Doug update. The old man sailed right through the femoral artery surgery that cleared a blockage that extended from his groin all the way down to just below his knee. The vascular surgeon slowly shoved a balloon through it that whole way, which took HOURS, well past midnight, after which grandpa woke up, ate a double dinner double fisted style, looked at my mother and said, “You’re so pretty—Do you do your own make up?!” Then he wanted a cigarette and refused to take his vitamins.

In Disney’s version of Mulan, the little Chinese dragon tries to talk her out of fighting the Mongolians. “They pop out of the snow like daisies!” he says, appalled. When I look at my grandparents, I kind of feel that way, i.e. like a Mongolian. If I subtract chain smoking and the complete absence of green and/or fiber of any kind from their diet, and then add in my running my brains loose to Eminem today and nearly every day, I have to wonder that if they’re 90 that might mean . . . (I’m banking on DmS to shoot me—don’t forget!)

All jokes aside, he’s slated to see my sister’s baby in the spring of this (banking on good) year. Bob Dylan – Not Dark Yet