I am up here alone – Der Bingle is feeling well enough to go downstairs and had an egg salad sandwich and tomato soup and while I puttered around in the kitchen and crawled under the tree with sustaining water, he plopped his leg up on a chair and talked with Summer. They are still talking. And up here FOX NEWS is talking in the bedroom . . . to itself. Now, I didn’t like Der Bingle being ill, but, you know, when he was anchored by leg pain, I knew where he was all the time. I had the exalted status of Urinal Provider. This sort of reminds me of what happens when a little kid learns to walk  – “Oh, God, what is he up to now?”

After two weeks of cuddling his new robe I purchased the second day in the hospital like a security blanket, he now is wearing it. He looks a bit like a fleece teddy bear. A fleece teddy bear with fluffy hair. We had a talk about that today. In the past few years as he has grown older and his hair grown sparser – oh, and rue the day Summer told him about the secret bald spot –  he has fussed with combing it to look its best. Only he has been combing it when it is quite wet. With this interlude, I realized that letting it air dry after being toweled let the roots spring up and the curls reassert themselves. I said, “Hey, your hair looks bigger and better.” He frowned at me. But it’s true.

Always a blond, the greying of his hair wasn’t too noticeable. I think it looks platinum now – curly platinum; we will see if he keeps the look or not. Actually, I think he spent so much of his life taming his curls that he can’t believe they are his styling friend now.