracula is that she takes the canister off of her shoulder when she sits down and hangs it over the back of a chair or rests it on the floor...and then forget it's attached to her when she gets up. One of these days it's going to pull her over backwards if she tries to move too quickly!

I determined she was safe to be left alone for a few hours and I came home Sunday afternoon because I had to review a production of Harvey at the Winters Community Theatre. The show actually opened Friday, but obviously I wasn't able to review it at that time. So I passed through the house briefly, long enough to note that the puppies are actually looking brown now, instead of pink, to pick up e-mail that I wasn't able to get on the weak internet signal, to take a shower and change clothes and then we went to Winters to see the show.

The puppies also needed a little bit of cuddle time (though I'm sure Walt has been doing a lot of that while I've been gone). Princess, in particular needed to snuggle under my chin and sigh a lot. Naturally, Lester didn't want to feel left out, so she joined in as well.

We have just returned from Winters, I'm finishing off this entry, feeding the puppies, and then will be back on the road once again headed for San Rafael. This time Walt is going with me so he can bring the car back with him for the week, while I drive my mother's.

Stubborn Mothers

Well, the surgery went very well. They had told me that she would be in recovery for 1-2 hrs, but they called just as I was leaving the library. It had been less than an hour and she was doing great, so I headed on over to the hospital.

The first problem was that, being the fashion plate that she is, she had dressed in a pantsuit that was very stylish--but left NO room for the post-operative boot she was now in. We were afraid she'd have to go home with no bottoms on, or that I would have to come home to get a skirt for her. Then I suggested that they put a pair of scrubs on her. The nurse thought this was a great idea, so she rounded up a pair of scrub pants and those fit fine.

She is able to walk and even manipulate the stairs in front of her house, which is good.

What is NOT good is that when she first broke her ankle, a year and a half ago, this was all new and she was a somewhat more compliant patient than she is now. She is NOT an invalid and she ISN'T going to act like one. She won't take pain meds stronger than Advil because she doesn't like to take medication, though she winces and sucks in breath when the incisional pain hits.

She doesn't want to feel like an invalid by being waited on... she wants to continue to wait on people.

Let me give you an example. Look at this picture:

I was sitting in the empty chair on the right, she was sitting where she is now with her huge boot on. I was reading something and she struggled to her feet and hobbled over to turn on the lamp (circled) because she didn't want me straining my eyes. (It wasn't even that dark in the room at the time!!). The worst thing you can do to her is NOT let her take care of everybody! And trying to convince her to stay off of her leg is a real chore.

She apologized for not fixing my lunch and I assured her that I was there to cook for her and that I could certainly make us toasted cheese sandwiches without feeling put out!

This may be a longer stretch, emotionally, than it was when I lived here for six weeks when this accident first happened.

* * *

The emergency happened at 3 a.m. My mother staggered out of the bedroom saying that the machine she has to carry around with her was beeping and she didn't know what to do about it.

My bad. The machine came with all sorts of instructions, which I didn't realize. I wasn't exactly sure what the process was with the machine that had been affixed to her wound, when I spoke with the wound nurse, she seemed to indicate that the machine wouldn't need attention until Monday, when she would be cleaning out the wound. But she did tell me about plugging the machine in if the power got low.

Well, what this machine is is a mini vacuum cleaner which attaches to the wound and sucks the blood out slowly, keeping it all clean. We had been given a bag of supplies, with assurance that they had explained everything to my mother who, of course, can't remember anything and is terrible about instructions for machines even if she could remember. (In 10 years she has never learned that my journal is NOT an e-mail!..and clicking on the only bookmarked link in her Web-TV is way too advanced for her, even 10 years ago when we first set it up for her. She is fiercely proud of being a luddite.)

The beeping came with a message on the screen of her little electronic pack that the "canister was full" and that therapy was suspended. That's when I realized there was a big instruction manual that I should have read. It shows how to change the canisters when they fill with blood, but the canister didn't seem even half full.

The manual is 60 pages long and there are SIX pages alone telling you how to change the canister. I was trying to figure out the instructions when the beeping stopped. I had pressed a reset button and that seemed to get it all going again.

Crisis averted--I hope. I'm hoping that it was just that the machine got in the wrong position in bed and that with it being reset and then hung up on the headboard, where she can't lie on it, maybe it will be OK.

In the meantime, she's in great pain, but of course, the Vicodin, which might have helped, is at the pharmacy because she was sure she wouldn't need pain medication stronger than Tylenol.

Whiling Away the Hours

The ride from Sacramento to San Rafael from midnight to 1:15 a.m. flew by because I had the last part of The Lincoln Lawyer to listen to. Great book. If you have to be on a long boring drive, or a drive when you might be sleepy, I highly recommend having a Michael Connelly audio book to keep you company!

My mother was in bed when I got here, so I opened the door, dropped my suitcase, turned off the lights and was asleep within a matter of minutes. Probably before 1:30.

I slept until 6:30 and then got up to have breakfast and get Momma to the hospital to check in. Her surgery was scheduled for 10 a.m., but we were to check in by 8. They took us to the Surgical admission office, they took my phone number and said she'd be ready to go home in about 5 hours, and led her off behind the door. I opted to come home (to her house) and work rather than hang around the uncomfortable "family waiting area."

I had several projects facing me and made the mistake of starting with the first one. I am doing a feature article on the 25th anniversary of the Davis Musical Theatre Company. I've interviewed several people, but didn't get much of a formal "history." However, those interviews did change and set what I want to be the tone of the article.

However, a company member, Ben Bruening, had told me, when I interviewed him, that he'd made a video of an interview with founders Jan and Steve Isaacson. I realized that the video could possibly be invaluable to this article, so I borrowed it from Bruening on the way to Sacramento before going to my mother's.

I made the mistake of starting to watch it before I started to write the review of the show we saw last night. I had to force myself to stop watching it because the review took precedence. But I was right--it's going to be invaluable.

PART 2 - F*** STARBUCKS

It was going to be so simple. There are two wifi hotspots listed near my mother. One is Starbucks and one is Kinko's. I decided to go for Starbucks. I hate how much it costs to get anything to eat or drink there, but I figured the cost would be to use their wifi (the iTouch told me it was always free at Starbucks).

So I ordered a coffee and a croissant and asked if I needed a password to use their wifi. The woman looked confused. "Well, you need to be a MEMBER first," she said. This apparently involved going somewhere ELSE to connect to Starbucks, buying a membership, then coming back to their location, buying a card for $5 which would give me an undetermined amount of time.

You know...if I had access to the internet somewhere else, I wouldn't need to be at their blinkety-blank cafe in the first place! I left her holding my coffee and croissant and went to Kinkos, next door.

Nobody at Kinkos seemed to have the slightest interest in helping me, but finally a guy who looked like he was about 110 years old, who shuffled along, with jaw drooping (probably some poor guy whose retirement was eaten up by Wall Street Executives and was forced to go back to work) came along and I asked how I could use their wifi. He directed me to a bank of computers and told me to insert my credit card. But I needed to use MY computer. How did I do that, since they were advertised as a wifi hot spot.

He didn't seem to know what wifi was, so he stopped some cute young thing, who told him that I would have to register with T-Mobile first.

"I'm going to need some help with that," I said.

The cute young thing refused to make eye contact, the 110 year old guy waved his arms helplessly and I finally remembered Walt talking about free access at all libraries. I asked the guy if he had a phone book I could use.

"Phone book" was a phrase he understood.

He gave me the phone book and I called the library.

But the library's phone system is only automated. There are NO live people to talk to. It did give a number if you needed to special order children's books, so in frustration I called that number. I reached a human being.

He told me that yes, there was free wifi at the public library. If I could find it. My first attempt was not successful, but I finally found it, and I am now seated here at the public library on my own computer, for free.

The hours of the library are 10 to 5 and so it is only noon, but I am going to post tomorrow's entry right now, while I have the chance.

I also, as of this writing, don't know how my mother's surgery went, but by the time I know, I won't be able to get back to the library, so I'll have to come over here tomorrow morning and post the next day's entry. This is crazy.

But at least I now know WHERE to find wifi and how to get to it. And I am never, ever setting foot inside a Starbucks again.

I'm also angry with myself. The library is at the San Rafael Civic Center, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It's a unique building with some beautiful grounds and today is a lovely day so it would be great to take photos, but I decided for the first time in forEVer to leave the camera at home. So I'm leaving the puppies as the Photo of the Day for one more day.

At Loose Ends

I decided to try to post one more entry before I leave for my mother's tonight.

We're starting "confusion week" today. I managed to get out (tho I was waiting for a call from a woman whom I want to interview, but fortunately she didn't call while I was waiting). I picked up the mail that was held while we were in Santa Barbara, which I forgot to get yesterday, and stopped at the supermarket to get baby food. The puppies are on a new medicine and Ashley says they lap it up if it's mixed with the baby food. Anything to help Walt get it done effortlessly while I'm away.

I had a text message from him that he was on the train headed to Burbank, and later that he had a ticket on a flight that would get in around 3 p.m.

Later he called to say that he has a meeting to go to here in town at 4 p.m. I'm still hoping to hear from this woman I need to interview, and also from Jeri, whom I ALSO want to interview for the article I'm writing.

I spent the morning downloading all sorts of stuff that I would use the internet for in writing the article and the two reviews I'll have to write at my mother's.... and hoping that I remembered everything. I can't see flying over the Starbucks just to check a web page! I will be at Starbucks once a day to e-mail what I need to e-mail and to post a journal entry--and hope I can do all that within an hour so I'm not gone too long.

It occurred to me just after noon that I also needed to pack clothes. I have been making arrangements for a multi-day stay as far as all the electronic stuff is concerned, but forgot about the personal stuff! But then I realized I hadn't UNpacked my suitcase from Santa Barbara and had washed everything just before I left, so that took away the need to re-pack the suitcase.

I heard from Walt that his plane would be in around 3 and so I went out to pick him up, getting a call from Jeri on the way home, since I wanted to interview her for the article I'm doing. I asked her to call back in about 10 minutes and we did the interview then.

But there are loose ends that I need to somehow wrap up and I don't know that I can do them in the 3 hrs left before we leave for the theatre. I very much need to get hold of one video and do one interview and I can't seem to do either.

I also very cleverly copied ALL of the files I have on this theatre since 2000 onto my flash drive--and then realized that they are all in WordPerfect format and I'm not sure I will be able to open them on my laptop. I may just toss in ALL of my program disks rather than figure out where the WordPerfect disk is and install it on the laptop.

These are the thoughts ping-ponging around my head at the moment. It's not exactly like I'm going to be gone for a week. i will be home on Sunday to review another show, but then back to San Rafael that night. It's also not like I"m going to outer mongolia. I can call lots of people, I can go to Starbucks for internet access (won't someone PLEASE invent a pay-as-you-go wireless modem plan, like they have in England? By tonight, if possible)

Then Walt just got here and went off to his meeting and I need to show him how to medicate the puppies, since he'll need to do that--or call the SPCA for help with that chore.

Today is ALSO the final day of my second year of taking a photo of myself a day and I wanted to do something memorable for that (along with every thing else). When I ended year 1, I sort of went out with a bang.

So I decided that I would end year #2 with a whimper.

(I'm rather impressed at how genuine this fake crying looks!). Lord knows how I'll decide to end year 3.

I hope you also noticed (I know Ron did!) that in spite of how long it took me to talk about how frazzled I am, I still managed to get a journal entry posted...WITH photos! When you are obsessed, you'll find a way, no matter what!

Locked in a Box

This week's House was a powerful story of a man struck with the ubiquitous mystery illness which leaves him totally unable to respond to stimulus. People around him have no idea that he is aware of everything that is being done, of everything that is being said. He can even see bits and pieces of things, but can't communicate at all.

It reminded me of the old Dalton Trumbo book, "Johnny Got His Gun," published in 1939 and seen as leftist pacifist propaganda, which was pulled from re-publication by Trumbo and his publisher after the end of World War II (according to Wikipedia).

"Johnny Got His Gun" was the story of Joe Bonham, a young soldier serving in World War I, who wakes in the hospital after an explosion. He gradually realizes that he has lost all of his mobility and his senses except for touch — he has lost his arms, legs, eyes, nose, ears, tongue, both jaws and all of his face — but that his mind functions perfectly, leaving him a prisoner in his own body.

It's been a ong time since I read "Johnny Got His Gun," but what I remember of it was that he tries to communicate, but has no ability to and everybody ignores him except for one nurse who senses that there is someone inside there. He can hear but she doesn't know it. But she talks to him anyway, and he finally finds a way to communicate--I think he bumps his head trying to tap out Morse Code. What he wants is to be on display so that people can see up close and personal the horrors of war, but he is a governmental embarrassment and he is moved into a darkened, locked room, and given only the minimum care, his sympathetic nurse being assigned elsewhere.

It's a very disturbing book. The guy, like the patient in the House episode, can't even kill himself because he is completely trapped inside a non-responsive body.

For someone, like me, with claustrophobia, it's terrifying the think about being inside a body, completely aware of all that is going on around you, everything that is said to you and about you, but unable to communicate at all, unable to make the slightest movement.

I thought about that when we were visiting Walt's mother in the hospital, and listening to what she was saying. She does get somewhat delusional when she's in the hospital. She sometimes sees things that aren't there (or...having watched Touched by an Angel enough, maybe she sees things that ARE there and that we just can't see!). She can't really see much, though she can see some things. She kind of goes in and out of understanding that she is in a hospital, not the Assisted Living facility. In one sentence you first think she understands that it's a hospital, but then she'll ask you to "run upstairs" and get something out of the apartment for her.

I'm trying to imagine what it must be like to be 95, to be scared (I can't imagine she's not scared), not to recognize where you are, to be unable to find a visual focal point to ground you and help you understand that no, Norm is not going to come and visit you today, and that no, you can't just get into the wheelchair and go to the dining hall, because it's far away from where you are.

At one point she was saying that she never imagined that it would take this long to die, but on the other hand if you ask her if she's ready to go, she says that she is not. She talks about how she will never leave the hospital this time, and then in the next breath asks to go home.

It's like being locked in a box and unable to find a way out, unable to understand where you are, unable to really say what you are thinking to the people around you. And yet you have to hand it to this lady. She was widowed at 43, with three children to raise, and she did it very well. She's traveled all over the world (though can't remember most of her travels now, she says). She's seen all three of her children grow up to be adults of whom anyone would be proud. She's seen all of her grandchildren married and she has held a great grandchild. She is endlessly interested in politics and sports and even if she can't see a golf tournament she listens to it.

I'm sorry that she is going through such a rough stretch, but very impressed with how she has lived her life and how she is handling this end of life period. She could die soon, or she might live to celebrate her 100th birthday. She has been such a fighter all of her life that I'm still planning on making her 100th birthday cake!

LESTER. Tot has a new name, Lester, following a Sykes family tradition of giving female dogs male names (actually we've only done it once. After our first dog, Ho Chi Mutt died, leaving behind the puppy Jeff (Mutt and Jeff), we started looking ahead to our next pair of dog names and decided to go with Seymour and Schwenk (the middle names of Gilbert & Sullivan). We decided if you only had one of the pair, Seymour was a better name than Schwenk. But when we went to the animal shelter, we all fell in love with a female puppy. Walt agreed to let us adopt her, but insisted we were going to stay with the original name. So we had a girl named Seymour for 12 years and never did name a dog Schwenk.

Jeri and Phil wanted to name a dog after Red Sox baseball pitcher Jon Lester, who has survived cancer, and whom they find an inspiration. And so their new dog, whom Walt will transport to Boston perhaps next month, is going to be named Lester.

I'm still enamored with this puppy. She is so well behaved and is so good with the other puppies, though she is three times their size. I think she will have a long and happy life in Boston--and will have a great relationship with Jeri and Phil.

Ashley received the report on the autopsy of Diana: "Diana's heart was very very enlarged. She likely had a congenital heart defect from birth. Puppies like this don't die right away, but as they grow and need more oxygen they get worse. All the sudden she stopped being able to use her limbs -- which I interpreted as neurological from the medication, but it was actually because she was not getting enough oxygen so her body redirected her available oxygen to her vital organs. I held her a lot in the end, so hopefully that made her feel better. and her brothers and sister cuddled her a lot too."

FYI: I don't know what is going to happen with entries for the next several days. I am reviewing a show in Sacramento tomorrow night and then driving from Sacramento to San Rafael (probably arriving around 1 or 2 a.m.) so I can take my mother to the hospital first thing in the morning. I will be there at her house most of the week, since she can't drive and has doctor's appointments every other day. The problem is that there is no longer any internet connection at her house, so I will be posting whenever I get out and look for the nearest wi fi hot spot each day.

How Much are those Doggies in my Window?

Well, as I walked in the house tonight, after my eight hour drive from Santa Barbara. I was greeted with six extremely enthusiastic wiggly bodies: Sheila, Lizzie, William, Princess, Harry...and Tot. Ashley had told me she was taking Diana home with her, but after I fired up the computer I learned that the puppy had not survived. She was always the weakest of the Royal Puppies and Ashley said she had a bad reaction to the new medication. She apparently didn't recover.

Oddly, I feel sadder for Ashley, who had both of our puppies die on her last time she dog-sat for us, than I feel for the loss of Diana. I really never did think Diana was going to make it. But her siblings all seem very healthy--and even look a lot furrier than they had been when I left here.

It's great to see Tot, who will be here for awhile. She seemed genuinely happy to see me again. Of course, I was her "mom" from the time she was about 3 weeks old, so we have a special bond. As I write this, she is asleep with her head on my foot.

So anyway, it seemed logical that the new look for Funny the World for April should be dogs.

---

The drive up from Santa Barbara went very well. I decided to make a side trip and drive through Solvang, that Danish Village where Bri was christened two weeks ago.

It's a real tourist trap, but I rarely go there, and I decided pick up something for lunch at one of the local bakeries so I didn't have to stop on the rest of the ride home. I was listening to Michael Connelly's "The Lincoln Lawyer," and it was so engrossing that I chose to drive up the very boring I-5 instead of the busier Highway 101. I-5 has very few landmarks and is kind of like driving across the desert, but it's perfect for following a story. I almost didn't notice when I passed by that very "fragrant" feed lot near the Harris Ranch.

As predicted, pulled into the driveway at just about exactly 6 p.m. It felt SO good to get home .. and the kitchen was so clean that I almost didn't recognize it. Ashley had gone waaay above and beyond!

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There is also a new logo over in the left column. This is the Premier Dardos Award, which was bestowed on me by Jim, of Jim's Journal, and I thank him very much for it.

The description is as follows:

Premio Dardos means "prize darts" in Italian and is awarded for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary and personal values in the form of creative and original writing. The rules are:

1. Accept the award by pasting the graphic on your blog along with the name of the person who granted the award and a link to his/her blog.

2. Pass the award to another 15 blogs that are worthy of acknowledgment, remembering to contact each so they know they have been selected.

And so I am awarding Premio Dardos award to fifteen of the many blogs that I read. I may have linked to all of them recently, but that was before I had an actual award. I'm also only going to include blogs that don't have (to my knowledge) HUGE followings. Thus, I will not be including blogs like "Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords," "Pioneer Woman," "Joe. My. God," or "Living in the Bonus Round" (sorry, Steve). But I will make sure that these are blogs which update fairly regularly (thus, I am not including one of my favorites, Marn) and are not password protected. So here is my list. These were chosen either for great writing, or creating a reall community around the blog, or longevity, or being a blog where you almost always learn something new, or just 'cause I like 'em. The list includes (in no particular order):

1. JoyZeeBoy
2. The Dahn Report
3. Poop and Boogies
4. Sillama
5. Life on a Small Island
6. I Do Things So You Don't Have To
7. Thoughts Outside My Head
8. Red Nose
9. Snug Pug (it's her birthday--go say happy birthday!)
10. A Place of My Own
11. Chez La Laquet
12. Laura's Blog
13. Thingmababy
14. Rolling Dog Ranch
15. Hi, Tony - this last isn't strictly speaking, a blog, but Tony Kahn has just started chemo for his recently diagnosed lymphoma and writes to eloquently about the experience, that I wanted everyone to read it.

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Tomorrow I'm going to work on getting videos from Bri's birthday edited for a video...just don't feel like tackling it tonight! I'm hoping she is better by now. She had a temp of 101 at the end of the day yesterday, poor baby!