On the news tonight a glimpse at Jeb Bush and George W. Bush out walking together and the voice over is saying how G.W. is joining his brother on the campaign trail and I am thinking this family just doesn’t get that G.W. is not an asset. They’re rolling him out for the Carolina primary because the Carolinas have traditionally been very pro the Bush family. Maybe. It’s been a while. There was that whole mortgage crisis thing. Maybe the Bush family has a wake-up coming.

Last night Ed and I attended a 91st birthday celebration for Mickey, my bff’s husband. It was held in an Italian restaurant and there were about 60 guests. But Mickey made the rounds and I could see he was very moved by the gathering. Mostly he lives in a circumscribed world but he can communicate in the margins. He is almost totally blind and is dramatically hearing impaired. If you talk up close in a low voice, he can understand you. His birthday was actually about six weeks ago and I am guessing his wife, Nadine, got the idea afterward and thought she would put it together now.

We sat with Toni and Sonia, my lunch pals, and I made a good acquaintance with a friend of Nadine’s I hadn’t met. She is recently widowed, and I can relate to that.
It went well, the food was good and I had dessert. Oh Oh Oh.

And this morning, I went along with Ed to Fort Myers where he had a 4-hour stress test. I rested in the hot car and tried to conjure up retinal images on my eyelids with some success -- but they are ephemeral. I went in to cool off, and came out to get warm. I gave an iPod tutorial to a woman in the waiting room -- now she wants one. A member of the staff dried off an outdoor bench for me (we had a rain storm this morning) but sitting there was not good because there was a high wind. So I sat on the curb where there was sun, and suddenly Ed is walking out reasonably perky. Then we went for lunch.

Meanwhile I will pack up some paperbacks we will never read again and I will ship them to this office which has a free library -- bring a book, take a book. Today's pickings were Godawful romances full of Gothic hot breath a la whatserface, Rona something. Typical phrase: She stamped her little foot. Oh, help. I'd like to stamp her royalties.

xx, Teal