Truthfully she was the one I expected to go much, much sooner than Paw Paw. She�s done the old lady shuffle for a couple years now --- a stark difference from her playing nine holes of golf with the neighborhood ladies --- and she�s just not as steady mentally as she�s previously been.

Exploratory surgery is supposedly today, and that�ll determine the next steps. Until then she sits in ICU, as stable as you can label someone who had a heart attack a day ago.

If Houston wants a visit, they should let me know. I�m much more responsive to that rather than knocking off those I love.

[sigh]

Inner optimist say: Lucky me only like few old people.

(Yes, using Confucius-speak when spouting bouts of optimistic thought can make you smile when you�re not so cheery.)

On that topic, I watched some old people today, and they made me smile.

I walked one block over to the Daley Plaza and sat in the sunshine beneath the big sculpture today. The working folk flock here, lunch bugs in hand, to leisurely ingest some body fuel and take a little rest-a-roo before going back to the office grind.

This week the city commissioned various big band style musicians to perform during the peak lunch hours. People were dancing to the syncopated rhythms, and I couldn�t help but smile when I caught my head bobbing along.

These older people were dancing with each other, and they were the cutest things I�ve seen in a long time. Everyone�s pants were up to their chests, they had on practical shoes and ugly sunglasses, and the ladies had perfectly primped hair despite the humidity.

The girl next to me said aloud, �It makes you wonder how they danced to that music all those years ago��

Will I be grooving with my elastic-waist culottes, ugly-as-sin loafers, and a perfectly fastened hat to a band playing Dre and Justin Timberlake covers fifty years from now?

I certainly friggin� hope so. �