Good Bad Good

Good: The dialysis center runs a fairly extensive blood panel on Gail every month, and her bloodwork continues to be very good. Her calcium and phosphorous and iron and all that stuff is in the normal range.

Bad: She is getting more and more tired all the time. Part of it is mental; it's hard to be waiting all the time month after month. But I think it is mostly physical; machines can't fully replace two functioning kidneys. I try to encourage her to come home early and take an occasional day off from work, but she worries about not having enough leave time at work to cover her surgery and recuperation.

Good: I don't know what our horoscopes would say, but we have been graced with the reappearance in our lives of a number of old friends. At a 70th birthday party for a friend, a whole group of us got together for the first time in years. Lots of changes have happened since we last had seen each other. Several of us were single again, two were in wheelchairs, Gail on dialysis, one with a son in prison, one with a newly minted law degree, several retired, and all of us glad to see each other again. And, to add sweetness onto sweetness, we have also made contact with some long lost dear friends from Aikido.

Somehow we lost contact with these beloved people because of some temporary friction or unpleasantness. But all that is lost in the past now, and doesn't even make an appearance. All that remains is very sweet, and it is very good.