Andy "trees" a raccoon

We leave a bowl of cat food on our screened porch for Fred, our ancient adopted stray, but a family of local raccoons help themselves whenever they like.  A few nights ago, Andy's frantic barking made Jimmy open the door to see what was going on, causing the trio of  'coons to scatter in every direction.

The largest opened the door with her paw and exited in a more civilized manner, while one of her offspring tore right through the screen, leaving a big hole in his wake. The third, unable to quite decide what to do, scrambled up the side of the porch, and hung on until Jimmy hauled the ecstatic Andy back into the house.

It's a good thing they didn't try to take Andy on, since the smallest of the critters was probably twice the size of our feisty chihuahua.  Andy would have handily lost that little skirmish.

Portraits by Jake

Jake did a portrait of me last week, and I could hardly wait to get it framed.  I'll cherish it always.

In a nutshell...

Trying to write an update after such a long hiatus feels a lot like picking up a brush after not having painted for a while: a stark, white, daunting, blank sheet of paper, staring you in the face .  So let's take a deep breath and dive in.

Jimmy looks great, and there are good days, but  he has struggled since the end of November, when he developed a bad bronchial infection.  After several rounds of antibiotics and steroid dose packs, a CTscan, bushels of Hall's cough drops and gallons of cough syrup, he still can't quite shake it.

A checkup at Emory a month ago revealed that his paraprotein cancer marker,  low and stable for some time now, has almost doubled.  Dr. Lonial is ready to put him back on the oral chemotherapy Revlimid, but first wants his respiratory issues to improve.  We have another appointment at Emory  in two weeks, and then we'll see.

:)

Hail

A couple of days ago, a big storm moved through and dumped a lot of hail on Highlands. It looked like it had been snowing, and that evening when we drove into town, it was 56 degrees.

William had fun scooping it up, and at last count, we have seven cups of the icy marbles in our freezer.

Camp Dewar

Jimmy and I had our 6-year-old grandson William staying with us for a week while he attended the day camp at Highlands Country Club. We had a ball, but caring for a small child for that long can be rigorous if you're not used to it: after Rosey and Pat picked him up yesterday, we crashed, and Jimmy slept for thirteen hours.

Yay Max and Liz!

Our children Max and Elizabeth Oliver went to the Cabarat dance last night, and won first place for best costume. The theme was "college days."