end o' the week pics and sprego update

Here's my brother on his 27th birthday,

hoarding his presents in these tough economic times.

I love you, Luke!!

What's yummier than yummy?

A man using power tools in long johns, wool socks,

and a Samoan lava-lava.

Peanut, skinny even by Chihuahua standards,

adores any heat source.

Happy, happy news in our little world! With all this bed resting, my blood pressure has stabilized quite significantly. Marcy let me go to the film festival Wednesday night, which was a fabulous event. We enjoyed every film they showed; it was a good year for variety of style and subject matter. PLUS, and perhaps most significantly, we met up with actual FRIENDS at the festival. They are other human beings besides ourselves who live around here and with whom we can do social things, a major missing ingredient in our new lives down here in the States.

Jason has been taking my blood pressure each day, which has been consistently 20 points lower than what it was last week. Today we phoned in to Marcy the results of that and my blood glucose and protein levels. She was happy and said, "You know what this means, don't you? Your body is responding well to bed rest, so you need to keep it up." [insert visual of me blubbering my lips with my finger like a person going crazy] "However," she continued, "You can now feel free to get up and move about for a couple hours each day. Think hard about how you want to spend that time. You can even go for a walk." WELL, say no more, Marcy the Midwife! Very soon, Jason and the dogs joined me for a meadow walk in the gloriously brisk, 1/2 sunny, 1/2 storm cloudy day.