we're poor and we show it

Instead of wrong and right side of the tracks, we have upper and lower campus. Upper campus is where the med school is. There was a talk up there by an historian of medicine and French cultural studies so some of us made the trek. We revealed our lowly status by gasping at the pile of delicious, free box lunches available for attendees....

More on aging

Last Thursday Kim (Craig's brother's partner) was working at home in the afternoon when there was a knock at the door. He opened the door to find Craig's father standing there. Not much chit chat or explanation, just "do you have a copy of the yellow pages I can take a look at?" Remember that Craig's parents live in Colorado, a five hour drive away from here. Turns out Lou had nipped across state lines to acquire a dog from the Salt Lake Humane Society, but having made it to the big city, wasn't quite sure where the Humane Society was. Ever since the dearly departed Delilah, well,.... departed, Lou has been keeping his eye out for a suitable successor. He and Renee are partial to dachsunds and other small breeds. The story goes that he saw the dog in question on the internet and was smitten. Of course, this story was a little odd since Lou does not to anyone's knowledge know how to turn on a computer let alone get on the internet. It later transpired that Craig's sister in law, Carol, had facilitated the internet viewing the night before. When Lou gets an idea he is like a dog with a bone and so he got up the next morning, called to make sure the dog was still available and told the caregiver he was "going over to Salt Lake to get a dog; be back by six." Alarmed the caregiver called over to Carol. It was getting on for lunch time and unless Lou is superhuman he wasn't going to make a ten hour round trip and be back in time for dinner....

Back to the front doorstop, yellow page round up. Kim suggested that he make the trip down to the Humane Society with Lou and meanwhile alerted Craig that dad was in town and determined to get a dog and head home. Between the two of them they talked him into coming over to our house once the dog was his and spending the night. No use driving five hours after dark at his age. Everyone showed up around 6. Out of Lou's hearing, Kim said he hoped the dog has lungs of steel because just a half hour in the moving ashtray that is Lou's car had about done Kim in.

We had dinner and looked at the dog who turned out to be a dachsund shitzu mix. I will leave that to your imaginations.... suffice to say that Catherine pegged it when she whispered to me "That is one ugly dog." It has a ferocious underbite - think eel.

We all went to bed and I was first up at 5am for my boot camp exercise regime. Went to pull the car out and noticed that Lou's was gone. Apparently, he had hit the road at midnight. You can't teach and old dog new tricks. He made it home in the early hours after shredding one tire to bits on rocks by the side of the road. Fortunately some big hearted highway patrol guys changed it for him.

Reports are that Renee loves the dog who is a good little snuggler.

spring

Today everyone is in t-shirts and shorts and there is not a speck of snow left in the garden. Utah is a thrill a minute. I spent some time raking up leaves that we failed to get up before the first snow last fall. The crocuses are up here and there and the clocks changed last night so it feels very much like spring.