Happy Ocho de Mayo!

Greetings all. Busy week so late post. (Hence stacatto rhythm of current post (note: wouldn't "rhythm" be a great word to use when playing "Hangman"?)).

Finishing out the story of this weekend. I took Robbie to Haddonfield Saturday morning, which is a little town in New Jersey just across the river from Philly. I lived in and around Haddonfield for ten years and still love it. I took the boy to the "Happy Hippo", a wonderful small toy store that's been a Haddonfield fixture for at least 22 years of which I'm aware. He loved it. That afternoon, we successfully retrieved Liz from the Philly airport. Leaving the two of them to get reacquainted at the hotel, I walked about ten blocks to Mike's Steaks on South Street to get cheesesteaks. Not the best cheesesteak in Philly, but probably the most purchased.

Sunday, Liz went on her 10-mile run and Robbie and I toured the battleship New Jersey. It is moored as a floating museum across the river from Penn's Landing; Robbie had been admiring it all weekend long. So after walking to breakfast at a diner on South Street, he and I rode the ferry across the river and walked the half-mile or so to the ship. It was impressive and slightly depressing. Depressing, because back in 1985, I flew over the then-operational New Jersey as she steamed off the California coast. Now she's a museum. Sigh. Anyway, we went up in the gun turrets and through the Admiral's mess. It was great.

Afterwards, we met up with Liz back at the hotel, then went to Fairmont Park in Philly, where we had an all-too-brief reunion with my friend Louise, in town for her daughter's rowing races. Pinky promises to not wait another nine years to get together. Long drive back to Leonardtown with Liz sleeping as much as Robbie would let her, and me trying to stay awake behind the wheel.

On Monday, blood work, which came back all good. Had the nice, competent phlebotomist. Damiet Smit has left the Clinical Trials programs for new challenges. My computer is back on line. All in all, things are OK.