Abbie and Ellie Visit

Abbie came up to see GG and also check in on Grandad, so when she stopped by, I took a few pictures of Ellie, who is ten days older than Jack.

Abbie, If you want any of these, let me know and I will send you a high-resolution version.

Update: Great Grandparents Doing Well

In the last week, GG has been moved out of ICU and into a regular hospital room, and now is doing rehabilitation. This is pretty strenuous stuff, they want to keep her very active, so she can bounce back as soon as she can. She wants to remain non-dependent upon the family or other health care workers.

Her progress has been very good since the last surgery and her mental capacity has improved greatly. She remembered my name, knew I was married to Kate and recognized Jack, too. We all hope this keeps up and her improvement continues so she can be back.

Kate's father's father, Granddad, had surgery this week as well. His surgery was supposed to be a triple bypass, but it turns out that it was only a double bypass. The surgery was a success and Charlie is on the mend. We will probably go see him at the hospital this weekend or next, so he can see Jack, too.

This week has been very good as far as great grandparents are concerned. And we are thankful!

Thats not a Pug!

So its very cold as of late, down to the twenties and low thirties the last few days (yesterday was the coldest morning in ten years).

I didn't have a decent hat to keep me warm, so I stopped by the 7-11 the other morning and picked a stocking cap up. I got it home and cut off the tag and noticed something peculiar.

The company that makes the cap is called "Pug-Gear", but the dog that serves as their logo is a bulldog, not a pug dog as you would think.

The tag says on the back that this product is made of the finest quality and the highest standards, no detail is overlooked. Except, of course for the fact that they missed the tiny detail that the dog that represents their company and embodies their products is actually incorrect.

Patty-Cake

I'm not exactly sure how it goes, but it always starts out "Patty-Cake, Patty-Cake, Baker Man, Bake me a cake as fast as you can..."

Anyway, Grandma has been playing with Jack getting him to do patty cake, lately. She has been doing this a lot lately, so its no surprise that Jack has started to play along.

He is so smart - all you have to do is say patty cake and he puts his hands together, like a little clap, but with his hands closed. So cute.

He hasn't done the "roll em up", or the "toss it in the oven", but he probably will figure out that soon enough.

Super Bowl Sunday

We were invited over to Auntie Barb and Auntie Val's for the Super Bowl. Barb just got a new 52 inch LCD, High-Def TV and this was the perfect opportunity to show it off.

They also needed their Jack fix, too. We hadn't seen them since before Christmas.


Barb fixed some vegetarian lasagna and some other munchies for us and we played with Jack while watching the game. Not a bad game, by the way - no blowout like the first fourteen seconds made me think it was going to be.

We had a great time and Barb and Val got a kick out of seeing Jack.

Val and Barb also got Jack two puppets (a frog and a cow) that make sounds - he likes them alot and loves it when they "talk" to him. Thank you Val and Barb!

BTW - the TV was amazing.

So I Got a Call...

I got a call the other night, and this guy identifies himself as "Philip". He says he's calling on behalf of the Policeman Benevolent Association of Virginia and he's reading off of this prepared script.

He's wants to send some information through the mail, but wants me to promise an amount that I will donate before he sends anything.

I get these calls all the time from these people, and I usually won't promise anything until they send me something in the mail - how hard is that? Apparently, it just isn't how they do it. So the call usually ends with me asking then to remove me from their calling list. You would think after the umpteenth time, they would figure it out.

So lately, I have begun to ask when they call how much of their proceeds make it to the intended recipients. Its a question that they are supposed to know by law, and if they don't know, I'm sure not going to give them any money.

So when I posed this question to "Philip", he answers that "100 percent goes to the charity".

This is a misleading statement, because of course 100 percent goes to the charity, but not all of it gets to the intended recipients.

I point this out to "Philip" and he politely thanks me and wishes me a good evening. I ask him to take me off his calling list.

If "Philip" calls you, ask him how much money makes it to the intended recipients.

Fool Me Once...

So I got this envelope in the mail yesterday. It was from Capital One, the credit card people, so I almost threw it away, but the envelope was a little thick, like it had something in it. So, I opened it up and besides the requesite application form, mail-back envelope and disclosure information, was a bubblewrap sheet the same size as the envelope.


This little sheet was put in the envelope to give it some weight, and to fool people like me into opening the envelope. Well, it worked on me, but it got me thinking about the purpose of the exercise.


The idea was to get me to open up the envelope, which worked, but the next step is so much more tricky. To fool me again into filling out the application and sending it back.

That may take a little more bubblewrap - cause I love to make those bubbles pop.