Owls and gorillas

Tomorrow we go Emory for the Day 100 battery of tests. We dread it. It will be next week before we know the results, and the closer we get, the more apprehensive we become. We feel good about things, but as Jimmy says, it's that proverbial 900 pound gorilla following us around that's hard to ignore.

We spent a quiet weekend at Amelia, and it was just what Jimmy needed. The only excitement was on the trip home when an owl flew into the side of the van with such a thud that it made a dent. We turned around and went back to look for it, but couldn't find it, although I can't imagine that it could have survived such an impact. I guess because it was so intent on the prey it was swooping down on that it didn't see us coming. At four o'clock in the afternoon, maybe it was flying in its sleep.

Baby doll

Caroline is a beautiful baby with chubby pink cheeks and a headful of ink black hair. She looks just like her daddy, but when I was holding her yesterday and looking down at her angelic sleeping face, I was reminded of a china doll I played with at my grandmother's years ago. It had belonged to my Aunt Sara, and was called a Bye-lo Baby, a doll that was extremely popular in the early 1920's, with its head and hands painted china, or maybe bisque, and a cloth body.

It's interesting how siblings can have such different coloring. William has very fair skin, with blue eyes and brown hair, while Jake has more of a honey-colored complexion and big brown eyes and blond hair. Caroline has the dark good looks of her father, but I suspect that her eyes will be blue like William's. Anyway, they are three very pretty children.

On their way home from the hospital today, Rosey and Pat took Caroline by Mrs. Dewar's, to intoduce her to her great-grandmother.

Passages: Daddy

Yesterday, while Jimmy and I were at the hospital, waiting for the new little person that was about to enter our life, I couldn't help but think of Daddy. Today would have been his ninety-second birthday, had he not been taken from us twenty-two years ago, when he was much too young. He had died from complications of surgery, in that same hospital, just a few floors up.

He was a quiet man, thoughtful, gentle, sweet-natured and romantic. He loved books and music, movies and politics, his family and friends, First Methodist Church, and Mama. He and Mama were madly in love with each other, sometimes to the chagrin of their children. It was not unheard of for us to walk in with our friends and find them on the back porch, slow-dancing to "Moon River," lost in a starry-eyed world of their own.

Welcome to the world, Caroline Rose!

True to her name and looking like the perfect Irish rosebud, Caroline Rose Kerns made her entrance today at 12:18. She weighs 8 pounds 12 ounces and measures 20.75 inches long. And Rosey was so radiant and so beautiful that it's hard to believe she had just given birth to an almost nine pound baby.

Tuesday

Mac and Berkley

Howell and William

Sunday afternoon

To see or not to see...

"AARRRGH!"

"What's the matter?" Jimmy stuck his head into the bathroom to see what calamity had befallen.

"My FACE! I didn't realize how...TIRED I look. And where did all these lines come from? I couldn't see them before!" I was leaning over the sink, staring into the mirror with dismay.

Needing a new prescription for my glasses, I'd had an eye exam the day before, and had come home with contact lens, just to try, to see how I liked them. A powerful blink reflex had set in, and it had taken forever to get those slippery little rascals positioned on each, now sore and bloodshot, eyeball. My fuzzy world had come into focus, but as they say, be careful what you wish for.

"You look the same to me," Jimmy said, losing interest.

"The SAME? How long have I looked the same? I look like the "before" picture in one of those facelift advertisements!"

"Well, you've had a pretty rough year," Jimmy said cautiously.

I glared at him. He knew that he was treading dangerously close to the infamous "Honey, Does This Make Me Look Fat?" territory that men avoid at all costs.

"You always look beautiful to me," he ventured, searching for safer ground, "and I especially love the way you look with glasses."

He's ba-ack!

As much as Jimmy loves his little convertible, a 1993 British racing green Jaguar XJS, he has talked about selling it, thinking that he would never be able to drive it again. But today (which is exactly one year to the day that he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma), he cranked it up, let the top down, and took Andy and me for a drive.

Priorities

Jimmy just gets better and stronger every day, and we are holding our breath that he'll get a good bill of health next month. He has been seeing a physical therapist three times a week, and his strength and mobility are returning, and his daily walks are improving his stamina. A few extra pounds have made him look more robust, and his hair is growing back. All of this is doing wonders for his attitude.

And he survived not being able to go to the Chairman's Tournament, a golf trip to Jekyl Island that John McTier, longtime chairman of the Jekyl Island Authority, has been putting on for years. Jimmy LOVES that golf outing, and has been in a terrible blue funk for weeks because he couldn't go. You'd have thought it was the end of the world, he was in such a state. But Jekyl 2008 is over now, and the earth has kept on turning.

A matter of taste

All the heavy chemotherapy artillery Jimmy got blasted with in January did more than make his hair fall out: among other things, it affected his taste buds. Things that used to taste good to him have lost their appeal, and vice versa.

One of the more noticeable changes has been with coffee. Nearly every day of his adult life, Jimmy has HAD to have his one or two cups when he gets up in the morning, but in this post-transplant era, he has completely lost his taste for it. He craves Coca-Cola instead. A few days ago, as an experiment, he fixed a pot of his favorite Starbucks, but after one swallow, he said,"Yuck. I'm sticking to Coke."

Jimmy has always loved ice cream. He still likes it, but his enthusiasm for it has abated somewhat. For years, Breyer's Peach topped his list, only to be supplanted of late by Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. He has also been enamoured of Chik-Fil-A's vanilla IceDream cones and knows where every restaurant is located between here and Atlanta.

My personal favorites lean more toward the exotics, like Hagen-Daz or Ben and Jerry's: the Cherry Garcias and the Chubby Hubbys and the Turtle Tracks of the ice cream world. Still, you can't get much better than vanilla with Hershey's chocolate syrup from a can drizzled over it, mushed up and with a few walnuts sprinkled in. Also, plain chocolate is great, with a little milk poured over the top, so that it freezes and makes a thin icy crust.

Excuse me. I have to go fix a bowl of ice cream.

...while visions of little grey squirrels danced in his head...

Andy's motto is "The Only Good Squirrel is a Dead Squirrel," and he spends much of his days on alert, peering out the window in case some hapless creature wanders by. He hasn't caught one yet, but an aspiration is a joy forever.

When he isn't on active squirrel patrol, he naps. There's always a good solid morning nap and a heavy-duty afternoon nap, with numerous mini-snoozes in between. He sleeps deeply, sometimes emitting muffled little yips and barks and growls, with his eyes twitching and his legs jerking in tiny running motions, his elusive quest continuing even in his sweet doggy dreams.

Bas Bleu

When the phone rang this morning, we expected it to be Pat calling to tell us that the upcoming birth was imminent, but it was Converse and Jill, asking us to meet them downtown for brunch. Not quite as exciting as a new granddaughter, but nonetheless a delightful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Having never been to Bas Bleu before, we enjoyed it immensely, and it's something we look forward to doing again soon. The decor is unpretentious but comfortable, and the food is excellent, especially the French toast that's cooked to perfection with a custard-like center that melts in your mouth. There are two-for-one Bloody Marys and Screwdrivers if you're so inclined, and the little jazz band's music transports you straight to New Orleans, all bluesy and mellow and soft.

Appointment at Pearlman

We had an appointment today at Pearlman Cancer Center with our Valdosta oncologist, Dr. Eric Anderson. Routine stuff, and Jimmy's getting along fine. His hematocrit is a little low, but it's not a big deal.

Before we left, I whipped out my phone camera and snapped a quick picture, but alas, Eric blinked. It's a shame, too, because he's so good-looking. I'll take another one next time, one that does him justice.

Ellen, Mac, and William

When my brother Mac called this morning, he was in his typical high-gear do-it-now mode: "Meet William and me over at Mama's in fifteen minutes. We've got to do something with that house before it falls down." In the year and a half since Mama's been gone, we have tried and tried to bring things to a conclusion, but we haven't quite been able to pull the plug and clear everything out. Not much is left but memories, but they're the hardest to let go.

William and I are sentimental. If it was left up to us, we would probably not have things resolved ten years from now, and Mac has been like a border collie, trying in vain to herd us into a decision. Mac tries to act like such a tough guy, but underneath that veneer lies the softest of hearts.

Maybe it's because we three are so close in age (only twenty months separate each of us); maybe it's because we slept in the same room until I was seven years old (we giggled and sang and told each other stories until we fell asleep every night); maybe it's the shared history and the shared memories and the shared gene pool: for whatever reason, there's a closeness, a bond, an affectionate understanding between us that is constant. I was looking at them today, a couple of nice men in their fifties, and thinking of how I'll always see them as my precious baby brothers.

At Yustega

This little fellow wandered up to the house, and was so tame he followed chef Lynan around like a puppy, and would even let her pet him. We hope he won't be shot by a hunter next fall. Putting a bright collar on him is out of the question because it might get him caught in some bushes; maybe we should write PET on his sides with day-glo orange paint.

Hunting season of over, but this photograph, taken by the Zambas' son-in law earlier this year, is so great I wanted to share it.

Aunt Mary Lois

Jimmy's ninety-year-old aunt, Mary Lois Dewar, passed away Wednesday, and we went to her funeral at First Methodist Church this morning. It was a beautiful celebration of Mary Lois' life. Her niece Emily Anderson, her son-in-law Billy Greer, and our minister Tommy Mason, and John McGowan all spoke, and the choir and congregation sang some of her favorite hymns: "The Old Rugged Cross," "Amazing Grace," and "For All the Saints." She had sung in the choir for over sixty years, and she had the voice of an angel.

Fann Greer, Mary Lois' daughter, lives in Norfolk, Virginia. She loves gardening, as did her mother, and when she got word that Mary Lois had died, she cut armful after armful of flowers from her garden, and she and her husband Billy drove the almost six hundred miles to Valdosta with them in buckets of water on the back seat of their car. When they got to Valdosta, Fann had the florist use them to make the blanket for Mary Lois' casket: it looked like the breath of spring, and Mary Lois would have loved it.