Blogging from the library

Did I ever mention how much I love Wi-Fi?
I'm at the local public library where I fled this morning to thrash out a magazine piece that is a bit overdue.
I find it very difficult to work at home because Pete the pup requires semi-constant supervision and I can only focus on projects during the brief periods when he consents to nap in his kennel.
Maria kindly agreed to keep an eye on Pete while I adjourned to the library's reading room to sort out my notes and lash the final piece together. Now that I've done as much as I can here at the library, I'm taking a moment to catch up on my blogging.
Maria continues to improve after her surgery Monday, but is still on the heavy-duty painkillers. She recognizes there is a lot of very serious pain just waiting to grab her if she slacks off on the drugs too soon.
She got flowers this week from my son Sean and his wife Ruth, from a young woman whose case she championed in the paper last week and from her coworkers at the paper. Her spirits were also buoyed by a call from son Steve the other night who let us listen to our granddaughter Lisa count to 10 and beyond with remarkable clarity. Lisa, who will be 2 on Memorial Day weekend, started going to preschool shortly after Christmas. She sounds like she's doing splendidly and I'm feeling guilty for not paying a visit to her and her parents since the holidays.
Things are shaping up for a very large turnout Monday for the funeral of Sgt. Rickey Jones, a 101st Airborne trooper killed in Iraq. The loonies from Westboro Baptist Church have promised to bring their obnoxious sideshow to Kokomo for the occasion and they will be counterbalanced by at least 100 members of the Patriot Guard Riders, myself included. The posts to the PGR website - www.patriotguard.org - indicate there will be members there from throughout the Midwest, despite what promises to be really crappy late winter weather.
Maria's mother has agreed to come over and fill in for me as nurse and cook while I'm off doing my patriotic duty.